Search results

The purpose of this paper is to report on a new approach for researching public library programs through Facebook events. The term public library programs refers to publicly announced activities and events taking place within or in relation to a public library. In Denmark, programs are an important part of the practices of public libraries and have been growing in both number and variety within recent years.

The data for the study presented in this paper consists of Facebook events announcing public library programs. In the study of this data, grounded theory is used as a research strategy and methods of web archiving are used for collecting both the textual and the visual content of the Facebook events.

The combination of Facebook events as data, grounded theory as a research strategy and web archiving as methods for data collection proves to be useful for researching the format and content of public library programs, which have already taken place.

Only a limited number of Facebook events are examined and the context is restricted to one country.

This paper presents a promising approach for researching public library programs through social media content and provides new insights into both methods and data as well as the phenomenon investigated. Thereby, this paper contributes to a conception of an under-developed researched area as well as a new approach for studying it.

The purpose of this literature review is to provide an overview of and insights into a selected bibliography of 102 research publications on libraries – of all types – sustainability and sustainable development, including the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

The review procedure is inspired by the hermeneutic literature review method, referring to a circular process of searching, sorting, selecting, acquiring, reading, identifying and refining. The publications are mapped to provide an overview of the research field. Following the research mapping, all publications are categorized as either environmental, economic, social, cultural or holistic according to their usage and understanding of the core concepts of sustainability and sustainable development. Finally, the main rationales behind the core concepts are identified, and their possible implications on the role of libraries and librarians are discussed.

Of the 102 research publications, 45 are categorized as environmental, 9 as economic, 9 as social, 3 as cultural and 36 as holistic. The main rationales identified across these categories are optimization, legitimation, demonstration and transformation. The possible implications behind these rationales are that libraries and librarians should be resourceful, explicit about their motivations, serve as good examples and act as change agents. Increasingly, libraries and librarians are expected to act proactively in relation to the global sustainability agenda.

This literature review provides a unique overview of and insights into an emerging research field, which are needed for future research and discussion about the potentiality of libraries and librarians in solving global sustainability challenges.

As a research topic within the field of LIS, programs in public libraries are underexplored, and the question of user fees for programs has not previously been addressed.

This article compares data collected from two individually conducted studies of public library programs in North America and Denmark to enrich our understanding of user fees in relation to programs.

The comparative analysis shows both similarities and deviations regarding the levying of fees for library programs. While paying a fee to attend a program is rather normal in Denmark, it is more of a fringe idea in North America.

By exploring a previously understudied facet of contemporary public librarianship, this article opens up new avenues for inquiry regarding how the relative accessibility and availability of programs relate to theoretical discussions about programs as public library services.

This article provides library managers with needed information about how to conceptualize the roles of programs as public library services.

As programming surges to the fore in contemporary public librarianship, the levying of user fees has social implications in terms of social equity and the public library ethos of free and equal access for all.

This article is the first study of user fees for public library programs, as well as among the first cross-national comparisons of programming as a dimension of public librarianship.