Achieving public participation often is a goal for public budgeting entities, but it is difficult to accomplish in practice. This study examines three questions: How do public representatives interpret and define their democratic responsibilities? What are their insights regarding opportunities for and barriers to participatory budgeting processes? To what extent are these goals met? To address these questions, this research employs a qualitative research strategy with a case study design of a public university budgeting committee. The findings reveal that respondents (1) define their mission structurally and procedurally, (2) identify a need for ethical behavior and leadership, and (3) recognize that democratic values such as participation and efficiency are in tension with one another. Being open and inclusive comes in the form of the citizen–public administrator dialectic and requires intellectual, ethical, and practical engagement with competing democratic values.

In this article academic librarians present and analyze a model for community-

Purpose-Social Media Optimization (SMO) offers guidelines by which libraries can design content for social shareability through social networking services (SNSs). The purpose of this paper is to introduce SMO and discuss its effects and benefits for libraries. Design/methodology/approach-Researchers identified and applied five principles of SMO. Web analytics software provides data on web site traffic and user engagement before and after the application of SMO. Findings-By intentionally applying a program of SMO, the library increased content shareability, increased user engagement, and built community. Research limitations/implications-Increasing use of SNSs may influence the study results, independent of SMO application. Limitations inherent to web analytics software may affect results. Further study could expand analysis beyond web analytics to include comments on SNS posts, SNS shares from library pages, and a qualitative analysis of user behaviors and attitudes regarding library web content and SNSs. Practical implications-This research offers an intentional approach for libraries to optimize their online resources sharing through SNSs. Originality/value-Previous research has examined the role of community building and social connectedness for SNS users, but none have discussed using SMO to encourage user engagement and interactivity through increased SNS traffic into library web pages.

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Libraries expand the access and visibility of data and research in support of an informed public. Search engines have limited knowledge of the dynamic nature of libraries - their people, their services, and their resources. The very definition of libraries in online environments is outdated and misleading. This article offers a solution to this metadata problem by redefining libraries for Machine Learning environments and search engines. Two ways to approach this problem include implementing local structured data in a knowledge graph model and “inside-out” definitions in Semantic Web endpoints. [LIBRARY A] has found that implementing a “Knowledge Graph” linked data model leads to improved discovery and interpretation by the bots and search engines that index and describe what libraries are, what they do, and their scholarly content. In contrast, [LIBRARY B] has found that contributing to Wikidata, a collaborative and global metadata source, can increase understanding of libraries and extend their reach and engagement. This article demonstrates that Wikidata can be used to push out data, the technical details of knowledge graph markup, and the practice of semantic Search Engine Optimization (SEO). It explores how metadata can represent an organization equitably and how this improves the reach of global information communities.