The Role and Value of Public Libraries in the Age of Digital Technologies.

Aabo, Svanhild. “The Role and Value of Public Libraries in the Age of Digital Technologies.” Journal of Librarianship and Information Science 37, (Dec 2005): 205-211.

Although the title made this article sound promising, the author’s focus is mostly on the role of public libraries as meeting places in the digital age. She includes discussion of the Internet, but more in terms of how the Internet has affected library use. That is, she examines, the effect of the Internet on the demand for public library services.

The only part of this article that relates to my report is a section on social inclusiveness and citizenship. In this section, she discusses the importance of the “ability to access, adapt and create new knowledge using information and communication technology,” especially as it relates to social inclusion (208).

However, the author is more concerned with the role of the public library as a “cross-cultural, low-intensive meeting place” (209),as a place to increase community involvement, rather than as a point of access to the Internet.

She writes that her article focuses “on a widening of the digital gap and a weakening of social participation and involvement,” but, in fact, she writes very little about the digital gap and more about the weakening of social participation and the role she sees for public libraries in terms of strengthening community bonds.