PUBLIC KNOWLEDGE IN THE INFORMATION SOCIETY
THE FUTURE FOR THE PUBLIC LIBRARY
ABSTRACT
This study engages in strategic and systematic thought concerning the future of the public library in an IT environment. The argument of the study is organised according to a conceptual contrast between a citizen model of library and information services and an entrepreneurial model. Whereas the citizen model is based upon the principle of free and comprehensive access to information, in the entrepreneurial model, information is less a public good than a tradeable and exploitable commodity. Conceiving library services as social equity, this study revalues the 'public' dimension of library services with respect to the impact of Information and Communication Technology upon the social and educational dimensions. In the process, the study conceives the public library as: a) a community information intermediary; b) a learning centre and enabler.
PUBLIC KNOWLEDGE IN THE INFORMATION SOCIETY
Contents
Part One
The Public Library in Society
Chapter 1 The Public Service Ideal
The nature of ‘the public’
The library tradition of social involvement
Inclusion and exclusion
The heterogeneous public
Chapter 2 The Shift from Community to Commercial Models
The citizen model and the entrepreneurial model
Political economy – the distinction between public and private sectors
The ethico-legal basis of public service
The principle of free and comprehensive service
The commercial pressures of the information revolution
Community information services
The fourth world – local public service.
PART TWO
THE PUBLIC LIBRARY IN THE INFORMATION AGE
Chapter 3 Knowledge Management
The capture and exploitation of information (the entrepreneurial model)
The social context of knowledge creation and use (the citizen model)
The intelligence enterprise
The multifaceted user community
Funding – the transition to a fee-based service
Chapter 4 Libraries and Information and Communications Technology
The electronic and the hybrid library
The digital environment
The expense of ICT
MODELS and MIA
Chapter 5 The ‘new’ Library in the Infrastructure of the Information Universe
The concept of the global information society
Knowledge mediation – the library as expert intermediary
Information policy (connectivity, content, competencies)
Organising digital content
The library as a series of services
PART THREE
A RECONSTITUTED CITIZEN MODEL FOR THE PUBLIC LIBRARY
Chapter 6 The Public Library as the Community Information Intermediary
The public purpose in the social domain
Community organisation and development
Community librarianship and local cooperation and partnership
Networking and the strategic use of resources
Social place over virtual space
Chapter 7 The Public Library as Learning Centre and Enabler
The public purpose in the educational domain
Education theory – from objectivism to constructivism
The differentiated process of learning
The central role of libraries in lifelong learning
The increasing intermediary role of public libraries.
INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this study is to revalue the public dimensions of library service in an ICT environment through the conceptual reconstruction of a citizen model of public service. In this model, the public library is conceived as a place of human interaction and reciprocity, an associational space that powers the civic and cultural life of the community. The question this study investigates is how the 'citizen' conception of library service can be integrated with the `customer' based approach of the new ICT environment so as to re-affirm the public service idea of free information (Powledge 1994).
The study critically evaluates the entrepreneurial arguments that public services ought to conform to commercial imperatives (Roberts 1991; Walsh 1995); be repositioned in the expanding markets of high technology, media and communications (Heery 1995; Eastell 1994); and must 'absolutely and permanently' reject social and educational dimensions in order to concentrate upon providing commercial, cost-effective services to users as `customers' (St Clair 1994). The point that the argument establishes is that the principle of free and equal access in the field of library services has never been more relevant than it is now in an ICT environment, given that the ability to access information technology and use computers has become a condition of social and educational attainment (Aslib 1995; Frankena and Frankena 1986). The study thus reaffirms the value of public management as against the new managerialism which is importing entrepreneurial conceptions from the private sector into the public sector (Haywood 1995; Usherwood and Vessey 1988). This is achieved by conceiving library services as social equity available to the community as opposed to being commercial resources to be traded and exploited for private gain.
Acknowledging that the library user population is increasingly heterogeneous (Samuel 1992; Brophy 2000), the problem examined in the study is to determine how public library services can be increasingly differentiated whilst remaining free, comprehensive and inclusive (Maher 2001). Addressing the point that, to preserve their role, public libraries need to think strategically and systematically (Cochrane 1999), the thesis examines the multiple functions of the public library service in order to identify a more precise definition which is relevant to a changed environment comprising more specialised demands (education? information? entertainment? culture? community? business?) (Kinnell and Sturges 1996; McKee 1989).
The study examines predictions of the 'virtual' library in relation to the growing synergy of networks and networked communications capable of satisfying needs independently of place (Castells 1998; de Kerckhove 1997; Whittaker 1993; Lancaster 1983) to reaffirm a sense of place with respect to the public library as a centre at the heart of the community. The argument develops the insight that the impact of the world wide web has served to enhance the role of the intermediary rather than to have removed it (Brophy 2000; Brophy 2002), to identify the sharper focus that public libraries require in an information age in the recognition that public libraries serve to conceptualise information usage with the expressed and/or identified needs and demands of their communities. The thesis thus defines the public library as the community information intermediary. The thesis goes on to examine the educational aspect of this intermediary role. As a key institution in the continuous upgrading of the initial acquisition of knowledge to meet the challenges of a changing IT society (Craven and Fisher 1998), the public library can give a lead in developing new, informal, learning mechanisms.
AIMS
This thesis revalues the public dimensions of public library service by recasting the themes of `community librarianship' in light of developments in information technology. The concern is to engage in strategic and systematic thinking in order to check the trend towards the 'end' of the public library as a result of a) the impact of ICT; b) the new managerialism.
The argument broadens the scope of the discussion beyond managerial and IT focused conceptions to emphasize the social, cultural and educational importance of the public library service to the well-being of the community. The thesis addresses the question as to whether an increasingly heterogeneous user population necessarily implies the need to provide increasingly differentiated library services which, in an IT environment, entails increased costs and fees and hence a move away from free, comprehensive and inclusive provision.
The view taken in this thesis is that, given the all-pervasive nature of information — and given the need to turn information into knowledge via learning — public libraries can recover their public purpose by repositioning themselves at the centre of the institutional, societal and personal landscape of the community. This is analysed in terms of the localising of the public dimension of traditional library services.
OBJECTIVES
This research study is structured according to a five-fold strategy concerned with securing the future of the public library in an ICT environment.
1) effort should concentrate upon areas where libraries add value by organising their resources for users;
2) libraries should provide guidance and navigation tools which enable individuals to put knowledge to effective use;
3) a 'transformational librarianship' should be developed based on the notion that the key resource is the individuals who adopt technology to facilitate improved knowledge creation and management;
4) attention should focus upon the public library as a community information intermediary mediating between the information universe (and access to it) and the local community;
5) attention should focus upon the public library as a learning centre and a learning enabler.
This approach emphasizes the 'knowledge mediation' role of public libraries to define the public library as part of the information chain, managing the explosion of information, turning information into knowledge, acting as a link connecting knowledge sources and users.
Knowledge mediation is identified as the process whereby libraries provide users with insight into the existing body of knowledge and assist users in acquiring resources referring to or containing such knowledge. The key purpose of the library is identified as that of making sense of knowledge and of making this knowledge available to users. The library is shown to achieve this by mapping and codifying information and by selecting those parts of the total information available which is likely to be of interest to users and which are or may be accessible.
The argument conceives the future public library as an expert information intermediary. The contemporary emphasis upon 'relationship development' is extended beyond its electronic conception (Rowley 2002) — e-mail, e-helpdesk and online communities — to orient libraries towards active engagement with local communities in order to generate place based social meaning. This thesis shows how, in the future, a substantial part of library and information services will be performed in the intermediary role between the user population and the information universe. Developing an advanced information and communications infrastructure so that ICT is available to all equally is shown to comprise the traditional features of the public library service — enhanced participation, social inclusion, personal well-being — as well as new features which fall within the traditional social and educational objectives of the public library — lifelong learning and the checking of the urban dualism structured around divisions between the information rich and the information poor.
The argument proceeds to highlight the powerful contribution that public libraries can make to the creation of active, sustainable communities (From Vision to Action 1995). Building upon the conception of the library as an expert information intermediary, the thesis emphasises the strong local profile of the public library in order to conceive its future function to be that of promoting and developing the connecting mechanisms between the information universe and the organisation of that information on the one hand and the community on the other.
The common ground between community development and the public library service is explored to promote participation in and shared responsibility for community resources, to establish centres for the training of community workers, for the dissemination of community information, to mediate between neighbourhood/community work and statutory agencies, and to develop formal and informal education as a constituent element in community development.
The thesis proceeds to examine the growing trend away from learning as a system towards learning as a process to argue that, in future, there will be an increasing emphasis upon personal learning programmes which are independent of the formal educational sphere. The thesis develops the argument that the public library provides the perfect location for local educational counselling and advisory services (building upon the strong identification of libraries with education (Tilke 1998)), foiming partnerships with other organisations in constituting a new educational infrastructure, mediating between ICT and the learner population.
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