Abstract:

This paper presents a new conceptual model of the Universal Contemporary Information Center and its role both in supporting the individual development of people in the sustainable and harmonious development of society as a whole and community building. A key role in the concept of the model is the active use of the new information and communication technologies providing a timely and adequate response to the new information needs.

Modern society is characterized by a qualitatively new attitude towards information. Information is recognized as the main resource for all areas – politics, economy, education, health, culture, etc. The change process covers the whole spectrum of social life; it is ubiquitous and irreversible. Changes in the environment have created the need to create modern information institutions that meet a variety of personal and community needs including the creation of communities.

The Contemporary Information Center presented in this report reflects the demands and recommendations declared by the UN and IFLA in the UN Declaration on “Transforming our World: the 2030 Sustainable Development Program” and the IFLA Strategic Plan 2016- 2021. The main objective of the second document is to determine the direction and way in which libraries and information institutions can participate and contribute to the transformation and sustainable development of the world in which we live.

All these changes in the social and information environment, the new expectations of the users towards the library institutions give us a reason to offer a conceptual model of the library as a universal contemporary information center. The aim here is not to examine the structure and interconnections between the elements within the library exhaustively, but to specify its new structural and functional characteristics, tailored to the external environment and its relations with the other systems it interacts with. Its realization, in compliance with the changed conditions of the external environment, implies a significant change of the activities and the methods for their implementation. Generally speaking, the mission of libraries is to provide information that is adequate to the needs of society. In order to meet the real needs of information and services, the library has to come out of the traditional frameworks and enrich and develop both the resources provided and the activities carried out.

Each Universal Contemporary Information Center, based on the proposed concept, could play a significant role not only in the information and educational provision of society but also in building communities within it.

Keywords:

Universal Contemporary Information Center, Community Building, Mobile and Digital Library, Libraries.