New dimensions of public library services: providing information for local governments

Abstract

Local governments, for which fast access to rele-vant information is a crucial requirement, may ap-pear as a new and obvious target group of public library services. This article is based on a study investigating the possible ways of cooperation between the Local Government of Szigetvár and the City Library. Following a questionnaire survey, the possible ways of cooperation through library services were laid out. New services include SDI, the monitoring of businesses and competitors, benchmarking, support to the internal information system of the local government, as well as IT-mentoring.