This study examines the impact of dimensions of service quality on customer satisfaction in public libraries and explores innovation as a potential moderator of this relationship. Using a quantitative design, data were collected using a questionnaire from 250 active users across six public libraries in East Java, Indonesia, and analysed using partial least squares structural equation modelling. Although innovation was initially hypothesised as a moderator, the findings indicated that it functions as a direct predictor of satisfaction rather than as a factor that strengthens the service quality–satisfaction link. Tangibility, Assurance, Empathy and Innovation significantly influenced user satisfaction, whereas Reliability and Responsiveness do not. These findings contribute to the literature on library and information science by demonstrating that innovation operates as a direct determinant of satisfaction, thereby challenging assumptions about its moderating role. In increasingly digital library contexts, users appear to value innovative, user-centred services over traditional reliability and responsiveness indicators. Therefore, libraries should prioritise innovative services, improvements in physical environments and empathetic interactions to enhance user satisfaction.
Globally, 351 national libraries (NLs) and 406,487 public libraries (PLs) operate following the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) guidelines. However, a hybrid model has emerged – the national/public library (NPL) – where NLs function fully as PLs while retaining their national status. Despite the existence of over 30 NPLs worldwide, a significant research gap remains regarding formal recognition and standardised guidelines for this approach. This study explores the characteristics, successes and challenges of the NPL model through the perspectives of 26 participants from 26 countries. Using Classical Grounded Theory, the research identifies success factors, such as budget efficiency and public approachability, alongside barriers like role tension and the absence of clear frameworks. The findings address these gaps by proposing practical guidelines for international organisations, including IFLA, Conference of Directors of National Libraries, and United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. These guidelines aim to facilitate global adoption, positioning NPLs as vital pillars for both national heritage and community engagement.
This study explores the perceptions of academic librarians towards the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in libraries and library services across two countries, Poland and Zambia. A qualitative research design was employed, including semi-structured interviews with 16 academic librarians – eight from Poland and eight from Zambia. Participants were purposefully selected to represent diverse demographics and professional experiences. The analysis identified four key themes: (1) Unlocking Opportunities – librarians were optimistic about AI's potential to streamline tasks and support teaching and research; (2) Navigating Barriers – challenges included infrastructure gaps, skills deficits, ethical concerns and the need for localized tools; (3) Redefining Roles – AI is reshaping librarianship, with librarians taking on roles as educators, policy advocates and verifiers; and (4) Contrasting contexts – Polish librarians prioritized oversight and verification, while Zambian librarians focused on institutional policies and user empowerment. Socio-economic and institutional contexts play a critical role in shaping how AI is perceived, adopted and applied in academic libraries. While AI offers transformative possibilities, its successful adoption requires careful consideration of local realities, along with investments in training, ethical guidelines and equitable access to resources.
This article analyzes how library architectural design contributes to ecological consciousness and sustainable education in megacities. To maintain an analytical focus amid the interdisciplinary intersection of design, psychology, and pedagogy, the study evaluates the built environment as the primary independent variable. The objectives are prioritized to establish structural parameters of green facilities and to model how physical attributes function as infrastructure for sustainable education. To address theoretical gaps, the study introduces a tripartite conceptual framework mapping sensory space, flexible programming, and visible interaction design. The methodology applies comparative analysis of international practices. It is important to note that this study examines these regional examples within the context of a growing international movement while acknowledging that libraries’ environmental initiatives represent a widespread, practice-based, and policy-oriented reality around the world. The findings demonstrate that sustainably designed cultural infrastructure reduces resource consumption and operationalizes pro-environmental behavior.
This bibliometric study examines global research productivity patterns in Library and Information Science from 1996 to 2024, analyzing 317,548 publications from 210 countries. Findings reveal profound regional disparities: Northern America and Western Europe produced 61.5% of global output and 71.3% of citations, with citations per publication of 21.62 and 24.05, respectively, substantially exceeding the global average of 15.66. Africa, comprising 55 countries, contributed only 3.3% of publications and 1.7% of citations. The top 30 countries accounted for 84.6% of global production, demonstrating extreme concentration. Analysis reveals a Matthew effect in citation patterns, where papers from high-income regions receive disproportionately higher citations. The study concludes that addressing these disparities requires increased research funding, infrastructure development, capacity-building programs, equitable international partnerships, and reformed evaluation systems recognizing diverse research impacts beyond traditional citation metrics.
This article aims to examine how social service delivery in public libraries fosters community trust and enhances crowd mobilization for fund generation with special reference to India. It also seeks to demonstrate how service-induced public engagement can develop a sense of belongingness among the community people without compromising the public character of libraries. The paper is essentially a review of experiences of various public libraries from abroad and India based on literature and website analysis. The article demonstrates how a public library could come out of its ambit of conventional library services and develop into a civic institution to satisfy various social needs, focusing on trust-building measures to encourage voluntary community funding. With examples of activities of public libraries from abroad and India on social service initiatives, community participation and fundraising practices, the study identified contextually suitable practices for adoption in public libraries in the Indian ecosystem.
This paper proposes a publicness evaluation model for libraries (PEML) designed in the light of various theoretical approaches and models applied to public spaces. The PEML captures the multidimensional nature of publicness, because it embraces the concept of a vertical and a horizontal structure with geographical and non-geographical, material and non-material dimensions, for a comprehensive understanding. The PEML can be broken down into its component units, so it can be used for individual analysis of each of the ways in which a library is public: as a space, as a collective subject, and as an object of debate and representation. The PEML proposal is a milestone in library evaluation, because it is the first model of its kind and because it is conceived to evaluate all public access libraries, not just government-run libraries.
The article analyses the role of libraries in building awareness of cultural heritage, focusing on how library employees perceive their responsibilities and assess their performance in this area. It identifies key forms of activity such as the digitization of resources, the organization of exhibitions, educational, scientific and media initiatives that support the development of a social sense of value and responsibility for cultural heritage. The article is based on a cross-national survey of libraries in selected European countries and combines quantitative and qualitative analysis of institutional perspectives and practices related to cultural heritage promotion and protection. The analysis demonstrates that cultural institutions, when operating in an integrated and interdisciplinary manner, play a crucial role in shaping attitudes that promote the protection of cultural heritage. At the same time, these institutions face significant challenges, including insufficient institutional and financial support, which restrict the dissemination of collections, as well as difficulties in reaching broader audiences.
This research investigates the perceptions held by librarians in the United Arab Emirates regarding the limited engagement of students in reading within school libraries, as well as identifying the most effective strategies to mitigate this challenge. An online survey was conducted involving 137 school librarians from a variety of educational institutions and curricular frameworks to analyze perceptions regarding library environments and resources, factors associated with students, institutional impediments, and potential interventions. It also included a singular open-ended question that was analyzed using thematic analysis. Quantitative findings reveal that librarians report prevalent concerns regarding what they perceive as outdated and inadequately diverse collections, uninviting physical spaces, digital distractions among students, apparent motivational deficits, and inconsistent administrative support. Findings from open-ended responses highlight constraints arising from policy mandates and content censorship linked to regulatory compliance, a marked decline in student reading engagement from primary to secondary levels, the limited availability of Arabic-language literature, and the critical importance of cultivating a whole school reading culture through role modeling and recognition of student readers. Librarians strongly advocate for multitiered, community-focused interventions, incorporating student input into collection development, integrating reading into the curriculum, fostering partnerships with parents and the community, creating enriched learning environments, and providing targeted professional development as vital measures to rejuvenate reading engagement within multilingual, digitally saturated educational systems.
This study examines Thai Studies scholars’ experiences and perceptions regarding access to and discovery of Thai materials in a globally dispersed bibliographic environment. Using a mixed-methods approach, it draws on 120 survey responses to identify which collections are perceived as the “best” and the qualities used to make such assessments. Respondents, largely from the humanities and social sciences, most frequently use books and manuscripts. Perceptions of collection value were shaped by factors such as relevance, uniqueness, size, and accessibility. The study also employed the Critical Incident Technique to elicit detailed accounts of successful information-seeking experiences. Findings reveal that personal networks and institutional affiliations play a key role in discovery, while scholars face challenges including fragmented collections, poor metadata, and limited digital access. These results offer new insights into the information behavior of area studies scholars and suggest practical implications for improving discoverability and equitable access in global knowledge infrastructures.
This study explores how academic librarians interpret and negotiate their evolving professional identities as generative artificial intelligence becomes integrated into research-support environments. Using the interpretative phenomenological analysis approach, interviews captured how librarians make sense of shifting roles, emotional tensions and changing expectations of expertise. Four interconnected themes emerged: identity reconstruction, emotional ambivalence, boundary redrawing and the influence of institutional conditions. The findings show that AI adoption is not simply a technical transition but a lived socio-emotional process shaped by organisational support, policy clarity and peer collaboration. Rather than replacing librarianship, generative AI presents opportunities for expanded advisory roles, ethical mediation and AI literacy instruction provided that institutions supply adequate training and structural support. The study contributes to ongoing discussions on responsible AI adoption in academic libraries by offering a phenomenological account of professional transformation.
The role of the public library shifts through generations and how individuals experience it as place shape their relations to it. Through in-depth interviews with 37 individuals of different ethnicities and professions and born between 1961 to 2002, this study examined how individuals experienced Singapore public libraries across historical time. Findings revealed consistencies across intergenerational experiences of the library while highlighting changes in ways of accessing information with technological advancements and different life stage usage. In relation to factors that contributed to sense of place, three key themes emerged: (1) emotional attachments to place and function; (2) the materiality of space; and (3) familiarity through routines. The continued importance of the library as a provider of reading resources and implications for library design for diversity, multiplicity of use, access, wayfinding and thermal comfort are discussed.
This study investigates how artificial intelligence understanding influences AI self-efficacy among university students within academic library contexts, with AI use behavior and AI skills examined as sequential mediators. Based on Bandura's social cognitive theory, self-efficacy is strengthened through conceptual understanding, which leads to purposeful AI use and subsequent skills acquisition. Using partial least squares structural equation modeling with data from 525 university students in Bangladesh, the results indicate that AI understanding significantly predicts AI use behavior (beta = 0.777, p < .001), and AI use behavior significantly predicts AI skills (beta = 0.573, p < .001). In turn, AI skills significantly predict AI self-efficacy (beta = 0.468, p < .001), while AI understanding has a significant direct influence on AI self-efficacy (beta = 0.268, p < .001). Mediation analysis further reveals a significant sequential indirect effect of AI understanding on AI self-efficacy through AI use behavior and AI skills (beta = 0.440; 95% confidence interval = 0.338-0.542), indicating partial mediation.
Libraries worldwide are increasingly adopting gamified and entertainment-oriented strategies to engage youth readers, sparking an ongoing academic debate about "service alienation"-the risk that innovation-driven programming may drift from the library's core literacy mission. This tension remains largely unresolved at the empirical level: it is unclear whether gamified, "alienated" activities genuinely undermine reading promotion effectiveness, or whether they represent a legitimate and complementary pathway alongside substantive, content-driven approaches. This study investigates which causal configurations of program characteristics produce effective reading promotion, what role gamification and entertainment elements play within those configurations, and how Chinese libraries should strategically balance the two approaches. Using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) on 30 cases-19 Chinese gamified initiatives and 11 IFLA Marketing Award-winning substantive programs-six key conditions were systematically compared: gamification degree, entertainment elements, social media engagement, deep content relevance, author/expert involvement, and community co-creation. The analysis identifies four distinct configurational pathways to effectiveness: the Pure Gamification, Social-Gamification, Content-Community, and Pure Content-Oriented models. While substantive content and community co-creation remain the primary drivers of sustained engagement, gamification proves effective when integrated with social interaction-and is not inherently alienating. In conclusion, these findings provide library administrators with an evidence-based diagnostic framework to strategically balance attention-grabbing innovations with the core mission of fostering deep and lasting reading habits.
This article examines how library standards and literacy policies are enacted and negotiated in geographically remote settings in Indonesia. Drawing on qualitative research in three remote villages in Nagekeo Municipality, Flores Island, eastern Indonesia, the article analyses how teachers, volunteers and community activists organise reading opportunities in conditions marked by distance, limited connectivity and uneven school resources. Data was drawn from interviews, observations and field notes, with reflexive attention to the author's dual role as researcher and programme facilitator. The findings indicate that libraries are most effective when they operate as bridging institutions - close to children, supported by adults who mediate reading, and organised flexibly rather than through uniform infrastructural models. Children showed increases in motivation, decoding and basic comprehension, although progress remained uneven and context-dependent. The study suggests that challenges stem less from the absence of policy than from misalignment between standardised expectations and the realities of remote communities. The article argues for interpreting standards contextually, prioritising readable print collections and guided pedagogy, and recognising the work of local actors while ensuring sustained institutional backing. The policy implications point to child-centred indicators and context-responsive approaches aimed at realising the right to read in substantive, not merely formal, terms.
In resource-constrained academic environments like Nigeria, early-career library and information science professionals navigate limited infrastructure, policy gaps and minimal formal training. Traditional models of professional learning explain development through shared practice but do not address the emotional and psychological pressures in such settings. This article presents an extended model that integrates emotional labour and resilience-building to better capture library and information science professionals' growth in African universities. Based on phenomenological interviews, focus groups and reflective journals, the findings show that informal networks such as WhatsApp groups, peer mentoring and collaborative improvisation serve as both knowledge-sharing platforms and emotional support systems. The participants describe managing institutional neglect, professional invisibility and ethical dilemmas using emotional labour and adaptive resilience. These experiences expand the understanding of professional communities, framing them as sites of learning, survival and transformation. The model offers guidance for curriculum design, policy and professional support, highlighting the intersection of knowledge, identity and well-being in Nigerian Library and Information Science practice.
Links between information behaviour and information literacy are well documented. When preparing an information literacy teaching programme, it may be tempting to pay particular attention to information behaviour models, as each draws together many pertinent issues within a single framework. Such an inclination can be unwise, however. This article explores 10 problematic matters relating to information behaviour models. Specifically, the ideas of writers and readers as to what constitutes a model are often at variance. Models are generally assumed to be diagrammatic and process-oriented. Neither is always the case. The manner in which models have been constructed and how they have emerged from real information situations may not be made explicit. Models are frequently subjective, restricted and associated with limited evidence. There is much talk of the importance of 'testing' models. This is simplistic. Finally, although models provide benefits that go beyond those traditionally attributed to them, these are rarely exploited.
The present manuscript study aims to examine publication trends, growth patterns, leading authors, collaborative networks, and thematic developments in Arabic, Persian, Ottoman and Sanskrit manuscript studies. Using a bibliometric approach, the study extracted 316 publications from the Scopus database. The study findings indicate that the period 2016-2024 was the most prolific in terms of annual scientific production, accounting for 59.4% of the total. The Journal of Islamic Manuscripts was identified as the leading journal, contributing 18 publications, and Qatar University and the University of Granada were the most productive institutions, each with eight publications. Germany recorded the highest output with 13 articles (multiple country publications [MCP]: 7.7%), followed by the USA with 12 articles. The findings show recent integration of computational techniques, including optical character recognition, image segmentation, metadata extraction, and deep learning, in manuscript scholarship. The study highlights the need for further research to enhance preservation practices, improve access, and guide future research directions.
This study examines the promotional efforts implemented by Vietnamese public libraries concerning cultural heritage information and explores users' evaluations of their quality and effectiveness. Using a mixed-methods approach, the study combines in-depth interviews, content analysis, and quantitative data to assess promotional practices from both staff and user perspectives. The findings indicate that libraries employ various methods, including events, social media, and traditional materials. However, these efforts are fragmented and lack strategic coordination. Digital communication remains underutilized, and user engagement with specialized cultural heritage services is limited. While users generally appreciate staff attitudes and some collaborative initiatives, promotional activities fall short in terms of creativity, flexibility, and attractiveness. The study recommends that public libraries adopt integrated marketing strategies combining digital and traditional channels, enhance staff digital competencies, and strengthen long-term partnerships with cultural institutions to improve promotional effectiveness.
When Chinese libraries first competed for the IFLA International Marketing Award in 2012, their presence barely registered internationally. By 2025, Ningbo Library had secured third place while Chinese institutions dominated the shortlists, marking a transformation in library innovation leadership. This study examines how intelligent marketing enabled this breakthrough by analyzing 39 Chinese library projects from 2012-2025 using grounded theory methodology. Through systematic coding, the authors identified 118 concepts, 23 categories, and 6 themes, and constructed a three-tier model: intelligent empowerment-cultural translation-value co-creation. The findings reveal that Chinese libraries strategically deployed intelligent marketing across four dimensions-data-driven insights, algorithm-aided content, platform-integrated channels, and interactive experiences-to overcome cultural barriers. This technological transformation enabled sophisticated cultural translation through diversified subjects, universalized content, and innovative methods while establishing sustainable value co-creation ecosystems. The authors propose the Strategic-Multimedia-Audience-Resonance-Technology (SMART) framework to guide libraries worldwide in enhancing their international communication capabilities.
