Library as a a third place
Library as a a third place

Summary/Abstract: The article is dedicated to prof. Anne L. Clyde (1946-2005) who both gave valuable suggestions and insights into methodology of the research project and was a constant source of encouragement and inspiration. Everyone has a third place, home being the first being and work or study place the second. A third place is a location where citizens of a community or neighbourhood meet to develop friendships, discuss issues, and interact with others in a cosy atmosphere. Can libraries be third places? This was one of the ques tions that stimulated a research project which has resulted in several publications, including this article. The conceptual framework of this project was based on theories of social, cultural and human capital represented, first of all, in Pierre Bourdieu’s and Robert Putnam’s works and an abundant literature produced world-wide interpreting and applying their models; Jürgen Habermas‘ concept of public sphere with attributes of equality, accessibility, democratic control and participation; and the concept of a third place introduced by Ray Oldenburg, widely used in urban, sociological and other studies. The main objective of the article is to examine local library as a public space important to civil society development, it’s (potential) contribution to building and sustaining social and cultural capital in local communities, and to find out Lithuanian people’s perception and value attributed to the public library in a daily life agenda. The article presents the first phenomenological qualitative research project in Lithuanian LIS context. “Public library in a daily life“. It is based on semi-structured interviews with 180 people (90 library users and 90 non-users) in variety of Lithuanian urban and rural settlements and was carried out by the team of the 2nd and 3rd year Library and Information Science students of the Faculty of Communication, Vilnius University, Lithuania. The questionnaire for interview was built of several blocks of questions: an experience and habits of library usage, social relations within library and outside, and the value of the local library. A project was inspired and directed by the similar research done in other countries by C. Rassmusen ir H. Jochumsen (Denmark), R. Audunson (Norway), J. Budd (USA), A. Goulding (UK), Sh. Jeanotte (Canada), K. Harris (UK) and others. Majority of the respondents were younger than 25 years old, possibly due to preference of studentsinterviewers. One third of respondents fall in an age group of 26–50 years. The youngest respondent is 15 and the oldest one 85 years old. Gender distribution was 67 per cent women and 31 per cent of men. More than half of them live in big cities, and 13 per cent in rural areas and smaller settlements. The analysis of the interviews shows that usage or non-usage of the library services influences the subjective perception of library but not its social value. This is supported both by other researches in Lithuania and in other countries.

• Details
• Contents