By Jerome Rothenberg. Contributions by Steven Clay, Rodney Phillips.

Public Libraries (PLs) continue to contribute a great deal to user education in local communities. This paper analyzes the importance of PLs in driving community literacy through promotion of user education for the progressive improvement of the society. The paper stresses the relevance and value of PLs by reassessing the benefits they accrue by analyzing the impact of PLs on community and social education. As indigenous knowledge repositories, PLs play a significant role as community information service providers by driving (...) community literacy. The goal of this paper is to analyze the role played by PLs in driving community education and promoting information literacy in the society. PLs, being storehouses of knowledge, support user education by undertaking active part in community information services. The model helps in explaining and analyzing the efficiency of information search and retrieval process in PLs and how it affects user education and community literacy. The paper also discusses the relevance and value of PLs in this age of digital technology. The findings reinforce the claim that PLs are relevant even in this digital age, and they indeed support user education for the progressive improvement of the society. (shrink)

Objective: Governments consistently aim to enhance services and establish online connections to efficiently deliver necessary information. This study aims to evaluate the future potential of digital libraries in public libraries in Pakistan by examining various projects that have introduced innovative approaches to foster the development of digital library services. Methodology: The analysis utilized the Amos 24 version, employing the Structural Equation Model (SEM) for assessing model fit indices and validating hypotheses. Additionally, Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version (...) 24 was employed for Pearson correlation and factor analysis. Findings: The results suggest the appropriateness of discussing three out of the seven elements/factors used to assess competence improvement. The study reveals that public library managers can offer both physical and online workshops to community members, addressing emotional management for customers, including children and adults, during post-crisis information retrieval. Practical Implications: The study on public library user literacy skills, user behavior, and digital resources and services integrates the exploration and development of online databases to address challenges faced by public library management and users amidst the information explosion in academic and research activities. This contributes to enhancing the satisfaction levels of public library users. Originality/Value: Librarians are encouraged to conduct online workshops to address challenges faced by research students in information-seeking scenarios, focusing on improving reading and literacy skills, understanding user behavior, and optimizing digital resources and services through a study of online databases. (shrink)

Barbarians at the Gates of the Public Library is a philosophical and historical analysis of how the rise of consumerism has led to the decline of the original mission of public libraries to sustain and promote democracy through civic education. Through a reading of historical figures such as Plato, Helvetius, Rousseau, and John Stuart Mill, the book shows how democracy and even capitalism were originally believed to depend upon the moral and political education that public libraries (...) (and other institutions of rational public discourse) could provide. But as capitalism developed in the 20th century it evolved into a postmodern consumerism that replaced democracy with consumerism and education with entertainment. Public libraries have mistakenly tried to remain relevant by shadowing the rise of consumerism, but have instead contributed to the rise of a new barbarism and the decline of democracy. (shrink)

The main roles of libraries are developing and providing access to collections of cultural heritage. While the specific policies necessary to accomplish these roles may vary across different types of libraries, these institutions have at their core a dual role in preserving and supporting access to documents illustrating an era of knowledge and culture. Libraries are thus significant institutions in the process of learning, but also in that of remembering and forgetting at a social level. This article provides an overview (...) of the structure and organization of the public library system in the last two decades of the Communist regime in Romania. As part of a larger information history project, the research discusses the characteristics of this system created to support mass education and the ways in which public libraries also became institutions of memory in Communist Romania. The description of the library system structure is enriched by an overview of the professional training available for librarians and descriptions of the main library services related to access to collections and memories. The analysis of archival materials and oral history interviews with librarians document how these services were implemented and delve into the challenges encountered. Partial access to knowledge and information was a core part of the offered library services. As a consequence, services that were part of the Communist library system could be a source of long-term memory impairment at the social level. (shrink)

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to describe and explore the current state of internet regulation through content filters in Swedish public libraries. Design/methodology/approach Data was collected through an electronic survey directed to library managers of Sweden’s 290 main municipal libraries. 164 answers were returned, yielding a 57% response rate. The analysis comprises descriptive statistics for quantitative data and an activity theory approach with focus on contradictions for qualitative counterparts. Findings In total, 33% of the responding libraries (...) report having content filters; 50% have not; and a surprising 18% do not know. There is a strong correlation between internet misuse and positive attitudes towards filters, and, reversely, between lack of misuse and lack of active stances concerning filters. Rather than seeing this as weakness, the authors suggest that there is strength in a context-bound flexibility open to practical experience and weighting of values, ethics, legislation and local circumstances. More troublesome indications concern the high deferral of decision-making to local authorities (municipalities) whereby libraries are left with limited insight and influence. Research limitations/implications The situation calls for professional organisations to address political mandate questions, and educational programs to strengthen future information professionals’ knowledge of IT in general; filter issues in specific; and local authority decision-making. The study highlights the need of adequate information professional competences and mandates to decide on and oversee internet regulation. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first internationally published study on content filters in Swedish public libraries. (shrink)

Purpose– This paper aims to consider selected results from the Arts and Humanities Research Council -funded “Managing Access to the internet in Public Libraries” project, from 2012-2014. MAIPLE has explored the ways in which public library services manage use of the internet connections that they provide for the public. This included the how public library services balance their legal obligations and the needs of their communities in a public space and the ethical dilemmas (...) that arise.Design/methodology/approach– The researchers used a mixed-method approach involving a review of the literature, legal analysis, a questionnaire survey and case studies in five public library authorities.Findings– UK public library services use a range of methods to regulate internet access. The research also confirms previous findings that filtering software is an ubiquitous tool for controlling access to and protecting library users from “inappropriate”, illegal and harmful internet content. There is a general, if sometimes reluctant, acceptance of filtering software as a practical tool by library staff, which seems to contrast with professional codes of ethics and attitudes in other countries. The research indicates that public library internet access will be a valued service for some time to come, but that some aspects of how public library services regulate internet access is currently managed can have socially undesirable consequences, including blocking legitimate sites and preventing users from accessing government services. Education could play a greater part in helping the general population to exercise judgement in selection of materials to view and use. This does not preclude implementing stricter controls to protect children, whilst allowing public libraries to continue providing a social good to those who are unable to otherwise participate in the digital age.Research limitations/implications– The response to the survey was 39 per cent meaning that findings may not apply across the whole of the UK. The findings of this study are compared with and supplemented by other quantitative sources, but a strength of this study is the depth of understanding afforded by the use of case studies.Originality/value– This paper provides both a quantitative and qualitative analysis of how internet access is managed in UK public libraries, including how library services fulfil their legal obligations and the ethical implications of how they balance their role in facilitating access to information with their perceived role as a safe and trusted environment for all members of their communities. The findings add to the international discussion on this issue and stimulate debate and policy making in the UK. (shrink)

As a result of the global economic turndown, many local and national governments are disinvesting in public libraries. This paper proposes that governments have an obligation to create and fund public libraries, because access to them is a human right. Starting with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and appealing to recent work in Human Rights Theory, I argue that there is a right to information, which states are obligated to fulfill. Given that libraries are highly effective institutions (...) for ensuring that this right is fulfilled, there is a derived human right to a public library. (shrink)

After two decades in the 21st Century, and despite all the advances in the area, some very important names from past centuries still do not have the recognition they deserve in the global history of library and information science and, specifically, of knowledge organization. Although acknowledged in British librarianship, the name of James Duff Brown still does not have a proper recognition on a global scale. His contributions to a free and more democratic library had a prominent place (...) in the works and projects he developed during his time at the libraries of Clerkenwell and Islington in London. Free access to the library shelves, an architecture centered on books and people, and classifications that are more dynamic were dreams fulfilled by Brown. With this biographical article, we hope to live up to his legacy and pay homage to a true librarian and an advocate of the public library and subject classification. (shrink)

PurposeThe demand for learning is constantly increasing in transcultural knowledge societies. This paper aims to consider the impact of learning concepts, as developed by Danish libraries, and the way they relate to mutual recognition and social inclusion of ethnic minority groups.Design/methodology/approachConducting research on open social spaces as libraries and learning labs in libraries implies a multiple research design along with a differentiated analytical framework.FindingsLibraries in multicultural districts will be able to contribute to the fulfilment of integration purposes more effectively if (...) they cease to be bound to the concept of information. In transformative and cross‐cultural learning contexts, the concept of knowledge should be employed.Practical implicationsStudying activities in libraries still need to be delimited from learning in schools. Enhancing multicultural learning with focus on learning styles, which permits a mutual reflection of significant symbol systems, will be desirable.Originality/valueThe paper shows, in the context of this study, knowledge emerged from the interaction of social and cultural capital. (shrink)

This article provides an overview of computer based catalogue systems designed for use by library clients, seeing present day ‘discovery systems’ on the same trajectory as the older ‘online public access catalogues’ which they are gradually replacing, both in technical development and their approach to client use scenarios. It traces the history of the OPAC/discovery system from its origins in the library automation of the 1960s through to the present and discusses the main technical standards which have (...) formed its development. The article goes on to consider questions relating to the usability of electronic library catalogues and highlights semiotic and ethical issues inherent to their design. It concludes with reflections on the future of the OPAC/discovery system in an information universe apparently dominated by the internet search engine. (shrink)

Georgia State University College of Law, through the Center for Law, Health & Society, developed a pair of online libraries for faculty teaching public health law in schools of law or public health. Development of these libraries was funded by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation as part of The Future of Public Health Law Education: Faculty Fellowship Program. This article describes the goals of the program addressed by the libraries, the development process, the resources (...) included, and how faculty may benefit from the materials and provide materials benefitting other faculty across the country. (shrink)

Libraries occupy a special space in our society, and our minds. Today, public libraries are struggling hard to attract new users and increase footfalls that seem to be in the downtrend. Besides, Physical Libraries need innovations in their services frontier to survive stiff competition from virtual digital libraries that provide instant access to information at no cost. Librarians and library professionals as knowledge managers could help design and foster entrepreneurship models of service delivery aimed towards bringing novelty in (...) their operations. This is for the reason that libraries must take up the challenges to survive and compete with digital libraries which would maximize user satisfaction, attract new patrons and increase their user base. To make libraries economically independent and socially competent knowledge organizations, libraries need to innovate and adopt entrepreneurship-intrapreneurship business models which would attract investments from the private sectors. To transform libraries into productive, innovative knowledge organizations, librarians must take the initiative to think out of the box. This paper addresses these issues and analyses the intrapreneurship attitude to library operations. It argues that librarians should adopt a model of knowledge entrepreneurship where librarians, besides being knowledge managers, would also act as intrapreneurs within their organization. (shrink)

Libraries occupy a special space in our society, and our minds. Today, public libraries are struggling hard to attract new users and increase footfalls that seem to be in the downtrend. Besides, Physical Libraries need innovations in their services frontier to survive stiff competition from virtual digital libraries that provide instant access to information at no cost. Librarians and library professionals as knowledge managers could help design and foster entrepreneurship models of service delivery aimed towards bringing novelty in (...) their operations. This is for the reason that libraries must take up the challenges to survive and compete with digital libraries which would maximize user satisfaction, attract new patrons and increase their user base. To make libraries economically independent and socially competent knowledge organizations, libraries need to innovate and adopt entrepreneurship-intrapreneurship business models which would attract investments from the private sectors. To transform libraries into productive, innovative knowledge organizations, librarians must take the initiative to think out of the box. This paper addresses these issues and analyses the intrapreneurship attitude to library operations. It argues that librarians should adopt a model of knowledge entrepreneurship where librarians, besides being knowledge managers, would also act as intrapreneurs within their organization. (shrink)

Für alle auf dem Buchmarkt Tätigen! Mit kurzen internationalen Einführungen in Institutionen der Informationsversorgung von Public Libraries bis zum Library Law und Intellectual Property. Fachausdrücke werden im Kontext dargestellt und eingeübt. Fragen und ein alphabetisches Vokabelverzeichnis runden jedes Kapitel ab.

While the Philosophy for Children method has been adopted within classrooms by individual teachers and into some school systems by schoolboards, public and school libraries, the ideal users of this sort of programming, have been slow to recognise the benefits of this didactic methodology. This is particularly surprising given that the P4C method integrates perfectly with traditional story-time orientated programming. Not only is the integration of P4C into story-time sessions virtually seamless, but it might also help reinvigorate a well-established (...) feature of library programming with an aim to develop 21st-century information literacy competencies. This paper examines the case for the P4C method, explains the process of integration of the P4C method with traditional story-time, and highlights the potential benefits of incorporating Philosophy for Children in public and school library programming. (shrink)

Purpose Misinformation surrounding the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has contributed to the formation of misbeliefs among the public. The purpose of this paper is to investigate public sentiment and misbeliefs about the SDGs on the YouTube platform. Design/methodology/approach The authors extracted 8,016 comments from YouTube videos associated with SDGs. The authors used a pre-trained Python library NRC lexicon for sentiment and emotion analysis, and to extract latent topics, the authors used BERTopic for topic modeling. Findings The authors (...) found eight emotions, with negativity outweighing positivity, in the comment section. In addition, the authors identified the top 20 topics discussing various SDGs and SDG-related misbeliefs. Practical implications The authors reported topics related to public misbeliefs about SDGs and associated keywords. These keywords can be used to formulate social media content moderation strategies to screen out content that creates these misbeliefs. The result of hierarchical clustering can be used to devise and optimize response strategies by governments and policymakers to counter public misbeliefs. Originality/value This study represents an initial endeavor to gain a deeper understanding of the public’s misbeliefs regarding SDGs. The authors identified novel misbeliefs about SDGs that previous literature has not studied. Furthermore, the authors introduce an algorithm BERTopic for topic modeling that leverages transformer architecture for context-aware topic modeling. (shrink)

The modern library derives from a vision of public service developed in the 19th century. At various times in the past a commercial service, an educational resource, a religious domain and a political institution, the library today exists in various forms, including all these but in addition the professional libraries held by law firms and scientific or technological associations, multimedia lending libraries and certain areas of the world-wide web.

Public and research libraries have long provided resources in electronic formats, and the tension between providing electronic resources and patron privacy is widely recognized. But assessing trade-offs between privacy and access to electronic resources remains difficult. One reason is a conceptual problem regarding intellectual freedom. Traditionally, the LIS literature has plausibly understood privacy as a facet of intellectual freedom. However, while certain types of electronic resource use may diminish patron privacy, thereby diminishing intellectual freedom, the opportunities created by such (...) resources also appear liberty-enhancing. Adjudicating between privacy loss and enhanced opportunities on intellectual freedom grounds must therefore provide an account of intellectual freedom capable of addressing both privacy and opportunity. I will argue that intellectual freedom is a form of positive freedom, where a person’s freedom is a function of the quality of her agency. Using this view as the lodestar, I articulate several principles for assessing adoption of electronic resources and privacy protections. (shrink)

This article considers the case for a theory of the queer object that focuses on its pliability – an object which operates queerly to amplify and elaborate the context in which it appears. It looks at the case of the altered book covers that Kenneth Halliwell and Joe Orton circulated through the Islington Public Library, activities for which the men were convicted and incarcerated. It considers their activities as versions of “trolling” and of otaku database fixation. It argues (...) that rather than simply disrupt the circulation of library books the men introduced queer objects to the library that facilitated and fostered new and more engaged understandings of the library’s collection of book objects. It reads the covers for the ways in which they connect otherwise disparate and neglected instances of texts with a virtual database of images and concepts that foster new readings of them and advance a new meaning for queer engagement with archives, libraries, and databases. (shrink)

_International Library of the Philosophy of Education _reprints twenty-four distinguished texts published in this field over the last half-century and includes works by authors such as Reginald D. Archambault, Charles Bailey, Robin Barrow, Norman J. Bull, D. E. Cooper, R. F. Dearden, Kieran Egan, D. W. Hamlyn, Paul H. Hirst, Glenn Langford, D. J. O'Connor, T. W. Moore, D. A. Nyberg, R. W. K. Paterson, R. S. Peters, Kenneth A Strike, I. A. Snook, John and Patricia White, and John (...) Wilson. Themes discussed include: Liberal education, moral education, the aims of education, the education of teachers, adult & continuing education and the philosophical analysis of education. _Available now at a special introductory price. This price is applicable until 3 months after publication. For more information, please contact us._. (shrink)