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Public librarians throughout North America now support physical activity. One sees this function in the emergence and diffusion of new programs and services, such as librarians checking out exercise equipment, as well as in librarians actually sponsoring exercise classes. This chapter focuses on understanding this type of work. The first part looks at five different frameworks – the library as place, community-led librarianship, whole person librarianship, community health, and recreation and leisure – that each in different ways enable one to understand how supporting physical activity could become part of the work of public librarians. Focus then shifts to understanding empirically how public librarians in the US and Canada enact and understand this work. Research shows that this role has become more integral and expected in youth services than in adult services. Library staff themselves are more likely to lead movement-based programs for youth than for adults. The discussion then shifts to the implications of this trend in terms of evidence-based practice and multidisciplinary discussions on how and why to increase physical activity throughout society. The conclusion suggests additional work needed to understand this and other poorly understood functions of public librarians.

Changes in the US healthcare system in the past 20 years have meant increasing pressure on consumers to find their own healthcare information. Their search, amid an ever‐widening array of information resources, has profound implications for library reference services. A recent study of 350 public librarians in Michigan is, to date, the only investigation of librarian practices in health information provision in a large region of the USA. Examines services, queries, problems, librarian training and health collection resources. The findings have special meaning for academic librarians as they delineate their unique role in the health information system and, with public librarians, seek to devise effective means for responsive library service in today’s competitive health information resources environment.

As public libraries in Europe change to meet the challenges of the Millennium, so must the professional staff who operate them. The implications of the changes in current public library functions and services for future professional roles and identities are examined, based on a review of a selection of recent professional literature. Appropriate skills for the public librarian of the future are discussed. Skills required span such broad areas as management, communication, handling interpersonal relations in the workplace, information technology, networking and interpreting and synthesizing information, e.g. customizing information products. Subject expertise for specialized information provision and advanced reference services may be called for as well. Emerging professional roles for public librarians are considered , including such job labels as the net navigator, the educator, the information consultant, the gatekeeper, the electronic intermediary, the community network administrator and the social information worker. Finally, attention is given to the need for initiatives and catalytic efforts in the European arena for the purpose of upgrading continuing professional education for public librarians and facilitating knowledge exchange and sharing of experience.

The history of the public library is long and rich, and continues to reflect this institution's initial mission: to respond to the needs of an evolving democratic society. From its early days as a subscription service for the middle-class, through its evolution to become an educational site for the lower-classes and new immigrants, the public library has served as a touch-stone for urban industrial society in North America (Lerner, 1998, p. 138; Shera, 1974). Over the past century, public libraries have evolved to respond to the growing needs of the communities they serve and continue to do so with recent advances in technologies (such as DVDs, electronic books, the Internet, etc.), and with a more global outlook on the ways that people seek and share information. Indeed, the public library's constituents today are exceedingly diverse, including children and adults from a broad range of socio-economic, cultural, and educational backgrounds, all of whom seek information for a variety of personal and work-related purposes. The fact that public libraries have been fulfilling patrons' information needs for well over a century is a testament to their enduring success and versatility as information providers, and also points to the overall effectiveness of public librarians as intermediaries in the provision process.

This study aims to investigate the sustainable development goals (SDGs) awareness of public librarians, their perceived understanding of public libraries to achieve United Nation Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDGs) and identify the challenges affect the library adoption to SDGs.

In this study, a quantitative survey method was used to collect responses. The study population was all head of public libraries in Bangladesh. Seventy-one personalized individual e-mails with a link to a Web-based questionnaire were sent out to the public librarians (head of public libraries) inviting them to participate in this study. Fifty-nine responded to the survey, which was 83.09% of all population.

The findings revealed that public librarians working in different public libraries were generally aware of UNSDGs. The perceived understanding on the role of public libraries to achieve SDGs varies from SDG#1 to SDG1#7. However, most of the librarians’ responses ranked well in line with SDGs#1, #2, #3, #4 and #17, and they believed that their public libraries are doing well on some of these goals. Out of 17 SDGs, public libraries are working well on 7 goals. Lack of SDG-related activities, awareness, funds, implementation plan and unwillingness of the policymakers are challenges identified in this study.

There are not many studies on public libraries in Bangladesh, and the research areas are not diverse. There are only few studies in this area, and there is a need for different kinds of studies to reach a better overview and understanding when developing public library services to support SDGs. This could serve as the basis for a deeper study.

This article intends to explore how organizational learning affects innovation in public library services, and the role of public librarians in innovation in library services.

This study collected 375 valid questionnaires from 19 public libraries in Shanghai and Zhejiang based on organizational learning, organizational innovation and employee psychological empowerment theory. Additionally, SPSS and HLM are used to analyze the relationship among the three processes of organizational learning: knowledge acquisition, knowledge sharing and knowledge application, and public library service innovation.

Results show that organizational learning has a significant positive effect on the service innovation of public libraries. Knowledge acquisition and knowledge application in the process of organizational learning have a significant positive influence on the service innovation of public libraries, but the impact of knowledge sharing on service innovation is weak. Employee psychological empowerment has a negative regulating influence on knowledge sharing–public library service innovation, but no significant influence on knowledge application–public library service innovation and knowledge acquisition–public library service innovation.

This research explores the effectiveness of the theory of organizational learning in the field of public libraries and also confirms the role of librarians in the work of public libraries. Together, they promote the innovation of public libraries.

This paper aims to describe how public librarians can better address complex information needs. First, librarians should classify the degree of complexity of the need by using Warner’s classification model; then they can use Popper’s three world theory to anticipate and respond to complex information needs by following specific steps.

After examining the information science literature, appropriate models were selected to support public librarians. Our information science scholarship, coupled with our practical experience, informed our search and selection.

This paper details specific steps that public librarians can take to anticipate and respond to individual information needs. Doing so is imperative as the information needs of the public continue to become increasingly complex.

This paper improves information practice because it offers specific steps to aid public librarians to anticipate and respond to complex information needs. It draws upon an existing model and theoretical framework. This paper also highlights selected examples of how public librarians across the USA have anticipated information needs, and developed partnerships with organizations external to the public library to address complex information needs.

Dramatic changes in the role and position of public libraries require a fundamental reconsideration of professional development programs for library professionals. This paper seeks to address this issue.

This Dutch case study describes an innovative academic professional learning programme and its development through a process of intensive stakeholder consultation and co‐creation.

Market analysis and stakeholder consultation revealed that traditional professional development programs are not sufficient, and that an innovative learning approach is needed to accommodate professionals in the current disruptive context. Through intensive co‐creation between academics and library stakeholders, a learning approach was developed that combines workplace learning, networked learning and distance learning with intensive inspirational face‐to‐face sessions, merging formal and informal learning. A first batch of professionals has just started the programme that centres around four main themes that deal with the current challenges for public libraries: changes in society, culture, organisation and technology. Each theme is integrated into the main learning stream of collectively developing new librarianship.

The Library School learning approach is expected to be suitable for many sectors that deal with continuous professional development.

Society in the twenty‐first century requires innovative approaches to continuous professional development. Close collaboration between universities and professional stakeholders can lead to sector‐wide commitment and thus create added value for all parties involved and for society as a whole.

A co‐creative development process has led to an innovative learning approach for continuous professional development. This paper is of value to professional development departments, learning providers and human resource managers.

The purpose of this paper is to endorse the notion that information is the currency of democracy and explore the question of the public library’s role in promoting democracy through the provision of access to information.

A review of the literature and a case study are used.

From the early days of the public library, there has been a certain democratic paternalism in librarians’ views on public libraries, and ambivalence about the extent to which these libraries have provided information to the whole population. Despite this finding, the paper explores the public library’s role in providing information; the currency of information. Public libraries can contribute to the renewal of a democratic public sphere by providing free and ready access to knowledge and information, as well as safe and trusted social spaces for the exchange of ideas, creativity, and decision making.

The paper examines material from the dawn of the public library to current concerns about the role of these libraries in providing access to information, in revitalising citizenship and fostering democracy. It draws on the well-known example of the birth of democracy in South Africa and on discussions of public library neutrality and activism in contemporary France, describing limits on the achievements of libraries in these countries in the context of some current, promising examples from the USA, Britain, Denmark, and Australia.

Purpose – This chapter explains how the library profession is well-suited to developing and delivering library services that target the growing opportunity gap in the United States and identifies barriers to advancing this professional objective more widely in public libraries. The chapter identifies leadership and organizational development, enhanced graduate training and continuing education, and the need to overcome excessive modesty and passivity as fundamental to advancing this role.

Approach – This chapter documents declining opportunity in the United States. It summarizes the history of librarians’ professional accomplishments and services, and recent public library projects that illustrate the aptitude, expertise, values, and culture necessary to address declining opportunity. Reviewing pertinent literature and the authors’ observations, this chapter identifies barriers librarians face in rising to this challenge and offers solutions.

Findings – Factors limiting public librarians’ ability to address declining opportunity include too few leaders with a vision for librarianship rising to pivotal challenges, such as declining opportunity, and the management skills or training necessary to develop librarians’ potential to target such objectives; professional modesty and passivity rooted in gender bias; absence of graduate training and continuing education in quantitative and qualitative analyses as applied to decision-making, basic evaluation, and advocacy; and inadequate understanding of research and its application to services that target declining opportunity.

Originality/Value – The chapter elucidates the underdeveloped capacity of professional librarians to apply their aptitude, expertise, and professional values to one of the greatest challenges of our era – the decline of opportunity in the United States – and outlines steps that will support that goal.