Adapting the library to its customers

The most important role of libraries is to perform in a social way to the society. To keep this position as a public information service the library should focus more on the needs of the users. In this workshop we will give an impression of the role of Dutch public libraries, and especially the new public library in Amsterdam, because shortly there has been introduced an interesting new approach in its customers’ use of information. After this short introduction we’ll discuss some important questions about the visitors of libraries:

• Why do visitors visit libraries nowadays, and are there any significant developments?
• In what way do visitors search for information? Based on the answers of these questions we found there are very interesting, and most of all important developments in the way library-customers search, and use information. As a consequence, the library itself has to change as well. With good practises we will discuss some situations of public libraries from different countries. After this discussion the participants of the workshop will work in groups to analyse the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threaths of libraries. The main goal of the discussion and analyses is to find possibilities to emphasise the social role, which a library can be to the society, with the use of low budget applying creative ideas.