The Library’s Added Value

The idea of a library’s added value is the unique social profit of a library’s activity. It is a profit unknown by any other kind of organization or institution. It is generated by the professional activity of the staff and the intentional preparation of library processes. The main expression of this value is mediation within public communication, which takes place principally within the library. The structuralization of the offer is straightforward: arrangement, selection and weeding of the stock, knowledge and all subjects of any commu-nication transmissions, all of which are subsequently conveyed to the public. These transmissions are based both on the library’s own collection and on the collections of other libraries, with the productive addition of the electronic network’s offer. The library’s tender, as one unit, is predestinated for the actual public and proffered in a suitable context. It is promoted and made free to all library users. The library is also a regulator of most communication processes, and it also generates its own in-house information. What is more, the library prepares its own program of various ventures and entertainments for the public, in the facilitation of forms of public communication, assistance to all kinds of formal education, or as an aid to the cultural and social environment. All this, i n s u m, represents the library’s added value, and seems to be a good justification for the social use-fulness of a library as a public institution.