Search

The book studies the social percepcion of libraries and reading. The methodology is based in the review of its image in media, literature, films and other ways of social communication. Also there is an analysis of library promotion materials and campaign, in order to improve the social percepcion of these institutions.

This book combines different points of view about cultural digital contents public policies, that often take divergent paths. Various experiences on integrated dissemination are presented: based on cultural heritage digital preservation projects (Memoria de Madrid); collaborative content creation (CTpedia); multimedia production (Canal Historia del Portal Región de Murcia Digital); and an open access digital library and harvester (Biblioteca Digital de la Región de Murcia). A conceptual framework for local digital content initiatives and strategies is also exposed.

Reflection on the role of cultural institutions, such as public libraries, archives and musesums, in the digital collaborative information projects aimed to local content.

Nowadays libraries are increasingly refactoring their services and dynamics, but these acts of popularisation and promotion in the era of communication, the semantic web and the cultural spectacle are situated in an ambivalent context, somewhere between atonality and adherence. With regards to the information overload and the rushed leisure we live in, the library defends its own differential values, which provide balance, nuances, and system. Library life is certainly not newsworthy, but together they generate social capital. The unstoppable modernisation of libraries also involves that their achievements be visible, and that they be incorporated into the complex conglomerate of perceptions which inform public opinion and public agendas. The librarian community is walking the path towards its inclusion into the constant murmur of media, and the permanence of its voice in the opinion and decision fora.