The Association for Improving Iranian Public Libraries held its first national seminar, titled “Social Functions of Public Libraries” in Ahwaz (Khouzestan Provience) on April 2020.
According to the announced call-for, the subject of articles sent to the secretariat of this seminar are as follows:
-Services and programs proper with the social roles of the public libraries
-Public libraries and socialization
-Public libraries as the social technology
-Libraries in the public perspective
-Public libraries and social harms
-Public libraries and natural disasters
-Economic
-aspects of Public libraries:production, employment, entrepreneurship and business
-Social concepts related to the Public libraries: social participation, social justice, improving people life quality
Since September 2019, when the call for sending articles for this seminar announced, several preliminary seminars and journal clubs were held in Tehran, Hamedan, Qazvin and Fars.
“Most of intellectuals believe that public libraries are a part of the society’s texture and they need to make more important their roles in the society. They also need to take their strides given the importance of the social issues in the society and believe in the fact that public libraries should try their best to solve the social problems of the society. Hence, it was decided to hold a seminar dealing with the social applications of the public libraries in order to pave the way for exchanging thoughts and producing texts for all intellectuals and policy-makers and managers working in this field; therefore, the first national seminar of the scientific association of Improving Public libraries of Iran with the cooperation of National Public Libraries Institute and Public Libraries Department General of Khuzestan Province will deal with this issue,” Koohi Rostami, secretary of this seminar, said.
