Abstract

The sharing economy has been evaluated as a sustainable system dominating the next 10 years and one of the 10 ideas which can change the world. The purpose of this study is to reveal whether there is any relevance between the sharing economy and libraries, if the library can be the core model of the sharing economy, and to propose how libraries could contribute to a sharing economy. To this end, literature related to the sharing economy and the actual cases of its implementation were analyzed. The results are as follows: First, the library was evaluated as a successful model of the sharing economy because it has shared information and tools for centuries. Therefore, it was concluded that the library could be an institution that can lead to a sharing economy. Second, it was analyzed that the library could foster the sharing economy through offering its space, and functioning as the infinite imagination room and smart work center, sharing goods through Little Free Libraries, as well as various other resources of library, and sharing various types of knowledge including reference services. Third, it can be said that the possibility of realizing a shared economy in libraries is inexhaustible, and librarians can play an active role and will positively influence the success or failure in terms of realizing the sharing economy. In the future, there needs to be a study to measure the practices and the performance of the sharing economy of libraries.