Stockholm's Public Libraries: Essential Public Spaces

Abstract: Public libraries are too often overlooked within the planning field. They reflect the cities in which they are situated and reveal the complex societal processes that take place there. Neoliberalism directly impacts the function of the public library and, as a result of leaving urban dwellers with fewer and fewer public alternatives, multiplies and modifies the demands made of it. Through semi structured interviews with professionals within the Stockholm library system, this research contributes to the planning field’s understanding of the public library as a public space and explores the way it is perceived as social, inclusive, and democratic. The interviews are analysed through a conceptual framework that combines literature from the field of urban planning with that of the library and information sciences, drawing additionally on variegated concepts of neoliberalism. The results suggest that the public library is considered by those professionally involved to be an inclusive and multicultural meeting place, which, with the support of librarians, promotes democratic principles through the largely expectation-free welcoming of patrons. Further analysis reveals neoliberal processes to be considered a threat to these characteristics and that this, alongside issues of equality and inclusivity, charges the library as a political space. The research posits the public library an indicator of wider societal processes and encourages planners, as well as other civic practitioners, to better exploit its underutilised informative and practical potential.