The position of public libraries in empowering housewives with emphasis on the capacities of cyberspace

Purpose: The purpose of this research is to investigate the role of public libraries in the social and economic empowerment of housewives, emphasizing the capacities of virtual space, especially social network sites. Method: This is an applied research that was conducted with a qualitative approach using thematic analysis method. The study population included librarians and officials of public libraries affiliated to the General Directorate of Public Libraries of South Khorasan. A nonprobability (non-random), and a snowball sampling procedure was used and 21 persons were interviewed by telephone. The semi-structured type of interview was incorporated. Findings: Subjects requested by housewives from public libraries were categorized into practical (health, agriculture and art) and theoretical (literary-religious and educational) categories, and the results showed that theoretical subjects were almost as much as practical subjects of interest to housewives. How public libraries play a role in empowering housewives in social and economic fields were also grouped into two categories of educational programs (educational-social and technical-economic) and cultural-promotional programs (educational, book-oriented, consultation-referral and employment-oriented). Cultural-promotional programs were more frequent. The services that can be provided to housewives in virtual space were placed in two categories of information (educational and resource-finding) and promotion (information and resource expansion), and the category of promotional services with 20 primary codes was in a better position than the category of information services. Incentives for the use of virtual space by public libraries to empower housewives were also placed in two promotional and functional categories, and the functional incentives for using virtual space in the field of empowering housewives with 15 primary codes were in a higher position than the promotional incentives. obstacles in this field were categorized into three categories: socio-economic, personal and technological, with more primary codes assigned to personal obstacles. Value/authenticity: The value of this article is that public libraries can use the facilities of virtual space, especially virtual social networks, in the social and economic empowerment of housewives. In this case, in order to implement the library's programs related to the empowerment of this group, there will be no need for their physical presence in the library environment, and the desired programs can be implemented remotely using the facilities of virtual space. Of course, there are serious obstacles in this field that require serious attention from public libraries. In order to remove these obstacles, it is suggested that public libraries implement programs to improve their media literacy and information literacy before implementing empowerment programs for housewives.