The Role of Public Libraries in Community Building
Abstract
King County in Washington State is home to two large urban library systems, King County Library (KCLS) and Seattle Public Library (SPL). KCLS and SPL are effectively building community through their library service. Professionals in the fields of library and information science, public libraries, and community development discuss these successes and the ways that public libraries can build a strong community. Five facets of community building are explored: (1) how libraries serve as a conduit to access information and to learn, (2) how libraries encourage social inclusion and equity, (3) how libraries foster civic engagement, (4) how libraries create a bridge to resources and community involvement, and (5) how libraries promote economic vitality within the community.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Scott (2011) argues that libraries function as conduits for learning, inclusion, civic engagement, access to resources and local economic vitality.
“Scott (2011), from a broader community-building perspective, similarly argues that libraries function as conduits for learning, inclusion, civic engagement, access to resources and local economic vitality.”
From Public libraries as social infrastructure: An integrative review of community roles (2026) · cites this paper as Scott, 2011
Public libraries provide free, legitimate and routine access to space, resources, devices, collections and programmes.
“Public libraries provide free, legitimate and routine access to space, resources, devices, collections and programmes.”
From Public libraries as social infrastructure: An integrative review of community roles (2026) · cites this paper as Scott, 2011
Accessible infrastructure is foundational because every other effect depends on it.
“This is foundational because every other effect depends on it (Aabø and Audunson, 2012;Scott, 2011).”
From Public libraries as social infrastructure: An integrative review of community roles (2026) · cites this paper as Scott, 2011
Cites
Willingham, T. L. (2008) · Public Library Quarterly · doi:10.1080/01616840802114820 · Cited by 50 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
The image of an institution: Politicians and the urban library project
Evjen, S. (2015) · Library & Information Science Research · doi:10.1016/j.lisr.2014.09.004 · Cited by 37 · see citing works
Public libraries as social infrastructure: An integrative review of community roles
Lee, K. (2026) · Journal of Librarianship and Information Science · doi:10.1177/09610006261461777
- Authors
- Scott, R.
- Affiliations
- Seattle Public Library (US)
- Corresponding author
- Scott, Rachel
- ORCID
- Scott, Rachel
- Venue
- Public Library Quarterly
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2011-07
- Volume
- 30
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 191-227
- ISSN
- 0161-6846 (ISSN-L)
- 1541-1540
- OpenAlex
- W1995999840
- Cited by
- 193
- References
- 1
- Citations by year
- 2026: 17 · 2025: 36 · 2024: 24 · 2023: 17 · 2022: 19 · 2021: 19 · 2020: 16 · 2019: 12 · 2018: 6 · 2017: 2 · 2016: 9 · 2015: 6 · 2014: 6 · 2013: 3 · 2012: 1
- FWCI
- 21.55
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Public Library Quarterly (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Library and Information Sciences › Library Science and Administration
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Web and Library Services
- Social Sciences › Library and Information Sciences › Library Science and Information Literacy
- Keywords
- public libraries, community building, Seattle Public Library, social inclusion, equity, citizen participation, access to information, economic vitality, community participation
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
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