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B
ENEFITS PROVIDED BY LIBRARIES Libraries offer their users, as well as the entire local community very diverse range of benefits. For the needs of this report we created a typology of benefits, according to which we identified two main types of such benefits.
First, the horizontal benefits, that is those that intersect and relate to all the others and are kind of tools used to achieve the other benefits. They include the Third Place - benefits from the fact that the library becomes a meeting place - friendly, open to all, combining the advantages of private and public space as well as ICT (Information and Communication Technologies), or all the benefits of access to modern technology8. Second, the vertical benefits, which include six major benefits - those related to: self-realization, intellectual capital (including socialization), social integration, daily life practice, civic participation and professional sphere. All they will be discussed in detail further in the report.
8
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_and_communications_technology