Exploring best practices in smart public library services: a survey

Teaching the History and Organization of Libraries: The Coronavirus Pandemic as an Opportunity to Study Public Library Reopenings

The role of public libraries in communities across the United States has evolved over time from book repositories to anchor institutions with great potential in contributing to the development of smart cities and communities. However, current literature on smart cities mainly focuses on the definitions of smart city and some frameworks for smart city development, and refers to public libraries in a relatively limited way. In addition, there is no clarity in terms of how local governments and public libraries value the potential benefits, costs, and success factors of public libraries’ participation in building smart cities and communities. Therefore, based on a comparison of survey responses from local governments and public libraries in the United States, this research explores local governments’ and public libraries’ perceptions in relation to the characteristics of smart cities and communities. The research also analyzes the role of public libraries in developing smart cities and communities, as well as the benefits, costs, challenges, and success factors of public libraries’ participation in developing smart cities and communities.

While the global population continues to grow, more people are living in cities. In 2018, 55 per cent of the world's population lived in cities. By 2050, this is expected to increase to 68 per cent - almost seven in every ten people will live in cities. If sustainable development is to deliver to all people, urban development plays a critical role. The 'smart city' is now the playbook for resilient, sustainable and liveable cities, and smart technologies are creating daily touchpoints that make both huge and small impacts across all walks of people's lives. Today's cities and tomorrow's smart cities are intricately linked to the United Nations' 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development across its 17 goals. This paper first explores at-a-glance the fundamentals and layers that support smart cities, providing an overview but not a deep-dive into the technicalities. This includes, but not limited to, the policy and infrastructure frameworks, the data ecosystem including open data and big, data, the device level including Internet of Things and mobile devices, and the application level in general. Three dimensions of policy integration in smart city development is suggested, namely: (i) horizontal integration across sectors and disciplines; (ii) vertical integration across different governmental levels as well as linkages between national and local development; and (iii) a whole-of-society approach in smart city development with the engagement of the private sector and civil society. The nexus of smart city goals and the global 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is then articulated. Building on the key issues identified, a high-level analysis of global and regional metrics in accessing smart cities is done, emphasizing the importance of the cliche - what's get measured, gets valued.

The marketing of library resources and services is a vital activity in any library, particularly public libraries. This activity is essential for enhancing the visibility of public library resources and services to users. The present study examines users’ perceptions regarding the use and marketing of public library resources and services in Mysore City. The objectives of the study include identifying the format of public library collections, understanding the use of public libraries by various communities, determining the methods or modes used to learn about library resources and services, assessing users’ satisfaction levels with the quality of services, and exploring reasons for the limited use of public library services. A survey research method was employed, and a questionnaire was administered to 830 users of 20 public libraries in Mysore City. The study achieved a response rate of 88%. The findings indicate that the majority of respondents were male (524, 63.1%). Approximately 81.9% of respondents reported visiting public libraries daily, and 99% of respondents stated they visit the library to prepare for competitive examinations. The highest number of respondents identified books as the primary format of library resources. “Reference Service” and “Periodical and Magazine Section” were the most preferred services, with mean scores of 4.76 and 4.35, respectively. “Word of Mouth” and “User Orientation Program” were the most frequently used methods by respondents to learn about public library resources and services, with mean scores of 3.93 and 3.84, respectively. The study concludes that public libraries should systematically classify and organize their resources to facilitate the intensive use of library resources.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper was to identify the main necessary competences for smart cities’ development. From their inception until now, smart cities are striving to clarify their identity and become better, and thus, smarter. The whole process is in many ways similar to the journey of a child in his quest of growing into a smart adult, with the help of parents and support from educators. But it is not easy to tell how we, as citizens, through civic, educational and governance structures, raise smart cities. What competences do we need? This was the main question for the present essay, generated from several theoretical and practical experiences.Design/methodology/approachIn this study, literature analysis, synthesis and theoretical inferences, for the smart city problematiques, and induction and exploratory qualitative analysis, for soft, civilizational competences, were used.FindingsThe main conclusion is that the literature still associates the smart city especially with its hard dimension, the highly developed and intelligent technologies, including information and communication technologies (ICTs), despite a growing number of studies dedicated to the soft, human and social capital component. The intangible, soft component – the human actor – plays an equally, if not even more important role, through mechanisms affecting all classical dimensions of smart cities (smart economy, people, governance, mobility, environment, living). Civilizational competences, soft skills or human-related characteristics of cities strongly influenced by culture (at national, regional, organizational and individual levels) are crucial for the development of smart and competitive cities. Civilizational competences are grouped into four categories: enterprise culture, discoursive culture, civic culture and daily culture. If we want to make our cities smart, we need to develop these competences – first define them, then identify their antecedents or influence factors and measure them.Research limitations/implicationsThe study has several limits. First, the exploratory nature in itself, with many inductive and abductive suppositions that will need further testing. Second, the literature selection has a certain degree of subjectivity owing to the fact that besides the common, classical theory of smart cities, the authors were particularly interested in rather heterodox opinions about the subject, which lead them to the inclusion of singular or isolated points of view on narrower issues.Practical implicationsThe findings of this exploratory conceptual essay could be used for further testing of hypotheses on the relationship between civilizational competences and smart cities’ development.Social implicationsLocal and regional administrations could use the results to increase civil society’s involvement in the development of smart cities.Originality/valueThe study points out some new connections and relations for the smart city problematiques, and explicitly suggests relating the development of smart cities to the development of civilizational competences, as a complex category of factors going beyond the unique dimension of “people” or “human and social capital” from the smart cities literature. It is an exploratory outcome, generating new research hypotheses for the relationships between smart city development and culture-related factors grouped under the “cities” civilizational competences’ label.

The plan to develop Evergreen, the open-source consortial library software, was announced in June 2004 by Lamar Veatch, state librarian and head of the Georgia Public Library Service (GPLS). Evergreen went live in 2006. That two-year period was filled with activity. It was a major decision by GPLS to develop new software of a scope never before attempted, but it was undertaken only after it had exhausted all other alternatives to run PINES, the resource-sharing public library consortium in Georgia. Evergreen was to be designed from the ground up as a new thing: a consortial library system, that is, an integrated library system for a large, geographically dispersed, resource-sharing consortium. Why did GPLS take this path and how did it go about doing it? The decision came about after a long chain of events made over many years in Georgia as it, like all states, wrestled with how best to provide public library services to its citizens. Policy decisions over many years followed a consistent direction. Local library organizational patterns commonly follow a model of treating each library separately resulting in what today are commonly called information silos, resulting in largely separate collections with weak communications among them. Resource sharing among the libraries in most state systems is through an interlibrary loan (ILL) process. Georgia, on the other hand, has consistently chosen another direction: joining the many small public libraries into larger resource-sharing regional libraries. Other states have worked on the idea, abandoned it, taken it up again and so on. It was an idea that the library community liked in theory, but before recent developments in computer technology, Georgia's path was unusual. The fundamental problem that all states must wrestle with in providing public library service - indeed for all entities providing any library service - is the great disparity of size, wealth and resources of the many libraries that exist. There are a few very rich libraries; however, most have only modest resources. Consider these figures from the latest national-level data we have for U.S. public libraries (FY 2005). Table 1 shows that the top quartile of these libraries by their total expenditures - that is, the 25% of public libraries that spent the most - spent $7.9 billion that year while the bottom three quartiles (the 75% that spent the least) spent $1 billion in total. Indeed, to press the point, the top 10% spent $6.5 billion. Think about that: Ten percent of the public libraries in the United States spent about 6.5 times as much money as the smallest 75% of the libraries. The big libraries are very big, and the small libraries are very small, and the disparities in expenditures that these figures demonstrate are consistent across other variables such as collections, resources and staff. Moreover, they are consistent with the pattern for other types of libraries. However, our story is centered on public libraries in the United States because of decisions made by GPLS. It is useful to note that the two largest open source library systems running in the United States, Evergreen and Koha, were developed for small public library settings. If you look at the expenditure figures above, it is not hard to imagine why - the large proprietary vendors prefer to concentrate their efforts where the money is. Within the open source framework, however, Evergreen and Koha have different approaches, with Evergreen being consortial for reasons that are discussed here. The disparities in resources outlined by the data present a profound information policy question for a consensual democracy: In a system of government that relies on an informed citizenry, are such disparities acceptable? Is it acceptable for the “haves” to have access to so much more information than the “have nots”? If not, how do we ameliorate the results of this disparity? Public library service as it is configured in the United States today developed before Google and other modern software developments that have relentlessly broken down information silos in other fields. Their configuration cannot adequately provide the vast pools of information and materials that are now available to the citizenry. One step in the right direction is consortial resource sharing, and another is to use these consortia to pool money to buy access to enhanced content for all the libraries in the consortium - especially those that could not otherwise have afforded this content - the “everything everywhere” library consortium. In its history (at least by the 1940s), Georgia decided to follow its subsequently consistent policy - with the normal stops and starts involved with politics - to bind the small public libraries in the state into larger, regional entities for resource sharing. That strategy was Georgia's way to get library resources to the “have nots.” The state provided both funding and direction toward that end. Although Georgia's largest libraries are typically independent, the smaller ones today are mostly in regional systems. In 1998, David Singleton, then at GPLS and now at Charlotte-Mecklenburg Public Library in Charlotte, North Carolina, suggested a universal borrower card for Georgia's public library users. Such a card would allow all citizens of Georgia to borrow an item from any library. Given both the amount of state funding and state strategic practices to group libraries into regions, such an idea was possible. Of course, the idea was not new to Georgia, but it fell on receptive Georgia soil since the infrastructure and the general acceptance of the idea of sharing resources were in place. Because of years of preparation, state guidance and vision, the idea would work. Y2K - the computer problem that existed because of the way computers handled dates - in the end was what led to the creation of PINES (the Georgia public library resource sharing network - the network of Georgia's regional library systems). Y2K money was allocated by the state, and an RFP for a statewide system was issued. One vendor's product stood out, and PINES was born in 1999 with Phase 1 linking 26 library systems with 90 outlets (central libraries, branches and bookmobiles). PINES was an immediate success. PINES users liked being able to borrow books from a larger set of libraries with a richer set of collections than one local library. They liked access to the longer tail, and PINES added more libraries and more users. Library users altered their behavior, and many bypassed their local libraries to have access to the larger, virtual collection. PINES grew until it started having problems with the underlying software that, famously, resulted in the system's production servers having to be rebooted during the middle of the day in order to be able to handle control of the transactions load. The software had reached a previously unknown limit. Given that the software that ran PINES is running other systems that have higher circulations and larger bibliographic databases than PINES, what limit had been reached? There were several, but the central one was the system could not keep up with the update load. The software was not designed for a consortium spread over a large area with updates such as checkouts, check-ins and cataloging changes to the central database coming from so many different places. In such a system, there are many people logged into the system changing the database at any one time, and the database, to be useful, has to be current. It should reflect what is checked in or out (transactions) and what the system owns (inventory) so that users searching will know if an item is available and librarians will know the state of items in the system. These functions are basic to a modern inventory control system. In PINES, there are thousands of terminals across the state logged into the database making changes, and each change has to be reflected in the database by “reindexing” it. While rebooting in this old system allowed the system to catch up with the changes, it could not be done frequently enough. The limit reached was a hard one, and there was no solution using that software. Meanwhile, more libraries wanted to join PINES. All the while, the circulation load was large and increasing. Any large piece of software has a design architecture: how it organizes its elements, what tools it uses, that is, how it does what it does. The design architecture, in turn, is a function of various factors, the two most important being system architecture and computer costs. Many old versions of old software still litter the ILS ecosystem. The software then running PINES began development in the era when mainframes ruled the earth. This legacy software has been adapted and changed and added to over the years. Elements had been bolted on and kludged, but, it is a fact that updating deployed software has proven to be an almost impossible task almost every time it has been tried. There are a thousand problems, and what most vendors of library software have done is start over using the more modern updated practices of the time. When the original PINES software was developed, computers were immensely expensive and software comparatively primitive. Better practices and more capable small computers existed when Evergreen was envisioned, and the developers used more modern software development processes to run on more capable computers that no longer cost a million dollars each to buy. An examination of alternatives in the market found none that had the capabilities necessary to run PINES then or in the future. What was Georgia to do? Limit PINES? Give up and abandon a policy direction it had followed so consistently and that had produced such benefits? Over software? After much discussion, GPLS embarked on a revolutionary path - an open source, consortial library system to run PINES. Work began on Evergreen mid-2004. The later a software system is developed, the more modern practices can be used in that development. Evergreen, for instance, was web-aware and used Unicode for text storage and representation from the beginning. To implement these capabilities, Evergreen did not require the costly and difficult rewrites to the foundational code necessary for ILSs that had their basic code written before Unicode had been developed. Unicode is important because it allows a system to handle non-Roman scripts, including characters in Chinese and Arabic. Evergreen's development began with practices then in place in the business world. These practices today result in software that is modular, scalable and relatively easy to update - at least compared to legacy software that is even as little as five years old. Evergreen uses a service-oriented architecture (SOA) with representational state transfer (REST) and “n-tier” architectural design concepts. Let us explore these concepts a bit. The development philosophy behind these elements is that software is based on distributed services that communicate and collaborate through a set of standards, that is, it should be “service oriented.” In Evergreen, the open scalable request framework (OpenSRF, pronounced “open surf”) is such an SOA framework. OpenSRF is, in many ways, the key to Evergreen because it does so many things. OpenSRF provides load balancing and is robust and scalable. It also allows the development of software without requiring a detailed knowledge of Evergreen's structure. In effect, the Evergreen layer consists of a number of applications each of which rides on top of OpenSRF. The result is that the developer need only know the APIs and what information the program elements require and what they will reply to write new capabilities into Evergreen. OpenSRF handles the details of implementing a stateful, decentralized service architecture while the Evergreen code supplies the interface and business logic. OpenSRF is now a separate open source project. Networking follows a design philosophy that is often introduced to students with the OSI Reference Model. The model describes seven layers that pass information among each other to provide network services in a manner similar to what one finds with SOA. “N-tier” application architecture is a related idea where the tiers communicate and collaborate with each other by established standards. We see these operations in our daily lives. If, for example, a new version of Firefox comes out, we can change the old version for the new one without changing the operating system or reformatting our hard drives. We usually do not even have to reboot. Why? Because of the underlying architecture where each program communicates with the other parts of the network software by established rules - application programming interfaces (APIs) - that specify how the various elements involved exchange needed information. So, to change a part or one tier does not require a massive rewrite of the entire code, just what needs to be adjusted. As mentioned, the Evergreen middle layer rides on top of OpenSRF, and the user interfaces (the OPAC and staff client) ride on top of Evergreen. In short, REST is a set of principles that establishes an architectural style for large, scalable applications. Evergreen also uses other open source projects - there are no proprietary pieces in Evergreen - to supply needed functionality. One advantage of open source applications is that a developer working on one project can use what is already tested and proven by other projects. PostgreSQL (“Postgres”) is an enterprise-grade relational database system with over 15 years of development. It was chosen for Evergreen because it was virtually the only open source database system that had the capabilities to support a system with the database structure and the transactions load the size of PINES. Another key application is XUL (pronounced “zool”) which stands for XML user interface language. Developed by the Mozilla project, XUL allows fully featured cross-platform web applications. Perhaps the best known XUL-driven application is the Firefox web browser. There are, as you see, a number of pieces to the Evergreen puzzle. These modules work together, and each can be changed when necessary without affecting the others as long as the changes do not affect the communications among them. Using these practices, coupled with the open source framework, provided a flexible method for very rapid development of Evergreen in the early days and continues to this day. Focus groups were formed to ask library staff and patrons what features they would like to see and how they would like the OPAC to perform. How well they did that job is indicated by the increased usage that followed the introduction of Evergreen. For instance, year-over-year, holds increased by 30% - same libraries, same network, but a new interface that users found easier to use, and they did. The general process for development was “release early, release often,” a process followed to this day. Small, iterative changes were made and released for comment and testing - not rare mega updates. If there were a problem, the software could be fixed relatively quickly. In addition, the software was open source so that it was developed in the open, not secretly by a small group. Many eyes looking at software makes better code. Another aspect of Evergreen's development is “scratching an itch.” That is, development tends to focus on the problems that people want fixed, not necessarily theoretical problems or capabilities dreamt up by product managers in response to real or imagined competitive pressures. Any kind of software development will have its strengths and weaknesses. Scratching an itch will solve problems people really have, but the community does need a mechanism to guide development strategically to make sure that while solving this or that problem the software stays a coherent whole. As a result of what was learned about the first iteration of PINES, there were several key results expected from Evergreen. The original charge was to build something “scalable, robust and fault-tolerant.” And, of course, open source. What do those three new terms mean? Scalable means that the software can be deployed in different-sized libraries and that adding capacity is relatively easy. At the point where the decision was being made to move from the proprietary system that ran PINES, the server upgrade for the old system would have cost $1.5 million for a large server. Evergreen development cost the GPLS much less than that. Learning that lesson, Evergreen can be upgraded by adding “commodity” servers - that is, servers from any manufacturer or any do-it-yourself builder, and they can be added as needed. OpenSRF, clearly, allows Evergreen to scale easily. Because Evergreen is easy to use - remember the focus groups - as a library's users learn the software, they use it more, and growth can be done by adding relatively cheap, redundant servers, not million dollar boxes running proprietary software. Add a server or two, load OpenSRF, and you have upgraded. Evergreen runs on laptops, is currently running on a home library, and runs PINES with 16 million circulation transactions. Robust. Evergreen was designed to be able to keep functioning in dire circumstances. When a backhoe severed the PINES network, the Evergreen staff clients allowed libraries that were disconnected from the central databases to continue checking out books. When the network was restored, the database was updated by an established procedure. There was no need to write down transactions on paper. Consider: PINES has had a number of days recently with 100,000 circulations. If half the network were down for a half a day, that could be 25,000 sheets of paper to be managed. Not with Evergreen. Fault-tolerant. Servers can fail, and the system will keep on functioning. The use of redundant servers allows one to fail and the others to keep on functioning. Evergreen was designed as much as possible to never go down. Reflecting its history, Evergreen does not have acquisitions nor serials modules. Work on these two services is ongoing with releases expected by Spring 2009. It is a development project, but one coming from the library world to solve library problems. As was observed above, it has been quite difficult in the past to update software to reflect new demands on it. It did prove relatively easy to add web awareness to most existing library software but rather more difficult to add Web 2.0 capabilities and Unicode. Consortial capabilities have proved daunting. And as a result of Evergreen such capabilities are now touted by software in the market that may soon have those capabilities, too. How does Evergreen avoid these kinds of pitfalls of obsolescence? Maybe it doesn't but Evergreen's practices reflect the current best guess about how to engineer software so updating it is never as painful as it has been in the past with code bases even a few years old. Welcome to the future, version 1.

Throughout history, people have been searching for a more livable and better city. The “double carbon” strategy has put forward new requirements for the development of new smart cities, and the construction of new command cities is inevitable. The article firstly reviews the research on the development of smart cities at home and abroad and reviews the problems that exist in them. Then, it analyzes the current situation and problems in the development of new smart cities in Jining and the requirements for urban transformation and upgrading under the “double carbon” strategy, concerning the policy background of the development of new smart cities in Jining. Drawing on useful experiences from the construction of new smart cities at home and abroad, the article proposes countermeasures for the development of new smart cities in Jining in three dimensions: government, enterprises, and individuals, in the hope of promoting the development of new smart cities in Jining by taking active countermeasures. The article hopes to explore feasible countermeasures for the development of a new type of smart city at the prefectural level to provide a reference for the construction of smart cities in other small and medium-sized cities in China and to promote the urbanization and urban transformation process in China.

Smart and resilient cities are on the same path to long-term sustainability and need the creation of an ecosystem that can withstand an increasing number of hazards in the future. One of the primary goals of the smart city movement was to address many issues that have arisen as a result of growing urbanization, including the scarcity of energy, traffic congestion, and pollution. The way urban dwellers live, work, and travel due to more often natural disasters and political issues is changing, and this has an impact on the economy and business models, forming a new trend in urban studies. Smart cities play a critical role in the worldwide fight against Covid-19 in terms of tracking and tracing instances of coronavirus using smart technologies. The integration of smart buildings into a smart city also plays an important role in this scenario, providing advanced infrastructure and greater comfort for their residents as well as improved safety control, increased energy efficiency, accessibility to services, and overall satisfaction with a higher quality of life. The findings of this study are based on the review of papers selected from high-impact research journals, as well as an analysis of the most important industry tendencies and widely referenced literature on smart cities and resilient cities. As a result, this study examines the concepts of smart and resilient cities, as well as the relationship between smart city technologies, and resilient city indicators; the impact of technologies applicable in different smart city domains on city resilience is discussed. Finally, the conclusions on how proposed integration toward smart and resilient cities could be implemented for future cities’ development are presented.

The growth of city population has consequences on the sustainability and development of smart regions. International standards can provide good practices in wide areas related to environmental, security and social aspects that contribute to the achievement of economic and sustainable growth, well-being, and safe environment. The aim of this study is to explore if there is an association between the level of smart cities in different regions and the number of certificates that could initiate further development of smart and sustainable cities. We analysed standards that support the development of sustainable and smart cities from different countries and explored their influence on the level of smart and sustainable cities. To measure the performance of cities we used the UN-habitat City Prosperity Initiative (CPI) and its six dimensions: Productivity, Infrastructure Development, Quality of Life, Equity and Social Inclusion, Environmental Sustainability, and Urban Governance and Legislation. To analyse the influence of international standards on smart regions and cities initiative we conducted SEM analysis. The results of the research have proved that there is a significant difference between the level of smart cities in different regions and the number of certificates that could initiate further development of smart and sustainable cities. Additionally, a positive impact of international standards on the development of smart regions and cities is confirmed. We believe that the presented approach might provide additional insights into the factors which impact the development of smart regions and cities and initiate further studies on the topic.

A smart city is an urban policy innovation that can improve the community's quality of life by promoting environmental, social, and economic sustainability issues. The involvement and participation of civil society in developing smart cities is a major issue in implementing inclusive smart cities. However, gender issues are often forgotten in developing sustainable smart cities. This article examines two issues. First, the importance of gender issues integration in the development of sustainable smart cities in Indonesia. Second, the importance of gender mainstreaming policy in the development of smart cities in Indonesia. This is a desk study or literature study. Data were obtained from research results published in national and international journals. Data was obtained through accredited journal search engines, namely google scholar, SagePub and Researchgate. The research results show that development of smart city in Indonesia is not yet gender responsive, causing gender inequality gender and excluding women from development. To respond to this, thus there is a need for gender mainstreaming policies in developing smart cities through an overview of the challenges of gender mainstreaming in developing smart cities. Thus, this research recommends a gender mainstreaming strategy as a policy in developing smart cities in Indonesia. Gender mainstreaming policy in smart city development need to be to create a smart city life that is just, inclusive and involves women in development.

This study aimed to explore the case study of Brno city regarding smart city models. We analyzed Brno considering smart and sustainable city elements, i.e., smart mobility/public transport, smart technology, smart people, smart governance, smart economy, smart living, and smart environment based on transport, energy, and environment referred herein as the smart city and sustainability model. Therefore, we investigated a case study of Brno city in the Czech Republic. We used qualitative techniques such as case study, exploration, observation, and description. We analyzed and comprehended the trends in the various features of smart city and sustainable development of the city of Brno. The findings showed that Brno city is doing its best to maintain smart city models through its governance organs and structures. The city is also working hard to improve some of the aspects that are still lagging. The ongoing developments and the future ones are based on strategic planning for both the short term and long term such as Brno2023, Brno2030, and Brno2050. It was found that Brno has a very well-planned transport system and is integrated with other aspects such as technology, energy, such as the electricity that moves the trolleybuses and trams, and environment. We strongly conclude that even though Brno city still struggles to achieve total sustainability, it is still a model and reflection of a smart and sustainable city. Finally, we noted that Brno city has very good plans and vision the “DNA” of a smart city. However, the implementation still suffers political willingness.

Purpose: The Smart Cities due to their important role in infrastructure building activities and offering smart services to their residents in living an enjoyable life are always in the limelight and discussions. The current COVID-19 pandemic has however changed the situation, and has forced us to rethink the way we operate, carry out day to day activities and services. COVID-19 pandemic has changed the normal routine life to a significant extent, damaged the economies of many countries, shifted our business priorities, and so on. In such situations, how can Smart Cities remain unaffected due to COVID-19? This paper has analysed and discussed in detail the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Smart Cities operations and development and also, how this impact can be measured. It has described in detail how Smart Cities has changed their priorities and how they are more focusing on building Smart Healthcare facilities, Smart Isolation Wards, Smart Medicare facilities, services related to Telemedicine, Virtual Doctor, dedicated COVID-19 Command and Control Centres and so on. The paper has also highlighted the post COVID-19 Pandemic era for Smart Cities development and operations. Finally, the paper has concluded that Smart Cities development during and post COVID-19 Pandemic has witnessed a short obstacle in its growth journey, Smart Cities are definitely going to win the war against COVID-19 and will become Smarter in the future to tackle such pandemics. Design/Methodology/Approach: This research paper made use of available secondary data in research journal papers, online books, white papers, and dedicated websites on the research subject area to analyze the impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Smart Cities Development and Operations. Findings/Result: Due to COVID-19 Pandemic, it is observed that many sectors growth slow down due to budget cut and financial constraints, however, certain sectors such as Medical Infrastructure, Insurance, and eCommerce have seen booms, this has made Smart Cities to have a strong focus on certain Smart Services related to Medical facilities, IT infrastructure to facilitate contactless transactions, Telemedicine Service, Smart Isolation Wards, etc. whereas services with respect to entertainment parks, tourism, etc. slowed down due to less priority and budget constraints. Originality/Value: Based on the available secondary data, this research has identified the impact of COVID-19 on ongoing Smart Cities development and also how its priorities and focus got shifted to build up certain services and infrastructure. The paper has also highlighted post COVID-19, how Smart Cities development, operations, and maintenance activities will be affected. Paper Type: Secondary data-based Research

Legislation plays an important role in the provision of national and public library services. In Zambia, however, libraries that perform the functions of national and public libraries are operating without a legislative mandate. As a result, there is fragmentation of library services as there is no single institution which performs all the functions of a national library service. Although several efforts have been made in the past to enact national library service legislation, no Act of Parliament has been passed to date (2015). This study provides empirical evidence depicting the benefits of having legislation in the provision of national and public library services. The study identifies institutions that perform functions of national and public library services in Zambia. Quantitative data were collected through questionnaires administered to public library staff and interviews with senior government officials and executive members of the Zambia Library Association and Zambia Library Consortium. The study recommends that appropriate legislation that puts together the functions of public and national libraries under one institution be enacted in Zambia as soon as possible. Failure to transform this pattern will jeopardise the preservation of the country’s cultural heritage.

Due to high urbanization rate the issues of smart and sustainable city planning become very important currently. The planning and development of the concept “smart city” is based on these issues. Reasonable planning of city environment makes opportunities for city competitiveness increase and reduces negative trends in their development. Modern interpretations and approaches to the “smart city” concept are based on many factors. Among them are the increase of economic potential and budget security, the decline of ecological impact, human resources capitalization based on digital technologies application in society development. The review of literature that has been made allows us to classify “smart cities”, to determine features and to specify aims and tasks for their development. Using a definitional analysis the original comprehension of the “smart city” concept has been suggested. According to this interpretation a “smart city” is considered to be a city which resources are efficiently used by all participants, first of all by city- dwellers providing comfort, safety and eco – friendly environment. The analysis of Russian and foreign experience in the field of the “smart city” concept implementation, the results of a particularized inquiry and interview including those organized with the international professional social network Linkedin allowed us to reveal key challenges in “smart city” development. The most crucial among them are organizational, financial, infrastructural and technological obstacles that prevent the “smart city” concept implementation. We have substantiated that the solutions of the revealed problems in the case study of Russia first of all should concern the digitization of a city utilities sector, power engineering, building and public transport. They are also associated with wide-spread application of integrated digital platforms in management and education, in control over environmental pollution in the frameworks of the “Digital economy in the Russian Federation” program implementation. The prospects to create smart cities in Russia have been determined by means of identification of conditions for the solution of the acute tasks of digitization of regional and city agglomeration economy. We have formulated the trends of relevant studies of “smart cities” in the perspectives of development and implementation priority of the project “smart city” at all levels of public management. Also a methodology to calculate a long-term economic effect that will be caused by the project implementation has been developed. Keywords a “smart city” concept, a smart city, city environment, city economy management, digital economy, information and communication technologies, intelligent systems, infrastructure, ecology, development perspectives

City administrators have begun to consider citizens’ perception as an essential enabler of smart and sustainable city development. In response to their need, our study mainly aimed to analyze the citizens’ perceptions related to the attributes of a smart city and to offer an evidence-based importance–performance analysis (IPA) technique, revised with triangular number fuzzy, to set priorities to develop it further successfully, taking Oradea, Romania, as an example. Specifically, we investigated varying the citizens’ perceptions regarding the attributes of a smart city across the thematic content analysis followed by an IPA approach to identify the attributes of a smart city that could be expected to advance its future development. The results show that most of our respondents appreciated the city administrators’ efforts and expressed relatively higher preferences for the fifteen smart city attributes of Oradea on which the local authorities should focus. The research brings valuable insight into the strategic decision making related to smart city development, which can serve academics and practitioners, complementing existing literature on the citizens’ perception of sustainable smart city development.