Journal Article10.1515/LIBR.2001.183
The Public Library, Social Exclusion and the Information Society in the United Kingdom
Martin Dutch,Dave Muddiman +1 more
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined recent developments in the United Kingdom (UK) which attempt to address this issue, and examined national and local information policy, community networking, and public library policy.
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Abstract: The digital divide is now a commonly recognised feature of information society. This article explores recent developments in the United Kingdom (UK) which attempt to address this issue, and examines national and local information policy, community networking, and public library policy. It assesses the claim, common in the UK public library community, that the wiring up of the public libraries will have a significant impact on disadvantage, poverty and social exclusion. In particular, it analyses the process of public library networking as it has unfolded since 1997, drawing upon the empirical findings of Open to All? The Public Library and Social Exclusion (Muddiman et al. 2000), a research project funded by the UK Library and Information Commission (now Resource). This research suggests that despite a rhetorical commitment to social inclusion, the technological transformation of UK public library services will result in little more than a modernisation of current services, with little change in overall strategy or user focus. Consequently, it is argued that if public libraries are to reach out to the excluded of the information society, they will need to move beyond a passive preoccupation with access and use technological change as a means towards more active engagement with local communities and disadvantaged users so that the public library will indeed be open to all.
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Citations
Britain Divided: the Growth of Social Exclusion in the 1980s and 1990s
TL;DR: Anyone who felt relieved but not elated at the election result on 3 May need only read this book to understand their emotions, and the breadth and depth of poverty the Conservatives have left behind.
138
The divided views of the information and digital divides: A call for integrative theories of information inequality
TL;DR: This article defines information inequality as multifaceted disparity between individuals, communities or nations in mobilizing society’s information resources for the benefit of their lives and development and calls for integrative theorizing of information inequality in the way exemplified by Bourdieu's research on social inequality.
61
Re-mapping the public : Public libraries and the public sphere
TL;DR: The authors traces the changing political/cultural formations of publicness in Britain, and how these intersect with emerging strategies for governing the social, drawing on three sets of discursive oppositions or elisions to trace successive struggles over the fortunes of a public institution that, I argue, stands as an icon of the public sphere.
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