Public Libraries: Their Role in Smart City Strategies
Public Libraries: Their Role in Smart City Strategies

Summary/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.

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