
Libraries lost domain to commercial streaming. Is IKEA next, if they only turn spines out?
>> August 16: Shared by British site PublicLibrariesNews under International News
This April members of the European library organization EBLIDA were invited to take part in a survey on the conditions of libraries during the Corona. Now they have prepared a – premilinary – report: «A European library agenda for the post-Covid 19 age» (pdf), where they not only summarize the survey, but invite to debate around five fields where the corona has changed the conditions for library operations:
- Exponential social distancing: a well-connected two-meter library;
- Technologies are mutating and shaping libraries in new ways;
- Uncharted economic territory: review the library budget composition;
- Library governance at central and local levels;
- Do not forget the climate change opportunity and threat.
Much of the content of the first two points will be well known by members of the library communities since March but in the new report we think item 3 is most important, especially because it has not been much on the agenda yet. This is the wording of the executive summary on this point, plus some other quotes (the emphasis are ours):