Public Libraries in the Smart City by Dale Leorke & Danielle Wyatt

Author:Dale Leorke & Danielle Wyatt
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9789811328053
Publisher: Springer Singapore

Process is emphasised over place in these understandings, just as ways of relating, and the activity this generates—‘more hubbub than hub’—is emphasised over the provision of specific resources, products, or services. In McDougal’s terms, the community library in the ‘modern age’ becomes important, not only as a local place of knowledge, but as a centre within an expanded network in which local actions can have global reach.

No longer managing access to a scarce fixed resource, libraries in the smart city see themselves in this light: coordinating, generating, and distributing a knowledge currency at the centre of economic and social development, supporting the various ways knowledge gets translated into new, productive forms and newly productive users. Two examples illustrate how libraries see themselves enacting these ideas. They come from library managers we spoke to in two very different contexts—a local regional library and Australia’s most visited public library in Melbourne, respectively.

Warren Cheetham , Co-ordinator, Planning and Business Librarian at Aitkenvale Library in Townsville (located in Queensland, north-eastern Australia), describes how the library is rethinking its service.So it’s just a step more than, you know, question and answer […] “You’ve got this question, that’s a great question. What can we do together to solve that question?” The answer to that question might be that the library helps that person do a design thinking exercise to fully develop their idea or the answer. It might be a rapid prototyping exercise, it might be a connection to that start-up community in Townsville. It might be sitting them down in front of a terminal and saying, “Well, we can set up a kick starter account and a campaign. We can help you design a kick-starter campaign.” Not because we’re about business development - that’s a subsidiary - but we’re about developing ideas and […] capacity. (interview transcript, 2015)

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.