Public libraries in Europe are following this trend and trying to take the best possible advantages of these changes, also adapting themselves to new technologies, new demands, nem customers, often in the middle of new and strong constraints. Since the very beggining public library was seen as a means of educating and of keeping workers away from such places as pubs. The validity of the public library s function as a support for formal education, particularly adult education, is also indisputable . Anyway public libaries that in the past have supported education didn t do it in the same sense that we use today and certainly not in the sense of life-long learning. Also some suggestions indicate that local erudites are using public libraries to foster their studies and to complement and deepen other information.
People are more and more interested in discovering their roots, in finding it s own identity.
They play an important role in the support to independent and life-long learning. The idea of life-long learning is relatively new in Europe and this may be still more the case in Portugal and other southern european countries. The idea of life-long learning has some individual and social implications that must be considered. One, very important, is that the individual needs to develop a set of learning skills, preferably during school age , in order to be able to identify his or her s learning needs, to search and find the appropriate study materials, to use and take the most advantage of them. This is much alike what librarians use to call user education and brings the matter of learning much to the ground of public library activity.