ABSTRACT
Purpose. The aim of the paper is to present the participation of the Mobile Library Service of Zagreb City Libraries in the period from 2018 to 2022, in the projects of the Institute for Youth Development and Innovation (IRIM) dealing with the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) field. The projects are as follows: "The STEM revolution continues: Libraries”, "The Digital citizen”, and "The Digital libraries for local development”. The mentioned projects encourage the use of digital technologies in libraries in order to develop libraries into advanced centers for the acquisition of digital skills. By providing a mobile library service, the libraries strive to reduce the consequences of social exclusion and raise the quality and standard of life in the community for all citizens, thus contributing to the realization of the right of each individual to access information, knowledge and culture, which also includes the presentation of new technologies to all children, regardless of whether they live in urban or suburban areas and whether they attend central or branch primary schools. Approach/methodology. The paper describes the participation of the Mobile Library Service of Zagreb City Libraries in the period from 2018 to 2022 in the projects of the Institute for Youth Development and Innovation: "The STEM revolution continues: Libraries”, "The Digital citizen”, and "The Digital libraries for local development”. Through the presentation of the five years of participation in the projects, two of which were completely marked by the coronavirus epidemic, it will be shown how successful the implementation of the projects was in 2018 and 2019, as well as the stagnation that followed in 2020 and 2021, and the start of the revitalization of the projects in 2022. The data was collected in the reports on the work of the Mobile Library Service, on the Zagreb City Libraries website, and from the professional and other papers on the Mobile Library Service of Zagreb City Libraries. Findings. By presenting the participation in the projects, an attempt was made to indicate the success of their implementation and the development of activities in accordance with the modern IFLA Mobile Library Guidelines (2011). Also, it will be shown that the work program is based on social and demographic changes in the local communities, the computerization of the library systems and the modernization of the IT equipment of the Mobile Library Service, as well as an excellent inter-institutional cooperation. Furthermore, the paper points to the most important thing, which is that by providing a mobile library service, libraries strive to reduce the consequences of social exclusion and raise the quality and standard of life in the community for all citizens, thus contributing to the realization of the right of each individual to access information, knowledge and culture, which also includes the presentation of new technologies to all children, regardless of whether they live in urban or suburban areas and whether they attend central or branch primary schools. Social implications. By being included in the IRIM projects, libraries, as well as mobile libraries, thus develop into advanced centers for acquiring digital skills. The social significance is manifested in the effort to reduce the consequences of social exclusion by providing a mobile library service that also includes the presentation of new technologies to all children, regardless of whether they live in urban or suburban areas and whether they attend central or branch primary schools. Originality/value. The paper is a valuable contribution to the very small number of published professional papers on the participation of the Mobile Library Service of Zagreb City Libraries in the projects of the Institute for Youth Development and Innovation such as "The STEM revolution continues: Libraries”, "The Digital citizen”, and "The Digital libraries for local development”. © 2023, Hrvatsko Knjiznicarsko Drustvo. All rights reserved.