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Since late 2000 bibliotek.dk has been giving all Danes access to the Danish National Union Catalogue. The development of this new service is described. The new facilities are seen from both the libraries’ point of view and from the user’s perspective. bibliotek.dk is not only a database, but also a portal with access to a wide range of library Net services. The actual development plan for bibliotek.dk is described in detail. Several initiatives to enrich the access to information and to rationalise the libraries’ work with bibliotek.dk are presented. The service is also used as the basis for the development of new services to the user, including an “Available for sale” button which gives access to the vendors of a specific item.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate what democratic challenges the digitisation of the public libraries in Denmark has entailed. Using the concepts from a national library professional strategy from 2012, an analysis of 9 librarians’ experiences with digital dissemination in practice is conducted.

The paper is a part of a larger research project called “If digitisation is the answer, then what was the question?”. This sub study builds on the semi-structured interviews with library staff members, case-descriptions of two central providers of digital public library materials, as well as literature studies of missions, vision and strategies from different public library policy institutions. To frame the study, a literature review has been conducted.

The author detects the presence of several incompatible conditions in digital dissemination. These conditions are predominantly of an organisational nature, potentially containing major consequences for citizens’ free and equal access to information, knowledge and culture. Among other things, the Danish public libraries risk substantiating an already existing and problematic polarisation between technologically capable and incapacitated groups of people.

The digital transformation of society has only just begun. Therefore, it is important to examine the consequences of the transition to digital media types for central cultural institution such as the public libraries. The present study is an early and minor contribution to the illumination of a process requiring many more and large-scale studies.

This paper aims to explore the concept of political legitimacy in relation to change processes in the public library sector. The concept of legitimacy consists of stakeholders’ perceptions (such as those of politicians, users and staff) of the public library, including the value they ascribe to such perceptions. The theoretical approach to exploring this concept is institutional theory, which is concerned with the norms, perceptions and values in the library profession. The theoretical discussion in this paper arises from three different studies illuminating some of the pertinent change processes in relation to the political legitimacy of the public library. The case studies are the project culture in the library world, the consequences of technological changes reflected in the debate regarding filtering information and images of a sexual and racist nature, and the profound changes in users’ information‐seeking behaviour due to the indiviual citizen's free access to all materials in whichever library found. Taken together, these three cases illuminate change processes and highlight the appropriateness of the institutionalised norms in the profession in relation to the concept of legitimacy. The cases also illustrate how the individual library director or library system has to deal with various cross‐pressures when navigating in a multicultural society.

The purpose of this study is to offer a checklist that can be used for both creating and evaluating digital collections, which are also sometimes referred to as data sets as part of the collections as data movement, suitable for computational use.

The checklist was built by synthesising and analysing the results of relevant research literature, articles and studies and the issues and needs obtained in an observational study. The checklist was tested and applied both as a tool for assessing a selection of digital collections made available by galleries, libraries, archives and museums (GLAM) institutions as proof of concept and as a supporting tool for creating collections as data.

Over the past few years, there has been a growing interest in making available digital collections published by GLAM organisations for computational use. Based on previous work, the authors defined a methodology to build a checklist for the publication of Collections as data. The authors’ evaluation showed several examples of applications that can be useful to encourage other institutions to publish their digital collections for computational use.

While some work on making available digital collections suitable for computational use exists, giving particular attention to data quality, planning and experimentation, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, none of the work to date provides an easy-to-follow and robust checklist to publish collection data sets in GLAM institutions. This checklist intends to encourage small- and medium-sized institutions to adopt the collection as data principles in daily workflows following best practices and guidelines.

The study aims to report on a research project that analyzed social websites for booklovers. These sites represent a service that is promising for public libraries in their efforts to find new ways in promoting reading and literature. At the same time the growth of such sites is another example of how technological developments challenge librarianship. Many of these sites are established and run independently from the library field.

This paper reports from a research comparing two such websites – the Norwegian Bokelskere.no and the Hungarian Moly.hu. A questionnaire was published on the two websites in mid September 2010. It was accessible for approximately 20 days. A total of 777 users filled in and returned the questionnaire.

As the typical user of Moly/Bokelskere is a young, ethnic Hungarian or Norwegian, well educated, female from the bigger cities the complexity and pluralism of society is not reflected in the websites in the same way as it is in physical libraries. They are not heavy library users, and they have a relatively low trust concerning libraries in comparison with other sources of information. The sites are mainly used as information sources and not as places where one can meet with others. Although the social dimension of reading appears, it is related mainly to the family or friends and not to strangers.

It would be inaccurate to claim that the study gives a comprehensive overview on social sites for booklovers. The relatively high number of respondents from the two analyzed websites provides an extensive, but not comprehensive, sample. Self‐recruitment of respondents might cause biases compared with a randomly drawn sample.

The study on which the paper is based is a part of the PLACE project, which aims at exploring the role of public libraries as meeting places. The study generates knowledge on the potential and role of virtual meeting places that is relevant for public libraries in their efforts to adapt to a new reality.

The study generates knowledge that can be of importance for developing libraries and library policies in relation to digital meeting places.

There are few studies analyzing literary websites for booklovers and the study contributes in developing a new research field in library and information science.

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.

This article is a preliminary attempt to discuss and construct an experimental library user interface, connecting different libraries in such a way that each library can search other library catalogues using its own classification codes. The second focus of the article is to develop a viable method to locate specific subject clusters in a library catalogue. The classification codes need not be uniform, and the user interface allows for natural language searching. The technique used is the construction of a concordance table between different library catalogues' subject codes on the bibliographic level, enabling the system to determine relative links between different subject codes. The concordance is established on the basis of shared titles.

The purpose of this paper is to present findings from the European project PuLLS (Public Libraries in the Learning Society), funded by the EU's Socrates programme.

Describes a piece of action research, outlining the development and implementation of a model for delivering open learning to adult library users.

Details of the model, and the course developed and offered by partner libraries are described. Results suggest there is a significant role for libraries to play in supporting both ICT skills and wider information literacy learning.

Sharing of results may be useful for public libraries wishing to develop open learning facilities/develop audiences for lifelong learning. Suggests that libraries are beginning to move from a passive access approach to supporting learning to a more active approach in delivering library‐generated content themselves.

The paper offers insights into supporting lifelong learning in public libraries across Europe.

The purpose of this paper is to show a new route for inter‐library lending (ILL) standards.

The paper describes the Danish ILL solution, and on the basis of this, suggests a proposal for further work.

Focussing on simplicity gives better service.

The Danish ILL implementation has a high level of automation based on simple transactions.

Services to researchers are a key strategic focus point for academic libraries. In many cases these services are linked to performance management systems. However, this kind of system for measuring scholarly research has unintended side effects and may demotivate researchers on a number of levels. This presents somewhat of a catch-22 for research libraries. The purpose of this paper is to describe the Bibliometric Research Indicator (BRI) in Denmark, show why the researchers may feel demotivated, outline the dilemmas and the effects on libraries, and present a possible course of action.

At least 14 countries have implemented performance management systems for researchers. The impact has been the topic of several – primarily quantitative – studies, e.g., in Denmark. The analysis is made by means of a qualitative study (interviews with 43 Danish researchers), using motivation crowding as well as self-determination theory to further explore their motives and experiences, to determine whether these factors have any influence on their experience of the BRI.

The analysis confirms earlier studies which showed that researchers as a whole do not see the BRI as supportive and that this kind of system may have unintended side effects. Unintended side effects include pressure, limitation of freedom, a drop in the perceived standard of research, the slicing of articles, negative collegial behavior as well as borderline academic theft. In connection researchers do not see the incentives or rewards given by the system as supportive.

This BRI study is made within only one country and as these systems tend to vary not only from country to country but also with incomparability within faculties and institutes, further studies might expose different patterns. However, as the results fit a more general trend within the research area, the takeaways could potentially prove useful for research libraries in general. Furthermore it could be beneficial to research libraries in general to get a clearer understanding of the role they play, which in part could be done by surveying them on this subject.

The finding presents potential dilemmas for research libraries, as they might get caught in the crossfire between expectations or demands from the university management and the hope and dreams from individual scholars with the risk of unintentionally alienating a key target group. Thus, a possible course of action is outlined including focus points and target areas for libraries.

This paper presents original research with some key findings with a focus on the dilemmas for research libraries with regard to BRI-like systems, strategic management and performance measurement.