Sustainable Development in Danish Public Libraries

1 Introduction

In 2015, the United Nations adopted a program of principles, Agenda 2030, which consisted of seventeen sustainable development goals and 169 targets. The ambition was to create a more sustainable world and improve living conditions for all people by the year 2030. The sustainable development goals were created as the latest of several responses to some of the global challenges humanity currently faces and have since served as a supranational benchmark, the most important components of which are 1) sustainable change within production and consumption, and 2) more equitable distribution of resources. Sustainability in production and consumption is important because the current utilisation of resources has reached a level of intensity seriously threatening to do irreparable damage to the ecological cycle. Therefore, new considerations regarding the exploitation of natural resources are necessity. At the same time, the material and economic inequality in the world has grown, with fewer people owning still larger parts of the resources. This bias has had several consequences, including a decline in the living conditions of poor people and increased migration movements.^[1]

In the ambition to create sustainable production and consumption, and a more equal and just world, culture plays a crucial but neglected role. The report Culture 2030 global campaign states how:

“The reality is that references to culture in the SDGs are scarce and do not sufficiently acknowledge the many ways in which cultural aspects influence and contribute to sustainable development. The keyword analysis of the VNRs research finds that the cultural dimension of sustainable development lags significant behind.”^[2]

However, culture may be regarded in many ways.^[3] In this article, I will use Christian Jantzen’s pragmatic definition,^[4] which builds on the dual concept of culture, originally developed by Johan Fjord Jensen.^[5] Fjord Jensen describes how there are two scientific definitions of culture: an aesthetic definition, denoting man’s different artistic creations (the narrow conception of culture as something we may own), and an anthropological definition, denoting man’s different ways of life (the broad conception of culture as something, we may be). Fjord Jensen points out how these two definitions are two perspectives on the same phenomenon, and hence denote his model “the double culture concept” (author’s translation). Culture refers to something people are because communities always produce objects, rituals, etc. which people in communities have in common – and vice versa: culture always refers to the objects, rituals, etc. which communities have in common because people in communities live their lives together. Jantzen expands this double concept of culture and proves how action unites the two cultural perceptions:

“Culture is not something which exists. It neither is something to be nor something to have. ‘Culture’ is something that is done: it is an effect or consequence of actions, such as makes texts explicable and interpretable as explanations and interpretations of life. It is the core of the pragmatic concept of culture, which is based on concrete actions: in the processes in which meaning is actualised and realised, and in which this formation of meaning produces effect.”^[6]

This definition of culture as action makes it possible to understand the public libraries of the Western world and their long-standing function as cultural laboratories. The Western public libraries have long functioned as frameworks in which citizens could experiment with and exercise their democratic participation in a safe, institutional setting and where enlightenment and cultural activities still played crucial roles. Enlightenment refers to a process where citizens are informed about social and political decisions concerning the individual’s personal conditions, her family relationships and/or local circumstances,^[7] while cultural activity denotes activities allowing citizens to evaluate their cultural skills and actions in community with others. As such, the sustainable development goals are an obvious topic for the Danish public libraries – but this is apparently not the case. Firstly, the Danish public libraries were slow to respond.^[8] The sustainable development goals were adopted in 2015 and the first, specific initiatives appeared approximately 3 years later, in 2018. As one of the participants in my study put it: “we have certainly not been […] first movers!”.^[9] Secondly, I have an assumption that considerations regarding the sustainable development goals’ impact on the social legitimacy of public libraries are absent. Several leading members of the Danish library community emphasise their view of public libraries as significant players in the attempt to fulfil the sustainable development goals,^[10] but very few have specified which overall ideological changes public libraries can, must and should implement. The recommendations are often limited to passive declarations of intent to ensure free and equal access to information and/or the designation of library-relevant sustainable development goals.^[11] Thirdly, I assume that initiatives concerning the sustainable transformation of the library’s core services often refer to services which were a part of the public libraries’ activities already before 2015 and which, under the impression of the sustainable development goals, are being renamed.^[12] Business as usual is fine if it contributes to the fulfilment of one or several essential goals but must not appear as greenwashing in which case the public library could lose popular legitimacy.^[13]

Against this background, it is interesting to study what cultural initiatives the Danish public libraries are launching to contribute to the implementation of the sustainable development goals. The research question which this project aims to answer is the following: what cultural contributions do public libraries make to the Danish society’s fulfilment of UN’s sustainable development goals? This article focuses on the cultural aspects and examines what culture initiatives public libraries in an industrially developed country may initiate, to create space for citizens’ reflection and self-reflection and thus for changes in attitudes and actions in a sustainable direction.^[14] I assume, that access to information does not solve any problem on its own, but access to information is crucial as a basis for being able to make well-considered decisions and the enablement of appropriate acts.

2 Theoretical framework

Through his analyses of the path of French, English, and German society towards free constitutions, Jürgen Habermas identifies the political realm as a specific sphere arising between the state and the private realm.^[15] The political realm developed in the 18th and 19th centuries as a sphere where citizens could partake in public affairs and gain political influence – but the path to this went via the world of the letters (see table 1). According to Habermas, the arts debates and especially the literary debates played a crucial role in the development of the bourgeoisie’s mind-set in accordance with democratic values, because the debate with its argumentative, debating, and critical form served as an exercise area for the democratic conversation – a form which was later translated into active participation in the political realm:

“Even before the control over the public sphere by the public authority was contested and finally wrested away by the critical reasoning of private persons on political issues, there evolved under its cover a public sphere in apolitical form – the literary precursor of the public sphere operative in the political domain. It provided training ground for a critical public reflection still preoccupied with itself – a process of self-clarification of private people focusing on the genuine experiences of their novel privateness. Of cause, next to political economy, psychology arose as a specifically bourgeois science during the eighteenth century. Psychological interests also guided the critical discussion (Räsonnement) sparked by the products of culture that had become publicly accessible: in the reading room and the theatre, in museums and at concerts.”^[16]

The art and literature debates trained the communicative skills of the aspiring bourgeoisie, who saw opportunities to acquire political action abilities and to change their position from passive commoners to co-determining citizens who took an active part in the leadership of society. At the same time, the democratic dialogue had a decisive influence on the prevailing perception of culture as a prescription for how citizens can, should and must act. The democratic mind-set became par excellence a normative ideal for the whole way of life: in the interaction between people, in the relationship between the sexes, in the upbringing of children, etc.

Many of the Western public libraries arose at the same time as the nations’ transitioned to democratic constitutions and hence became one of the institutions which came to institutionalise democratic action in practice.^[18] Therefore, the concepts of enlightenment and cultural activity are still crucial to the public libraries’ self-understanding and in the library professional practices.^[19] The public libraries’ concept of enlightenment draws on Immanuel Kant’s dictum of man’s opportunity to detach himself from his self-inflicted incompetence by means of his rational judgment.^[20] Through reason it is possible for the individual to empower herself, but it is a continuous process requiring persistent enlightenment: only by applying the insights knowledge provides, is it possible to achieve political and cultural influence, better one’s living conditions, etc. Therefore, it is not sufficient when, for example, Meschede et al.,^[21] Kosciejew,^[22] or Pichman^[23] claim that the public libraries’ most significant contribution to the sustainable development goals is to provide access to information. There is more to it, namely action!

Cultural activity defines the parts of the public library’s activities reaching beyond dissemination of information and enlightenment. Cultural activity provides citizens with the opportunity to gain subjective and collective experiences of democratic participation through common action and at the same time to be able to reflect on the diversity of the world. According to Henrik Kaare Nielsen,^[24] literature (and other cultural activities) holds this function because the aesthetic experience in cultural activities must be considered based on Kant’s second concept: the one on reflective judgment. Reflective judgment refers to the, in principle, infinitely subjective process of experience arising in people’s encounter with artistic objects and cultural manifestations. In this encounter, the viewer/reader/participant is confronted with an infinite series of possible interpretations of the aesthetic content. Because the content is of an aesthetic nature and thus cannot be determined in normative or scientific terms, the interpretation is in principle open to discussions. This openness may be transferred to social conditions because the social field cannot be defined in normative or scientific terms either and hence reminds people of their subjective presence in the world we have in common. Through the reflective judgement people gains the opportunity to reflect on other people’s alternative perceptions of the world, to make introspective self-observations, and realise their own subjectivity. Reflection and self-reflection nuance our perceptions of other people and ourselves, and thereby influence our attitudes and actions.^[25] Any artistic or cultural activity thus creates opportunities for subjective reflections to be specified through democratic conversations and used in other areas, such as for instance a politically conscious consumer:

„Die Bevölkerung wird im Hinblick auf die Zukunftsfähigkeit der Gesellschaft als wichtigster Akteur eingestuft, nimmt sie doch mehrere Rollen ein. Als Konsument ist sie der wichtigste Ressourcenverbraucher und kann durch entsprechendes Verhalten Veränderungsprozesse bewirken. Wahlberechtigte können politische Entscheidungen für mehr Nachhaltigkeit erzwingen oder gezielt Umweltorganisationen unterstützen.“^[26]

The library professional interpretation of the concepts enlightenment and cultural activity is specified in the activities made available by public libraries through their function as cultural laboratories.^[27] The starting point was originally the individual’s democratic and active participation in society’s decision-making processes as a citizen, but the sustainable development goals provide these processes with a new direction.^[28] The sustainable development goals may be seen as an attempt to create a series of new common benchmarks, the aim of which is to support a democratic development – in a more sustainable and just direction. The sustainable development goals identify the problems, try to create agreement on end goals and set a political framework around possible solutions – but the scale of the problems is of such a nature that they cannot be solved unless states, institutions, organisations, and ordinary people act together.^[29]

3 Analytical considerations

This theoretical framework is the focal point for how my empirical data are being analysed. In Denmark, library policy priorities are often implemented at an institutional level via central authorities’ official guidelines and recommendations,^[30] which, however, was not the case with the sustainable development goals. Instead, several interest groups, like Library managers’ associations,^[31] the Danish library association^[32] and the Danish union of cultural and information academics^[33] entered the debate and posted suggestions on the development possibilities of public libraries. My analysis model is based on one of these interest organisations – local government Denmark^[34] – and their contribution. Local government Denmark is an interest organisation for the ninety-eight municipal councils in Denmark and aim to ensure the local development of municipalities, as well as contribute to the further development of municipal self-government and local democracy. As the operation of the Danish public libraries is municipal, local government Denmark also represent the public libraries’ superiors. In a paper from 2021, local government Denmark states how:

“The library has all the prerequisites to support several the UN’s world goals, which many municipalities are already working on – special focus on health and well-being (world goal 3), quality education and lifelong learning (world goal 4) as well as focus on sustainable cities and communities (world goal 11).”^[35]

These three areas are part of the public libraries’ information and cultural activities and I therefore choose them as the first part of my analysis model. The second part is based on a publication from a workgroup under EBLIDA called European libraries and sustainable assessment.^[36] In the publication Toward the implementation of SDG indicators in European libraries, ELSA states how:

“Libraries and other cultural institutions operate on the construction of mental beliefs and social habits; therefore, they contribute to shaping, reinforcing, and consolidating trends and opinions. A choral, systematic library action may therefore be decisive, provided that the SDG-oriented library policy is well constructed and corroborated by sound indicators.”^[37]

ELSA proposes three indicators: output, outcome, and impacts as a starting point for assessing the public libraries’ implementation of the sustainable development goals. Outputs are defined as the immediately visible results of activities and the extent to which they have been used, such as the number of participants at events or circulation figures. In contrast, outcome is defined as the positive changes in people’s lives resulting from a library product or service. Outcome is usually linked to the goals of a specific service or activity and shows how successful these are, for instance in the form of citizen involvement and commitment. The third element, impact, is defined as the long-term, strategic changes and is about the long-term impact of the cultural institution’s activities on people’s lives and/or local communities.^[38]

4 Method

The present study is designed as a hypothetical-deductive research project based on the ambitions of various Danish public libraries to implement the United Nations’ sustainable development goals. The field of tension between personal emancipation and collective discipline existing in the professional activities of public libraries^[39] also exists in my scientific method. I am influenced by the Scandinavian tradition of cultural analysis, where man is considered in possession of a free will, but also always under the influence of society’s current, collective, and social structures.^[40] Since I am interested in an institutional field where it is the result of mutual interaction processes, I want to analyse, I consider my observations and interpretations as reconstructions of the observed reality.^[41] This study uses a mixed method approach and contains documentary studies of reports on practical projects, review of a strategy plan, participation in a conference day in March 2022 and interviews with 5 participants employed at Danish public libraries.^[42]

The literature forming the basis of my documentary studies is compiled through searches performed on December 9, 2021, in the databases EBSCO (44 hits), JSTOR (8 hits) and LISA (58 hits). The goal of the search is to find reports on practical projects, as well as scientific articles about the public libraries’ labour with the sustainable development goals in a Western context. Therefore, I omit articles concerning other types of libraries (e. g., university libraries), articles regarding countries outside the Western world (e. g., Nigeria and India), and articles from before 2015. The search consisted of the following search string:

((sdg or sustainable development goals) AND

(Public library or public libraries or public library services)) AND

la:(eng OR en)

The search yielded a total of 110 hits. After a thorough and critical review of the verified articles, where duplicates, irrelevant material according to the above criteria and materials in languages other than Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, English, and German were sorted out, I ended up with a search set of twenty-three articles and reports. These documents were reviewed and sorted into scientific and non-scientific publications. A thorough search of the websites of seven locally selected public libraries revealed that only one had an actual strategy for implementing the United Nations’ sustainable development goals. This strategy was included as a background for the analysis.

My point of departure is a hypothetical deductive perspective, and I chose to expand my documentary study with semi-structured interviews and to prepare an interview guide.^[43] The semi-structured interview is a subcategory of the ethnographic interview^[44] and useful for studies of individual considerations made by employees based on collective norms, for instance in connection with studies of institutional contexts. As there are (yet) no general recommendations from superior library authorities, I am interested in how designated staff members manage the formulated, albeit vague, responsibilities required to implement the United Nations’ sustainable development goals. Simultaneously, I am aware of how my approach intervenes with the subject field. As a researcher within library and information sciences, my questions constitute the subject field as a problem area for myself as a researcher and for the employees who function as my informants. Hence, my questions implicitly enable the interviewees to reconstruct and formulate their own experiences why I refer to these as participants and not respondents.^[45] Had I asked other questions, I would have created an alternative framework and thus received different answers.^[46] At the same time, my questions set a framework for how I can interpret the participants’ answers. To deal with this uncertainty, the questions in the interview guide are based on my theoretical approach and on my analysis considerations.

Initially, I chose to contact one medium-sized public library to get different perspectives on the public library’s endeavours to implement the sustainable development goals. The intention was to find five participants from different departments for instance administration, management, front, and back-office teams and to conduct semi-structured interviews with these participants. This strategy quickly proved to be unrealisable. Firstly, there was only one staff member who responded to my initial inquiries at the selected public library and secondly, my contact revealed how many institutions have not yet written the sustainable development goals into their local strategies, but often leave the responsibility to one or a few employees, whose task is to generate ideas for the parent institution’s sustainable development projects.^[47] Furthermore, the project orientation meant that the public library focuses on the sustainable agenda for a limited period, after which a product or result must be available ready for implementation in the institution. It was thus the task of the designated employees to develop these products or results and to keep colleagues and management informed about the transitions in their organisation. As soon as this became clear, I chose to expand my empirical basis and contacted four additional institutions. One public library never responded to my request, while another declined participation due to a lack of initiatives. The remaining public libraries wanted to conduct couple interviews where two staff members were present at the same time which I accepted.^[48] My interview basis thus consists of interviews with five participants conducted in the period 18th–31st January 2022. The five participants were Sena (marketing employee), Sam (process and development consultant) Jon (library disseminator) Kim (area manager) and Gerd (learning consultant and project manager). Furthermore, I was invited to one of these public libraries’ Sustainability conference in March 2022, to give a short presentation together with other library professionals and practitioners.

All interviews were recorded on a smartphone and transcribed immediately after recording, where the social interaction still stood clear in my memory. The individual interviews were then coded based on my analytical categories which required numerous iterations, thematic considerations, and comparisons of statements, arguments, and descriptions. After coding, the analytical activities, and the selection of quotes began. The individual interviews lasted between 40–70 minutes and all quotes are translated by me.

5 Analysis

All the participants emphasised three overall focus points: 1) to make the sustainable development goals as specific and understandable as possible to the citizens, and 2) to designate the parent institution as a local communicator of the sustainable development goals. The United Nations sustainable development goals were considered “very high-flying”^[49] and as something which the public library had to translate and transform into an understandable everyday context. In addition, the participants mentioned the public libraries 3) as a corrective to current production and consumption structures and were, in several participants’ self-understanding, part of a sharing economy system functioning as an alternative to prevailing, commercial structures.^[50] As Gerd put it: “The library is actually the oldest sustainable thought we have!”^[51] In addition to these similarities, there was great variation in how far the various parent institutions were in their transition processes, how they approached the implementation of the sustainable development goals, and what topics they found significant.

6 Discussion

For a long time, public libraries have served as cultural laboratories for people’s self-initiated cultural practices, whether these were aimed at the individual’s role as an enlightened and active participant in the political realm, the world of letters, or as a (self-)reflective actor in the conjugal family’s internal space cf. Habermas.^[79] At the same time, the sustainable development goals can be regarded as an enlightenment project obligating public libraries to take the goals into account in all aspects of their core activities, which is why the content of the cultural laboratory has been given a sustainable profile. As mentioned, three issues united the participants: 1) the ambition to make the sustainable development goals as specific as possible, 2) to consider the parent institutions as a local disseminator, and 3) to make the parent institution function as a corrective to society’s current production and consumption structures.

The local anchoring became particularly clear regarding the identification of subjects concerning sustainable cities and communities, which constitute a fundamental condition for the work with the other sustainable development goals in public libraries. This was to be expected because the Danish municipalities are required by law to conduct local public library services.^[80] The participants emphasised how cooperation between municipal, private, and voluntary actors supported the creation of popular support and anchoring,^[81] but also provided the local population with knowledge and information about the local challenges of the sustainable development goals – and thus provided the citizens the opportunity to adjust their current actions accordingly (Sena and Jon), for instance in collaboration with the local water supply department (Gerd). These results broadly refute my third assumption: that the parent institutions simply renamed business as usual to make activities fit into the United Nations’ 2030 agenda.^[82] It should, however, be noted how activities mentioned by the participants were exhibitions, reading clubs, theme days, etc., which are activities appealing to the traditional users of the public library: the literary bourgeoisie.

The locally anchored specification of the sustainable development goals took place especially within the framework of the two other subject areas: good health and well-being, and quality education. The population in industrialised societies are not characterised by physical illnesses or malnutrition, but by mental illnesses, stress, and loneliness. Hence, the attention of the surveyed public libraries centred on for instance the prevention of social isolation among elderly citizens. In the participants’ responses, it became clear how good health and well-being in a Danish, library professional context was not considered separate phenomena, and how well-being may be considered a pleasant side benefit of different cultural and dissemination activities. The literary reading communities contained elements of knowledge about literature (lifelong learning), but also of exercise (health), community (mental well-being), etc., which at the same time points out how different activities may refer to different sustainable development goals at the same time.^[83]

The answers regarding quality education were of a similar nature and it became clear that the Danish public libraries’ task is not to oversee the primary and basic learning, but rather to promote the desire for reading and learning. The participants’ responses showed how the parent institutions prioritised locally and used different forms of communication, like nudging, workshops, or informal training. What was interesting in the participants’ answers, however, was how none of them exclusively stressed the free and equal access to information as the primary purpose of the parent institutions,^[84] but continuously emphasised people’s renewed capacity to act. The background for nudging, lifelong learning and education was the efforts to give citizens the opportunity to orientate and make informed decisions, as well as to construct a space where it was allowed to experimentally act.^[85]

The overall strategic activities had all influenced how the parent institutions planned the organisational assignments. As part of their implementation of the sustainable development goals, two out of three institutions surveyed were in the process of being certified as world goals libraries, which was due to a shift in focus and, among other things, a change in audience-oriented work.^[86] In other words, the certification in the parent institutions in question was not exclusively a rhetorical reformulation of business as usual, but included several efforts to create new foundations for the parent institutions’ activities.^[87] However, the mentioned strategic ambitions did not relate to cultural activities (yet) and one of the institutions I contacted declined participation due to lack of initiatives. Another institution never responded to my request. My second assumption regarding the absence of sustainable development goals from the public libraries’ overall strategic plans can thus not be rejected.

The cultural contribution made by the Danish public libraries to the implementation of the sustainable development goals especially concerns the citizens’ position on (over-) production and consumption, and the opportunity to act accordingly. In the designation of the public library as “the oldest sustainable thought”,^[88] it was precisely the role of a sustainable alternative to the commercial circuits which was indicated, whether speaking about voluntary communities, lifelong learning, waste sorting, repair-cafes, etc. In an overall, theoretical perspective, the implementation of the sustainable development goals thus represents a showdown with a previous public library practice. Habermas’ analysis showed how the arts and literature debate created the basis for the development of the political realm and the consequent democratic governance principles (see table 1). Through argumentation, discussion and critique in the literary public, the citizens were trained in the forms and norms of communication necessary in a democratic constitution. The public library is an inherited part of the world of letters and as such has always been a cultural laboratory for the citizens’ political participation. What is new is how the implementation of the sustainable development goals has motivated the public library to move into a part of the private realm that has not previously been a public library issue, namely civil society: the realm for commodity exchange and social labour (see table 1). Here, the public libraries try to use the informal competence exercise of the art and literature debates, as a starting point for democratically based changes in the activities of civil society – and this takes place by means of the classical mechanisms: by giving citizens access to knowledge and information as a background for making informed choices and by giving citizens the opportunity to act accordingly, especially regarding production and consumption purposes.^[89] This confirms my first assumption – that it has taken the public libraries a long time to act – but it also explains why.

7 Conclusion

In the introduction to this article, I posed the following questions: what cultural contributions do public libraries make to Danish society’s fulfilment of the United Nations’ sustainable development goals? The question was asked with a focus on the citizens and on the assumption that cultural elements are crucial when society’s established structural routines need to be revised. Part of the answer may be found in the public libraries culture activities informing citizens about the background and ambition of the sustainable development goals and at the same time function as starting point for reflection processes which may lead to adjustments in the citizens’ individual attitudes and actions. Thus, public libraries do not just secure access to information – which is often emphasised by opinion leaders, stakeholders, and professionals – but also provide a space in which citizens can discuss and debate as well as train and test new attitudes and actions. My studies reveal how the public libraries’ contribution should be defined as far more initiative-taking than before and how the passive provision of information and knowledge is an overly narrow perspective to take. Instead, studies should focus on how public libraries work to promote sustainable activities enabling citizens to try out new techniques, technologies, and strategies. It is an important point, however, that the public libraries’ attitudes and actions do not take place to impose a particular attitude to the sustainable development goals, but to give citizens the opportunity to reflect on, and discuss why they do as they do – and to take the consequences thereof. The public libraries’ near-democratic basis is thus maintained, but the direction is set anew, by the sustainable development goals.

In other words, a form of initiative-taking library activity is emerging in the public libraries surveyed and this is made possible by the engagement in the sustainable development goals. This engagement has been difficult because the public libraries have been forced to move into a new territory. By applying Habermas’ theory, it becomes clear how the public libraries, by virtue of their commitment to the sustainable development goals, have ventured into the civil society, where past practices and routines do not necessarily hold the same effect and status as in the political realm and the world of letters. The public libraries have previously exercised influence in the conjugal family’s internal space as a starting point for, for instance, the individual’s personal life choices. The sustainable development goals regard the civil society, which requires new forms of communication and new content because civil society is the focal point for the exchange of commodities (wage labour, production, and consumption) and for community labour. This awareness is lacking in all scientific and practical contributions to this subject; but is necessary for the public libraries’ understanding of the sustainable development goals as a library policy task.

8 Acknowledgments

This study has been accomplished without financial support from external partners. The author wants to thank employees and section managers at the participating public libraries in Denmark. Without their benevolent participation this study could not have been conducted.