Public libraries – challenges and opportunities for the future [Keynote address]

Public libraries were established by means of taxes and overseen by governing bodies to provide equitable, optional, access to books or physical artefacts free of charge for everyone. Their basic characteristics have not changed but the services and how they are provided has been reinvented many times since the 19th century. Today the challenges facing libraries are profound. Continued technological advances, increased competition, demographic transformations, and financial constraints are putting huge pressures on libraries to innovate and to re-examine the services they offer. This paper examines these and the opportunities for future public library provision.