Publicness Shaping in Public Access Libraries

Abstract The goal of this article is to identify how publicness is shaped in the library context, with a view to creating a rough analytical framework to use as the basis for the subsequent creation of a model for evaluating the publicness of public access libraries. The article is based on a review of the literature. The results show that a library shapes its publicness in the three ways in which it presents itself as public: 1) as a public space; this incorporates elements that go beyond open access for all and involves processes of space use, space management, and space design; 2) as an object of representation through art, commerce, and social manifestations, and as an object of public debate that roughly converges on the library’s mission, value, public and staff; and 3) as a collective subject, which can be split into the community as agent, the library staff, and legitimating and regulating institutions. What makes this study original is that it frames the library as public from stances that look beyond the issue of public or private ownership, thus shifting the focus from government-run public libraries to public access libraries.