Purpose

Social capital, understood as intangible community values available through a network of connections, is a factor in the development of societies and improving quality of life. It helps to remove economic inequalities and prevent poverty and social exclusion, stimulate social and regional development, civic attitudes and social engagement and build a civic society as well as local and regional identity. Many of these tasks may be implemented by libraries, which, apart from providing access to information, may also offer a number of services associated with social needs. The purpose of this paper is to present the roles and functions that libraries may serve in local communities in terms of assistance, integration and development based on classical social capital theories.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper reviews the classical concepts of social capital in the context of libraries. It analyses the findings of Pierre-Félix Bourdieu, James Coleman, Francis Fukuyama, Robert Putnam, Nan Lin, Ronald Stuart Burt, Wayne Baker and Alejandro Portes. Based on their respective concepts, the paper analyses the role of the contemporary library in the social life of local communities. In particular, it focuses on the possible new functions that public libraries may serve.

Findings

A critical review of the concept of social capital revealed certain dependencies between libraries and their neighbourhoods. With new services that respond to the actual social needs, libraries may serve as a keystone, namely they may integrate, animate and engage local communities. This, however, requires a certain approach to be adopted by the personnel and governing authorities as well as infrastructure and tangible resources.

Originality/value

The social engagement of libraries is usually described from the practical perspective (reports on the services provided) or in the context of research on the impact of respective projects on specific groups of users (research reports). A broader approach, based on original social theories, is rarely encountered. The paper draws on classical concepts of social capital and is a contribution to the discussion on possible uses of those concepts based on an analysis of the role of libraries in social life and in strengthening the social capital of local communities.

中文翻译：

---

公共图书馆在地方社区社会资本发展中的作用-一项理论研究

目的

社会资本被理解为通过联系网络可获得的无形社区价值，是社会发展和生活质量改善的一个因素。它有助于消除经济不平等，防止贫困和社会排斥，促进社会和区域发展，公民态度和社会参与，并建立公民社会以及地方和区域特征。这些任务中的许多任务可以由图书馆执行，图书馆除了提供对信息的访问之外，还可以提供与社会需求相关的许多服务。本文的目的是根据传统的社会资本理论，介绍图书馆在协助，整合和发展方面在本地社区中可能发挥的作用和功能。

设计/方法/方法

本文回顾了图书馆背景下的社会资本的经典概念。它分析了Pierre-FélixBourdieu，James Coleman，Francis Fukuyama，Robert Putnam，Nan Lin，Ronald Stuart Burt，Wayne Baker和Alejandro Portes的发现。基于它们各自的概念，本文分析了当代图书馆在当地社区社会生活中的作用。特别是，它着重于公共图书馆可能提供的新功能。

发现

对社会资本概念的严格审查揭示了图书馆及其社区之间的某些依存关系。借助能够满足实际社会需求的新服务，图书馆可以作为基石，即它们可以整合，赋予当地社区生气勃勃的活力并吸引他们的参与。但是，这需要人员和管理当局以及基础设施和有形资源采取某种方法。

创意/价值

图书馆的社会参与度通常是从实践的角度（关于所提供服务的报告）来描述的，或者是在研究各个项目对特定用户群的影响的情况下（研究报告）来描述的。很少会遇到基于原始社会理论的更广泛的方法。本文借鉴了社会资本的经典概念，并在分析图书馆在社会生活中的作用以及加强地方社区的社会资本的基础上，对这些概念的可能用途进行了讨论。