Public Libraries as Breeding Grounds for Bonding, Bridging and Institutional Social Capital: The Case of Branch Libraries in Rural Denmark

• Published in: Sociologia ruralis 2013-01, Vol.53 (1), p.52-73
• Main Author: Svendsen, Gunnar Lind Haase
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Collaboration; Cooperation; Cultural Capital; Denmark; Human capital; Libraries; Public libraries; Rural and urban sociology; Rural Areas; Rural Communities; Rural sociology; Social capital; Sociology; Values; Voluntary organizations; Volunteers
• ISSN: 0038-0199; 1467-9523
• DOI: 10.1111/soru.12002

Public libraries are eminent providers of human and social capital, not least in small rural communities where such meeting places are becoming scarce in many areas of the world. Drawing on data from a questionnaire survey, this article reports on social capital creation at branch libraries in 62 rural municipalities in Denmark, as reported by the municipal library managers. A main empirical result is the extensive collaboration between the branch libraries and other public institutions in the local area, which often also involves volunteers from the civic society. Hence, it is shown that, besides micro‐level social capital, valuable social capital is created among public and voluntary institutions collaborating on local core and noncore library services. In this way, public libraries are not only breeding grounds for two well‐known types of social capital – bonding and bridging – but also for a highly valuable third type, institutional social capital. It is argued that the closing down of more than half of branch libraries in rural Denmark since 1988, is partly due to politicians being ignorant of the great socioeconomic value of these ‘gracious spaces’, which has a strong capacity to foster ‘full‐scale’ community social capital consisting of all three types of social capital.