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Drawing mainly on the ideas of Manuel Castells, this article discusses how globalization and informatization condition the development of public libraries. To explore this issue, recent public library strategies developed in Britain and Finland are analyzed. The analysis demonstrates how public libraries stand for structures that support and consolidate life forms in local communities that need to adjust to contextual changes. In this way, public libraries serve as mediating and filtering mechanisms in local-global interaction. To do this they may utilize the tools derived from the following four strategic options: institutional resource strategy; networking strategy; commercialization strategy; and civil society strategy. Whatever is the strategic choice or their mix at the national or local level, it seems essential that libraries utilize the potential of a hybrid library, which as a new library paradigm combines traditional local dimension with networked and ubiquitous library services.

Ari-Veikko Anttiroiko is a docent and acting professor in the Department of Regional Studies, University of Tampere, Finland. He has conducted and directed several research projects, including The Future of Electronic Services in Local Government and the Local Governance in the Information Society financed by the Academy of Finland. He has worked as an expert in several national and international e-government projects. His academic contributions include in a nutshell nearly 30 monographs, about 40 articles, and some 20 conference papers. He has memberships in several scientific organizations and editorial boards.

Mäkinen.

The article analyzes the development of the Finnish research in library and information science into its present position of high qualitative and quantitative level (in relation to the size of the research community). A number of aspects that may explain the success of the Finnish research are presented: 1) the early academic context, i.e., the establishment of the chair in LIS at the University of Tampere in 1971, 2) the new conception of LIS that emerged in Finland in the early 1980s shifting the attention from institutions into users and actions, 3) internationalization of research including publishing in peer reviewed journals, participating in international conferences, inviting foreign top-researchers into Finland, and organizing international conferences that have become institutionalized (CoLIS and ISIC), and 4) the selection of priority areas for the research effort combined with the concentration of research and doctoral education in research groups.