THE PROFESSIONAL IS POLITICAL: Redefining the Social Role of Public Libraries

Forces of corporate globalisation then push them even further from their communities by offering to save staff time and mental effort by supplying pre-packaged "bestsellers," guaranteed to meet the wants of 30% 2 of the population - and to boost the profit margins of transnational publishers and booksellers. Engaging with the traditional library commodity of information in a "non-traditional" way that responds to local contexts, via the involvement of local people in service design and development, will enable libraries to help bridge the gap between the information rich and the information poor.