Collections Redux: The Public Library as a Place of Community Borrowing.

This article presents an overview of the Western public library's development into its present form(s) and its shift to the prevailing social perspective. This leads to a discussion of "digital and point-oh libraries" as one of two major strands and " social space and place" as the other. Our main critique is that this development has caused an unfortunate downplay of societal perspectives in favor of a focus on social issues. Another side effect is a growing lack of attention to the potential of physical, on-site collections. By proposing a specific counterexample, we discuss library collections as a community concern and as a step toward bridging the social-societal gap. The potential of a redefined on-site collection is set against the backdrop of public libraries offering nontraditional collections, such as tool-lending libraries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]