Danish Libraries Research Articles

A refreshing dive in Danish libraries: Impressions of af French intern librarian at the Royal Danish Library

A refreshing dive in Danish libraries: Impressions of af French intern librarian at the Royal Danish Library

Sustaining Library Makerspaces: Perspectives on Participation, Expertise, and Embeddedness

As the novelty of makerspaces in libraries slowly fades, this study examines how participation, expertise, and embeddedness in the library organization and surrounding community are sustained in library makerspaces. Based on interviews with makerspace practitioners in 13 Danish libraries, practices of maintaining, scaling, replicating, and evolving library makerspaces are analyzed. The findings propose a variety of practices and tensions concerning sharing ownership with user communities; scaling and prolonging users’ participation; building expertise through documentation, repetition, and sharing; collaborating with local community partners; and embedding makerspace practices into existing library practices, resources, and values. The results inform a discussion of participation, expertise, and embeddedness, which are distilled into three guiding principles that can help libraries reflect and address the sustainability of their makerspace over time.

Mergers and digital transformation in Danish research libraries

Abstract The Danish Ministry of Culture and Danish universities have pursued a policy of consolidation of research libraries. The wish to benefit from economies of scale was an important factor. Sustainability was another factor, the point being that the consolidation of scattered library-professional competencies will establish a secure basis for the necessary development of new library services to higher education and research. A distinctive feature are mergers, and a significant result is the current Det Kgl. Bibliotek/Royal Danish Library (RDL) which delivers service to five of the eight Danish universities. In this article, RDL’s strategy and governance are outlined.

Udlån af erfaringer

The aim of this paper is to investigate how an increasing fraction of the Danish libraries over the last years has experimented with lending of non-traditional materials. The main purpose is to examine how library staff can develop non-traditional lending initiatives that support a user-to-user exchange of experiences. The paper’s main contribution is the presentation of a model, “Erfaringsudlånsmodellen” (“The model of Experience Lending”), which describes how the cultural communication strategy of co-creation can be combined with the lending of non-traditional materials, which will result in an extension of the library collection that in the future can contain not only the materials, but the patrons’ experiences with the materials as well. A number of Danish and foreign examples of the lending of non-traditional materials are reviewed. Afterwards, two specific Danish alternative lending initiatives are investigated further. These are Valby’s Library’s “FrøLab” (“SeedLab”) and Risskov Library’s “Man Bliver Glad af Surdej!” (“Sourdough makes you happy!”) The lending design of these initiatives is discussed, and it is stated that the initiatives combine knowledge sharing tools with co-creation to facilitate an exchange of experience between users. This lending design is formalized in the model of Experience Lending, which is presented and discussed.

The Internationalization of Public Libraries — a Danish Case Study

This article deals with the question of how public libraries are facing the process of internationalization. In an empirical study, carried out between 2016 and 2018 as part of a government-funded project, the cooperation of small and medium-sized Danish libraries with corresponding foreign institutions was examined. Based on the concept of the path dependency of organizational decisions, the article investigates how strategic and structural measures as well as knowledge sharing and organizational learning support transnational cooperation. Initial results indicate that Danish libraries have taken very different paths to internationalization. The different paths they have taken are above all determined according to the local cultural policy, the institutional environment, the size of the library and the international commitment of staff and management.

The digital article service at the State and University Library, Aarhus, Denmark

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present a new service providing Danish citizens access to articles from printed journals delivered in a digital form. Design/methodology/approach – The paper describes the interlibrary loan infrastructure between Danish libraries and the legal agreement between the copyright holders and the State and University Library. Findings – The service already covers 82 per cent of the Danish population. Originality/value – The digital article service is a rather unique service, especially regarding the delivery of articles from popular printed magazines in digital form to the patrons.

Literature Promotion in Public Libraries – Between Policy, Profession and Public Management

This article discusses a model that can be used in order to analyse notions on literature promotion in public libraries. The model integrates different issues which interact with how literature promotion is understood and thought of in public libraries. Besides cultural policy we regard the logics of new public management (NPM) and professional logics in the field of public libraries. Cultural policy along with the identification of underlying logics present among politicians, government officials, managers and librarians/promoters of literature, play an important part in creating an understanding of literature promotion in Danish libraries. Thus the basic premise for the development of the model is that cultural policy (Policy) has an important influence on notions on literature promotion and other activities in public libraries, but that cultural policy must be seen in some kind of interaction with the logics of the profession (Profession) and NPM (Public management). The article further examines interrelations between Policy, Profession and Public Management. The article identifies a consensus between the NPM logic and the professional logic of the librarians regarding issues of measurement and visibility, and between cultural policy rationales and the NPM logic regarding the view on users. Finally a conflict regarding the goals of policy and librarians is identified. The article concludes that NPM as a means does not colonize the ends of cultural policy and literature promotion, but that the instrumental aspects of cultural policy in the field of public libraries have difficulties gaining access to the practice in public libraries.

Danish libraries in WorldCat – and ordering facilities to ten Danish libraries

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to present the Danish agreement with OCLC's WorldCat and the perspectives for international cooperation.Design/methodology/approachThe paper describes the Danish ILL cooperation, the project and WorldCat as a case study of international cooperation which will increase the effectiveness of the international ILL service.FindingsCooperation with an international organization works better when coordinated nationally.Originality/valueThe Danish agreement with OCLC covers both main activities: ILL and cataloguing – creation and use of bibliographic data.

Citizen services and public libraries: an analysis of a new service in Danish public libraries

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to analyse the introduction of citizen services in the public libraries in Denmark. The paper focuses on how library staff has perceived the introduction and how the library visitors look at it. The paper further elicits information about differences between library visitors using this service and visitors not using it.Design/methodology/approachThe paper examines the introduction of citizen services in two local libraries. It focuses on staff reactions and perceptions and it also analyses the use and perception of the service in relation to the traditional services. The paper is based on interviews with the involved library staff, citizen service users and administrative staff. The paper is also founded on a survey among library visitors in the two libraries. The survey was conducted as an on‐line and a paper‐based survey.FindingsThe major findings of the paper are that the library staff as a whole welcome the new work tasks because they feel that it is of value for the local community. The findings also indicate that a feared conflict between service tasks and authority tasks did not pose a problem in reality. The library visitors as a whole also welcomed the citizen service in the local libraries and perceived it as a kind of service improvement. Nearly, 25 per cent of the users have used this service in the library and they appreciated it very much. However, the service does not rank high in the visitors' perception of significance of library services. It indicates that the library visitors appreciate new services that are convenient but also that it does not matter that much. The paper also indicates that it is frequent library visitors who use citizen services in library most. There is no indication of the new library users as an effect of the introduction of citizen services in the library.Research limitations/implicationsThe limitation is, of course, that the paper is based on a study of only two local branches and it would be scientifically problematic to generalise the results – at least in a statistical sense.Originality/valueThe paper is based on a traditional evaluation study. It is one of the comprehensive assessments of introduction of citizen services in Denmark and some of the findings will be of wider interest for other libraries that intend to take up the cooperative service.

Service innovation in academic libraries: is there a place for the customers?

PurposeThe purpose of this article is to investigate whether management and employees in academic libraries involve users in library service innovations and what these user roles are.Design/methodology/approachThe article first reviews the literature focusing on innovation, new product development, new service development and library science with specific focus on users and management. Subsequently the research uses a case study approach to investigate management and customer involvement in a Danish academic library.FindingsResults from the case study show that academic libraries are making some attempts to draw on customers in service innovations and not only rely on management and employees. The main conclusion is that there are unexplored possibilities for customer involvement in library service innovations.Research limitations/implicationsOne limitation relates to the difficulty of generalization of the findings to other Danish libraries and especially other national contexts. The other one relates to the preponderance of the literature from sources outside the field of library management and library science. Therefore, library managers might have to be cautious in using the results of this study.Practical implicationsThe article has practical implications for library managers, employees, library science and innovation researchers alike.Originality/valueThe article is original because it generates new insights into management and especially customer involvement in academic library service innovations on the basis of an in‐depth case study of a Danish academic library.

Information provision to knowledge creation: Danish digital libraries strategy

This paper describes Danish digital libraries strategy in knowledge creation. While doing so, authors describe the role and issues for digital libraries. They have analysed the Danish deliberations regarding the development of digital library services in order to provide inspiration outside Denmark. They have described in detail history and strategies for development of e-services in public libraries in Denmark. They have also descried how and why Denmark's Electronic Research Library was established, via a network of cooperating electronic research libraries and how they developed digital library services in the library's environment. They also describe changes in education and learning, consequences for library development, developing a new role for the library, digital library services, concrete activities, and service development, institutional repositories and open access and organizational aspects – institutional partnerships in developing digital library in Danish point of view.

Knowledge in dialogue: empowerment and learning in public libraries

PurposeThe demand for learning is constantly increasing in transcultural knowledge societies. This paper aims to consider the impact of learning concepts, as developed by Danish libraries, and the way they relate to mutual recognition and social inclusion of ethnic minority groups.Design/methodology/approachConducting research on open social spaces as libraries and learning labs in libraries implies a multiple research design along with a differentiated analytical framework.FindingsLibraries in multicultural districts will be able to contribute to the fulfilment of integration purposes more effectively if they cease to be bound to the concept of information. In transformative and cross‐cultural learning contexts, the concept of knowledge should be employed.Practical implicationsStudying activities in libraries still need to be delimited from learning in schools. Enhancing multicultural learning with focus on learning styles, which permits a mutual reflection of significant symbol systems, will be desirable.Originality/valueThe paper shows, in the context of this study, knowledge emerged from the interaction of social and cultural capital.

The role of the library associations and organisations in the changing library landscape

PurposeThe paper seeks to outline the topography of Danish library associations and organisations and to analyse their role in the development of the libraries. Corporate trends and traits are used as the analytical framework.Design/methodology/approachThe paper focuses on cases and issues from the development of the Danish libraries and the research design is primarily desk‐top research combined with interpretations of previous research into the theoretical framework of corporatism.Practical implicationsThe paper offers some inspiration for cooperation among institutions and associations outlining some of the prerequisites for a solid corporation among different stakeholders.Originality/valueThe paper introduces a concept from political theory and uses it as an interpretative framework in relation to one of the cases of a rather successful cooperation in the library field.

Interlibrary lending and document supply: past, present and future

The authors give an overview of remote document supply in the world today and some of the key factors influencing its development. They illustrate this by referring to the Ghana project – a collaborative project between Danish and Ghanaian libraries to facilitate document supply, funded by IFLA. Finally, they make some predictions for the future.

Managing change in Danish libraries

L'A. decrit les derniers developpements intervenus dans le secteur des bibliotheques au Danemark, dans un contexte sociologique et organisationnel, en insistant sur le processus de gestion et les caracteristiques des leaders et des gestionnaires. Comme dans d'autres pays, la tendance est au developpement du leardership. Les leaders doivent posseder les competences necessaires pour naviguer dans un espace caracterise par de nouvelles pressions conflictuelles, issues des demandes de l'etat ou de l'organisme de financement, des utilisateurs et du personnel. Une comparaison avec les gestionnaires britanniques souligne les differences au niveau des approches et des outils utilises pour la gestion.

Knowledge in Time: Strategic Perspective for Danish University Libraries

In a letter dated 7 December 2001, the Danish Rectors' Conference asked its Library Committee to describe the prospects and problems of university libraries seen from a visionary, strategic perspective. Subsequently the Committee decided to make a survey of how the more important university libraries viewed their future. Wilbert van der Meer of the Danish Rectors' Conference Secretariat carried out this survey, and it was integrated into a vision paper, which the Committee discussed at number of meetings. Following this phase, the Library Committee of the Danish Rectors' Conference prepared the present report "Knowledge in Time" / "Timely Knowledge" on the strategic perspective for Danish university libraries. The Paper was not conceived as a Master Plan for the future library development of Danish universities, but as an outline of the most important developmental perspectives discernible today. At a time in which events develop with unparalleled turbulence, it is important for university libraries to ensure that their knowledge development is not determined by plan-thinking, which is not tantamount to saying that it should not be based on functional planning, and that important elements in their strategic competence - in addition to a clear-cut perspective - are the ability to improvise together with healthy self-assurance. Only if they posses these qualities will they be able to aim for a strategic horizon which is itself constantly moving.

Improving library users’ perceived quality, satisfaction and loyalty: an integrated measurement and management system

This article describes the development and application of a structural equation model which allows librarians to quantitatively measure library users’ perceived quality, satisfaction and loyalty with a library as well as the degree to which specific elements of a library’s services, collections and environment contribute to those perceptions. The article reports the results of a survey among users at five Danish libraries with particular attention to the Copenhagen Business School Library.

Bibliotek.dk: immediate access to Danish libraries

bibliotek.dk is a development project, resulting in a Web site which gives the Danish citizens access to search and order material in the collections of Danish public and research libraries via the Internet. This article deals with the use and the users’ view of the Web site.

Library directors under cross‐pressure between new public management and value‐based management

Presents some of the main results from a comprehensive survey conducted in 2001 into leadership and management in Danish libraries. The survey focused on leadership roles, perception of future challenges, perception of educational needs and the employment of different leadership tools. The main theme for the paper is an analysis of the data in relation to new public management and value‐based management. The paper starts with a theoretical framework that emphasises the powers that create a certain sort of cross‐pressure. The broad concepts of new public management and value‐based management are outlined. The paper analyses the leaders’ knowledge of leadership tools, classified according to their place in either new public management or value‐based management. The paper also analyses the perception of future leadership roles. It was found that library leaders tend to perceive future roles as being greatly oriented towards people and towards values and see themselves as a kind of catalyst for change.

Immediate access to Danish libraries – with bibliotek.dk

Since late 2000 bibliotek.dk has been giving all Danes access to the Danish National Union Catalogue. The development of this new service is described. The new facilities are seen from both the libraries’ point of view and from the user’s perspective. bibliotek.dk is not only a database, but also a portal with access to a wide range of library Net services. The actual development plan for bibliotek.dk is described in detail. Several initiatives to enrich the access to information and to rationalise the libraries’ work with bibliotek.dk are presented. The service is also used as the basis for the development of new services to the user, including an “Available for sale” button which gives access to the vendors of a specific item.