La función social y de inclusión digital de las bibliotecas públicas: percepción de los profesionales y nuevas necesidades de formación

Nowadays public libraries assume new challenges related with two of their functions: to provide access to information and digital literacy and to be a social space of its community. The aim of this paper was to analyze how Spanish public librarians perceive the social function and the digital inclusion function of their institutions, how they assume these missions and the competences that they consider most relevant for the implementation of these services. A qualitative methodology was applied, consisting in three focus groups with library staff of the Region of Murcia, taking into account for the classification of participants the number of inhabitants of the population in which they work as librarians. The analysis of the librarians' discourse reflected a mostly positive position towards these functions, although they described problems as insufficient training, the need of enough resources, and greater collaboration with other agents involved. To overcome these difficulties they highlighted the need for support from the Regional Library System through the Library Coordination Unit and the Regional Library