engleski

Diversity of film collections in European public libraries

The main mission of public libraries is to provide a diverse offer of library resources and services to all the members of the community in which library operates. Public libraries, with their offers, have an influence on their patron’s information acquisition, and thus on the spread of democratic ideals. Regardless of the type of library resources, if libraries do not provide its patrons with a wide range of materials, resources and services, they can even unconsciously cause certain kinds of informational and cultural censorship. Films, as one of the most used type of library resources, can greatly contribute to the introduction and spread of different cultures. Public libraries often tend to purchase commercial films, mostly of American origin, knowing those films will be sought by their patrons, but ignoring other kinds of films which provide an insight into other cultures. If acting like that, public libraries could not successfully implement its democratic role to enable an equal access to the knowledge about various cultures. This research will be done in order to explore the extent of diversity of film collections of European public libraries. The following method will be used: examining of film records in online library catalogs of public libraries in ten European cities. In each catalog, the first hundred film records in alphabetical order will be analyzed to determine the country of film origin, the year of film production and the type of the film (documentary, animation, and feature). Analysis using these three criteria will provide insight into the diversity of film collections of public libraries of those European cities: Aarhus, Brno, Dublin, Lyon, Munich, Salzburg, Sankt Petersburg, Stockholm, Torino and Zurich. The results will confirm or reject the initial hypothesis that there is a dominance of recently made American feature films in the European public libraries.

Pluralism of Collections ; Variety of Viewpoints ; Censorship ; Access to Culture and Information ; European Public Libraries ; Film Collection

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