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To argue that the future of the US public library depends on a commitment to the library as a place within the public sphere for the intellectual development of a community primarily through books and reading, where service to the public is framed by professional librarians.

The paper uses supportive literature from within and outside librarianship to provide an alternative perspective to Michael Sullivan's Public Libraries' article of 2003, which argues that the future of the public library is fragile because of its inflexibility before the pressures of the internet, failing public commitment, and a potential shortage of librarians.

Public libraries continue to be identified as places for reading and books. Despite the public's embrace of the internet for ready reference, there are still questions best answered through print reference materials and professional assistance. Through active collection development, libraries remain places of heterogeneity and serendipitous discovery. The fragility of the public library is attributable to the incursion of a market‐capitalist model of service into an institution of the public sphere. Deprofessionalization threatens to lose a corps of professionals committed to values of civil liberties and community.

This paper suggests that the future of the public library depends on its commitment to being a place for books and reading, as an alternative to a model of service based on the Internet, the bookstore, and a paraprofessional staff. The paper should be of use to those who provide, design, manage, and teach models of service in the public library.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the shaping of public libraries as an infrastructure for a sustainable public sphere through a comprehensive literature review.

In order to capture the whole picture of this research field, we utilize comprehensive review methodology. The major research questions are: first, to what extent have research topics regarding libraries as public sphere institutions expanded and diversified? Which theoretical perspectives inform research? Second, which challenges and topics does the research focus upon, such as: social inclusion and equal access to information; digital inequalities; censorship and freedom of expression; and access to places and spaces with a democratic potential and the role of libraries in that respect? Third, what influence has social media exerted on libraries in the context of the expanding digital world?

The authors identified mainly four themes regarding the public library and public sphere, such as: the importance of public libraries by using Habermas’s theory; the function of meeting places within the public library and setting those places in the center of the library in order to enhance and encourage democracy; the relationship between social inclusion and public libraries and its functions in current society such as diminishing the digital divide; and the emerging electronic resources and arena of SNS in public libraries and utilizing them to reach citizens.

Capturing the recent history of this research field through comprehensive review is valuable.