摘要：This paper proposes a model for categorizing library services and resources by their importance to
users based on the service’s fundamentality to the other resources and services in the library’s
offerings, the degree to which the service affects users, and the scope of users that access the
service. Adapted from Abraham Maslow’s theory of motivation, we substitute individual human
motivations for a community’s motivations for using the library. Maslow’s five tiers—physiological
needs, safety needs, love and belongingness needs, esteem needs, and self-actualization—are
changed to library-specific tiers: Library as Minimum Viable Product, Library as Convenience,
Library as Connector, Library as Incubator, and Community as Library. The Hierarchy of Library
User Needs is a theoretical tool for service prioritization with the potential to facilitate discussions
between users and libraries. Libraries may wish to (re)evaluate the alignment between the
resources they devote to their services and the items that are most likely to be used and
appreciated by their users.
