Public libraries as social infrastructure: An integrative review of community roles

Abstract

Public libraries are increasingly understood not merely as information-service institutions but as community-based infrastructures that support civic life, social connection, digital inclusion and everyday wellbeing. This article offers an integrative review of scholarship on the community roles of public libraries across five major strands: public sphere and democracy, social capital and trust, place and community engagement, digital inclusion and administrative access, and wellbeing, welfare and social integration. The review argues that the literature has moved decisively beyond narrow service-centred conceptions of the public library, yet remains fragmented across thematic domains and often under-specifies the mechanisms through which libraries generate community effects. The article’s central contribution is to reconceptualise the public library as a form of social infrastructure that links informational access, relational encounter, civic participation and low-threshold support. Four recurring mechanisms—accessible infrastructure, relational encounter, mediated capability-building and institutional buffering—are identified as the analytical bridge between institutional presence and community effects. The article concludes by outlining a research agenda that prioritises conceptual clarity, mechanism specification and stronger comparative evidence, and by drawing out practical implications for how public libraries can position themselves within local systems of digital, civic and social support.