Public Library and Community : Distributing Knowledge/Information and Getting People Together(<Special feature>Various approaches to create user communities)

Abstract

Public library has emerged and developed in the community context as a function to distribute knowledge and information among people. At first, the public the library history in Britain was looked at as the model. Reviewing the developments of library from its formation of "civic" library up to current "community library", the author understands that the required functions of public library have changed with the problems in community, such as policy issues, information technology and so on. Identifying the necessary roles of contemporary libraries, libraries which prepare for "social capital" and "creative capital" are explored. Some comments on the lately prevailing "micro-library" are attached.