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Download/File/Politik Europa/Europinformationsgesellschaft.Pdf 311 PUBLIC LIBRARIES Marian Koren 1. INTRODUCTION The chapter outlines the developments of public libraries in Europe. Some historic aspects and current issues are addressed. The purpose of this chapter is to give an overview of public library services as developed in European countries and to pre- sent joint efforts at the European level. In addressing this topic, the chapter treats the following sub-questions: 1. What are the basic concepts underlying public libraries in Europe? 2. What role do public libraries play in national and European development? 3. How are public libraries cooperating at the European level? 4. What currents trends and future challenges are public libraries in Europe facing? 5. In addition to these introductory remarks, this paper has five other sections exploring these questions. 2. EXPLORING THE EUROPEAN PUBLIC LIBRARY LANDSCAPE A European history of public libraries has not yet been written. Even a recent thorough overview is missing. (Danset 2003; Pors 2002; Poulain 1992) This is quite understandable as public libraries in Europe are closely related to public governance of each nation state with its own history and culture, and follow the enormous variety and intricate structures of administration and initiatives of citi- zens. In the meantime, public libraries started about 100-200 years ago, as centers for reading and information for middle class members and for the working class. Libraries were the places that especially the poor and the poorly educated could come to. Public libraries focused on what we now term as lifelong learning, and provided a variety of ways in which people could improve the quality of their lives. As ‘street corner universities’ they gradually became the place for everyone and included all members of the society, from the new born babies to the new- comers from other countries, within or outside Europe. What strikes every travel- ing observer is the enormous diversity in the spread and shape of public libraries throughout Europe. They can be a tiny local library on the outskirts of Ireland with an exhibition on education in the Irish language, or a glass palace in Malmö, Swe- den. They can have the atmosphere of professional fairy tale telling in Portugal or intensive youth and Europe information corners in Slovenia. But all these public 312 Marian Koren libraries have much in common; they form a unity in diversity – as is the character of Europe. In the present state of the art of public libraries in Europe, some fundamental characteristics unite them: basic trust, credibility, democracy, information, educa- tion, culture, communication, all related to developed and acknowledged human rights. Public libraries form part of the European civilizations, reflect the human values and the human rights based upon them. Ultimately, the national state is re- sponsible for guaranteeing freedom of expression and free access to information, the cornerstones of public library services. Library services are based on trust: li- braries trust their users that they will care for the books and other materials they are borrowing or consulting. Users trust their libraries, that they will provide mate- rials from a variety of sources, unbiased in its choice of materials. Public libraries are acknowledged as basic public service and trusted by politicians (from all par- ties) to perform their tasks professionally. Libraries have to work on continuous credibility, when it comes to providing digital library services. Living in a diversi- fied Europe, with a multitude of languages, cultures and customs, libraries reflect the European tradition of critical reflection, doubts about its identity and achieve- ments, and a critical notion of Europe’s role in the world. Creating awareness and understanding of the riches of ideas, concepts and views on human life and its ex- pressions in literature, art, monuments, etc., as developed in Europe, is part of the library’s task to preserve relevant documents and facilitate education about their content. Preserved national heritage should be made available Europe-wide, to in- crease mutual access and understanding: intercultural dialogue. 3. THE ROLE OF PUBLIC LIBRARIES IN NATIONAL AND EUROPEAN DEVELOPMENT 3.1 National development Initiatives of community groups, churches and liberal or charity institutions have played a substantive role in building up the social-democratic welfare states in many European countries. Public libraries were set up by these groups and gradu- ally received funding from the state and local government. In most countries pub- lic libraries are a responsibility of the local government with some incentives at the national level. In France and Germany for example, public libraries are part of local government; in The Netherlands (16 million inhabitants), public libraries still are mainly private non-profit foundations and receive local subsidies. Dutch public libraries have maintained the roots of a readers’ association including a subscrip- tion fee, at least for adults. Nevertheless, a large network of public libraries has been established, nowadays with around 4 million members, and counting 90 mil- lion visits a year. Here, after World War II, provincial library centers (PBCs) were created as service organizations for setting up public libraries in rural areas. In Europe: Public Libraries 313 other countries, such as Sweden, the region is just an administrative and not a po- litically elected level of government: the regional library services (länsbibliotek) include mainly consultancy, training, innovation and promotion. In France, the Bibliothèques Departementales de Prêts (BDP) deliver practical services (collec- tions, mobiles, reading and cultural programs) to smaller libraries. In some coun- tries the regional services are provided by a larger city library or county library, e.g. in the United Kingdom. In order to understand the public library system, one has to know the system of political responsibilities and the public administration. Public libraries mainly follow the set-up of the public administrative system: uni- tary (e.g. Czech Republic) or federal (e.g. Belgium, Germany); centralized or more decentralized. The variety of administrative structures, sometimes with each having its own level of libraries, e.g. in France, make comparison between public library systems within Europe a difficult undertaking. Various attempts to make a typology of some sort, or based on geographic proximity of public library systems in Europe, have failed, due to the enormous diversity and differences in stages of development, structures and approaches to public library service. Consolidation of the first public library establishments in legislation or other regulation took place first in the United Kingdom and Ireland (1840, 1855); in the 1920s followed by the Czech Republic, Denmark, the Netherlands, Slovakia, Lat- via, Estonia and Finland. Between 1995 and 2000 most countries have updated their library legislation, which does not exist in Austria, Germany, Luxemburg, Malta and Spain. Changes were necessary because of decentralization of responsi- bilities for public libraries to local governments, local authority reforms, upcom- ing new information technology and infrastructure, consolidating of the public domain, and library professionalism. In the Netherlands, in the late nineties, a concentration of local government (economy of scale) was undertaken resulting in a smaller number of local authori- ties. After this local government reform, a decentralization of national responsibil- ity for public libraries took place and has effected quite some differences in library services all over the country: differences in access, user fees, quality and variety of services and facilities. In the early new millennium, a process of restructuring the library organizations into larger units to provide the necessary scale for the new information infrastructure and a strong innovation policy and program have sup- ported improved professionalism and specialization. Similar processes (merging of municipalities, merging of library organizations, review of division of tasks and infrastructure) are taking place in other countries at different paces. To provide an example of a public library structure: based on these develop- ments, the Public Library system in the Netherlands consists of three layers of li- brary services related to three levels of government serving the population of which 10-20 % inhabitants have an immigrant background. At the local level about 1,100 public libraries are financially supported by local authorities, in aver- 314 Marian Koren age up to 80%. In addition, 15% of the income is obtained through users (mem- bership and overdue fees) and 5% through other paid activities like room rent, courses and lectures. Most of the communities operate a library or mobile service (60 buses in total). Local libraries can have a service contract with a provincial li- brary service organization. There are 12 provinces (ranging from 400,000 to 2.5 million inhabitants). At the provincial level, the provincial government subsidizes regional library infrastructure, programs and projects executed through provincial service organizations and some libraries with regional tasks. At the national level, the state (Ministry of Education, Culture and Science) subsidizes the Netherlands Public Library Association as a sector institute (in other countries this is a national agency for (public) libraries, such as in Belgium (Flanders), Denmark, Ireland,
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