Public Libraries in Crises: Between Spaces of Care and Information Infrastructures

This chapter investigates shifting public library meanings and practices in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom during and after the crisis. In both countries, public libraries were already in some state of crisis prior to COVID-19 due to a decade of austerity measures. On top of that, the COVID-19 pandemic severely hampered the library’s function as social infrastructure, as libraries were being closed down for a while and reopened under strict regulations. This crisis-upon-crisis perpetuates social injustice for the most vulnerable of library users and workers, whose lives and livelihoods depend on social investment in libraries as spaces of care. This raises the question of who the public library is for, when services are stripped back to the bare functional minimum of information provision, and their vital social spaces and infrastructures are barred from urban life.