The Spanish Ministry of Culture in cooperation with Medialab Prado organized last month a Conference around the citizen labs in Public libraries.
Medialab Prado is a cultural centre working on the city and urban life of Madrid. It’s a citizen laboratory that works as a meeting point for the production of open cultural projects.
The opening talk was given by David Weinberger, who codirected for 5 years the Library Innovation Lab at Harvard University. He has written several books on “how the Internet is changing human relationships, communication, knowledge and society”. he is also author of the article Libraries as Platforms: Enabling Libraries to Become Community Centers of Meaning
You can see David Weinberger’s talk (in English) here:
Weinberger’s talk on the Library as a Platform triggered a debate on how Public Libraries can stay relevant in a hyperconnected world by becoming platforms for the interchange of experiences and the creation of knowledge. The library as a platform was described as a citizen laboratory where tools and projects are created to serve the needs of the community through the information accesible at the library.
It has to do with lifelong learning, community creation and access to information, 3 things that are in the core of the public library services.
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