"Boundless opportunities?": towards an assessment of the usefulness of the concept of social exclusion for the South African public library situation

Social exclusion is an important concept in the public sphere in many parts of the world and in some sectors in South Africa. This review defines the concept and identifies factors that contribute to social exclusion; the background to the social exclusion initiatives of the 1980s is described and reasons why public libraries are seen as agents for addressing exclusion are given. Evidence of impact from evaluative research is outlined. In counterpoint the incidence of the concept of social exclusion in the literature of library and information studies in South Africa is reviewed. The article found that social exclusion is not considered to any great extent in this literature and starts to explore its usefulness in local contexts.