Laboratório do cidadão: uma oportunidade para debater a mudança das Bibliotecas da Administração Central do Estado?

The announcing of LabX in October 2016 raised for discussion the relevance of doing research on the functioning of Central Public Administration libraries involving citizens in research, design and experimentation of new ideas towards administrative modernization in Portugal. We present the summing-up of studies conducted in the scope of the convergence of information society policies and on the administrative modernization in Portugal since 1997. The focus is on the results of the most recent study in 2015 when a strategic thinking took place involving four groups of stakeholders and twenty-eight public services in workshops of the future followed by their positioning analysis. Given the resulting four scenarios: interest and collaboration; differentiated conditions and distancing; interest and consolidation of the general secretariats’ roles; interest in developing a policy and a strategy for this sector, we question whether this stage of the citizen’s participation in research is the right step towards change.