Library social partnership development in a cluster space: Belgorod region experience

Abstract

This research is an applied one and logically continues author’s studies devoted to social partnership development in the library-information field. The institute of social partnership (including the library-information sphere) evolves with the cluster strategies development as an integral part of the Russian community strategy. At the same time an integrated approach and unified methodology to study this problem, as well as description of effective methods and technologies of the library staged development in the social cluster space are needed. Technologies of the social partnership with library participation are a part of the social policy cluster aimed at maximizing to satisfy both material and spiritual needs of the general population. Recent years studying prospects of the municipal library activity are particularly relevant, as forward movement of the library policy in this direction allows positioning the interests of library and information institutions as coinciding with the interests of major members of the local community. Realizing these perspectives is one of the most important conditions of the effective innovative policy formation of the modern municipal library. The objects of study are municipal libraries of Belgorod region using effective profiled strategies of social interaction in their activity. The study aim is analyzing the experience of municipal libraries developing educational technologies for social interaction in the social cluster space of Belgorod region. Objectives are the following: to identify main goals and tasks of the cluster strategy in the library-information sphere of Belgorod region; to propose a typology of main clusters in Belgorod region; to objectify activity main direction for Belgorod libraries according to their types. Participating libraries in the cluster policy indirectly promotes changes in users’ life quality, development of new cultural needs by providing quality public legal-information services, adaptation of rural population to modern life conditions, help in identifying new niches in the labor market, including information ones. Main conclusions: territorial characteristics extrapolated to municipal libraries activities largely determine the general direction of library development. In the modern period preconditions of libraries participation in the regional clustering (modernization of material-technical base, development of regional, municipal, local normative documents, the experience of empirical data theoretical generalization) are largely implemented in Belgorod region. The practical component of the study is the possibility of adapting the libraries experience of Belgorod region into libraries of other territories of the Russian Federation, understanding cooperation of the library social institution, business-structures, nonprofit organizations and regional and municipal authorities.