and Sport, 2003). These projects and organizations not only provide hybrid library services but also combine libraries with museums, health facilities, leisure activities, and e-government services. The idea is that, through visiting libraries, people should discover a large collection of resources that can be utilized to draw them into new activities, including health, education, sports, and business development support (Department for Culture, Media and Sport, 2003, p. 22).
Public libraries have found an important role in the area of culture, and this is likely to remain as one of their characteristic features. Public libraries have a potential to build upon their distinctive and long-standing role in promoting reading and informal learning (Department for Culture, Media and Sport, 2003, p. 23). This distinctiveness should be remembered when profiling library strategies in order to avoid duplicating the efforts of other public and private sector providers. However, the distinctive strategies should not be seen as a barrier for cooperation but as a fruitful basis of partnerships with various organizations and service providers. For example, in the Finnish public library strategy the cultural role of libraries is emphasized from this viewpoint (Ministry of Education, 2001). One of the major visions of this program is that public libraries should function as the mediator of cultural heritage and supporter of multi-cultural developments by providing access to information relevant to other cultures. In the cultural mission of public libraries, the issues of information literacy and self-realization are central. In the above-mentioned Finnish program, references are made to important civic educational and holistic tasks: a true challenge to public libraries is to provide ‘‘the sense of wholeness’’ that goes beyond the fragments of information by building connections between diverse issues and materials. This is ultimately how they contribute to meeting the challenge of globalization.
potentials of a hybrid library. As exemplified by recent public library strat- egies developed in Britain and Finland, libraries have identified this oppor- tunity. New library strategies signal clearly that public libraries are significant not only in connecting institutions of public governance and civil society but also in functioning as catalysts for cultural innovations.
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