Public library managers’ descriptions of political attention

Abstract

Purpose – Public library issues are often described as being of low political priority. Yet circumstances differ for different communities; public library issues may receive varying political attention. The purpose of this paper is to study how Swedish public library managers describe local politicians’ attention to public library issues and to identify which municipal circumstances, such as political organization, population, and finances, seem to matter for how local politicians’ attention is described. Design/methodology/approach – The empirical data were collected through a web-based questionnaire sent to all public library managers in Sweden. To identify the described political attention, a content analysis was done. A multinominal logistic regression analysis was performed to analyze the municipal circumstances that seem to matter for how political attention is described. Findings – A small majority of public library managers described the local political attention as strong or quite strong. Three factors seem to matter for how the attention is described: political organization, existence of a library plan, and population size. In the discussion personal factors, such as the politicians’ personal interest and public library managers’ experience, are brought up as possibly being of considerable importance. Originality/value – Several studies have been conducted on how politicians perceive public libraries; in these studies, the politicians are mainly treated as a unified group. This paper shows that the political approach to public library issues is described as different in different municipal circumstances.

The Public Library System as an Element in the 2007 and 2015 Electoral Programs of Spain's Political Parties in the Region of Castilla-La Mancha

“…By contrast, Hendry (2000) indeed finds substantial variations between Conservative and Labour policies for Public Libraries. All this tends to affirm Michnik's (2015) expression that "therefore, political affiliation among the local politicians seems to be relevant, but not to a large extent as the odds ratio is quite low in both cases. "…”

“…In the same spirit are to be found Michnik (2015) and Evjen (2015), and there are various articles which revise the impact of the New Public Management (NPM) and, above all, of those politics denominated as Neo-Liberal in the Libraries: changes of management models, focusing on individual wishes instead of in the collectiveness, or the enfeeblement, of the public sector. For example in the United Kingdom (McMenemy, 2009;Boughey & Cooper, 2010), and in Canada (Stevenson, 2011 r The library as an instrument of democracy, catalyst of transparency, weapon against corruption (Sturges, 2008) and ideal forum for the development of public and political debate (Alstad & Curry, 2003) in accordance with the concept of a public sphere of Habermas and that of the "third place" of Oldemburg.…”

“…It does not suffice that the value they may have for society is recognized in abstract mode if, for the greater part of this, they are considered as an obsolete institution or that their functions may be unknown. Except in the case of positive exceptions, as in the case of Denmark (Evjen, 2015), the general perception is that libraries have little mention in electoral programs, in spite of being a basic service according to the legislation and as alleged in the Spanish case of Sánchez (1994), and other authors relative to other countries of greater library tradition (Michnik, 2015;Gazo, 2011;Tuleu, 2011;Sveum & Tveter, 2012). Boughey and Cooper (2010) carried out an enlightening analysis of library policies in the United Kingdom between 2003 and 2009 comparing the proposed library polices with social demands (known by way of surveys and reports).…”

Library services to an aging population: A nation-wide study in the United States

“…At a more general level, the data here presented could be productively interpreted within the structure of a political, economic, social, and technological (PEST) analysis. As shown by Michnik (2015) in her analysis of how Swedish public library managers describe local politicians’ attitudes about public library issues, such an approach seeks “to identify external factors affecting an organization and/or its situation” (p. 676). In addition to the external factor of an aging planet (a social issue), other external factors that may shape the phenomenon studied in this article include politics (e.g.…”

Los edificios de las bibliotecas públicas en los programas electorales (Castilla-La Mancha, 2007-2015)

“…Sin embargo, se suele entender que el interés político en las bibliotecas es escaso, como concluyen los trabajos de Gazo (2011), Tuleu (2011, Sveum y Tveter (2012) y Michnik (2015), quien lo expresa así: "Los temas relativos a las bibliotecas públicas son políticamente pequeños y no se priorizan en la agenda política". Ante ello, los bibliotecarios nos debemos implicar más, debemos participar e incluir en la conformación de la agenda.…”