Public Libraries: Their Role in Smart City Strategies

Abstract

  Purpose/Thesis: This paper examines the position of public libraries in smart city strategies. To that end, I verify two hypotheses, H1: Cities analyzed employ strategic plans to define their path to “smartness”, and H2: Public libraries are a part of these strategies. Approach/Methods: Top 30 cities from the ranking of IESE Cities in Motion Index 2019 were se­lected. The hypotheses were tested through the analysis of strategy documents and web portals. In most cases, the analysis relied on English versions of said documents/portals, occasionally compared with the national language version . Results and conclusions: The process of verifying the first hypothesis led to identifying four groups: G1, comprising cities with a general strategy, presumed to include smart initiatives (3 cities), G2: cities with a separate “smart city” strategy, published on their own portal, or a related website (15 cities); G3: cities with subsites/portals briefly summarizing their activities in the area of ‘smart’ development (10 cities), and G4: cities with many sectoral strategies, presumed to include smart initiatives (2 ci­ties). The analysis allowed the identification of a number of areas in which public libraries already contribute to smart development: smart building, smart infrastructure, smart services, digital skills and life-long learning, sustainability, creativity, digital citizenship and smart business Originality/Value: Although many library and information science scholars study smart cities, no similar study has been conducted, and therefore, this paper, with its unique approach, offers a new perspective on the discussion on smart libraries.