Beyond the reverse product cycle: An exploration of the digital, social and spatial transformation of libraries
重新审视服务创新理论中的反向产品周期模型，以公共图书馆的ICT创新轨迹验证并扩展该模型，引入工业4.0和5.0的新技术浪潮，并探讨图书馆如何通过非ICT创新（如书籍、空间等）实现生存与转型。
Focusing on innovation dynamics in public libraries, this article begins by revisiting one of the very first attempts to construct a theory of innovation in services: the reverse product cycle (RPC), published in Research Policy (Barras, 1986, 1990). With reference to ICT-based innovation trajectories in libraries, the article validates the RPC by identifying a cycle that begins with a stage dominated by process innovations, followed by one dominated by product innovations. It goes further by extending – and in some respects updating – the model, taking into account forgotten technologies and introducing new waves of enabling technologies associated with Industry 4.0 and 5.0. The rise of the internet and digitization posed an existential threat to libraries. Their survival, however, is due to their ability to reinvent themselves – transforming this threat into an opportunity, and embracing innovative trajectories that aren't solely ICT-based. These include book-, object-, individual-, and space-based trajectories.