This qualitative study aims to examine how the public library can function as a place for children’s rights, and librarians’ views on this. The empirical material is based on a shorter document study of three governing documents for the City of Stockholm, and two interviews with personnel at a public library and a children’s library. The empirical material is analyzed with a descriptive idea analysis, using theoretical tools based on Giroux’s theory on border pedagogy and radical democracy. As a complementary theoretical tool, the concept of child perspective and children’s perspective have also been brought in. The study shows that librarians’ thoughts about children’s rights and the library as place is similar, but that there is a difference in the work towards children’s rights which lie in the space of the room and the resources given. Central conclusions of the study show that children’s rights should be a cornerstone of library operations towards children, that children’s own influence is allowed to take place, and that creating relationships and safety are important components. As well as creating separate places only for the children, and that the child perspective is shaped with the children’s perspective in mind. 

The study aims to examine how vocational awe manifests in the attitudes and beliefs expressed by multilingual librarians and how they relate to their own and others' expectations in working with multiculturalism and multilingualism. The empirical material consists of six semi-structured interviews with multilingual librarians from different parts of Sweden. The empirical data were analysed using a theoretical framework based on Fobazi M. Ettarh's theory of vocational awe. Five themes were identified from the study's empirical data. The analysis of the result shows that vocational awe manifests in all interviewees and is mainly manifested through self-sacrificial tendencies when working with multilingualism and multiculturalism. The interviewees' self-sacrificial tendencies are catalysed by high expectations to legitimise their professional role as multilingual librarians. The study's key findings show that vocational awe is strongly manifested in multilingual librarians. Furthermore it is particularly challenging for multilingual librarians to draw boundaries between personal life and professionalism, which is catalysed by working with the target group.

Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka svenska folkbiblioteks relation till lokalpolitiken. Genom att närstudera fyra bibliotekschefer från lika många kommuner så kan vi analysera hur cheferna upplever relationen till lokalpolitiken. Vårt empiriska material har analyserats med hjälp av Margaret Archers teori om den inre konversationen och Petra Svenssons användning av begreppet situerat agentskap. Våra forskningsfrågor är hur bibliotekscheferna upplever politikernas inblandning i bibliotekets arbete och hur detta kan analyseras utifrån Margaret Archers teori om den inre konversationen och teorin om det situerade agentskapet. I vår analys framkommer att bibliotekscheferna behöver reflektera över sitt uppdrag för att hantera svåra frågor och relationen till de lokala politikerna. Dessutom framkommer att de flesta bibliotekschefer anser sig ha en god relation till politikerna, men att det förekommer att politiker vill blanda sig i på ett sätt som upplevs som att gå över gränsen för armlängds avstånd. Studien visar på en relation som innefattar en del spänningar och där det ibland kan finnas olika syn på biblioteksverksamhet och olika värderingar. Studien visar också att bibliotekscheferna känner en oro inför Sverigedemokraternas framgångar och deras syn på bibliotek.

This study aims to investigate how school librarians work with media- and information literacy, MIL, with middle- and highschool pupils with intellectual disability, ID, in Sweden.  The Swedish government has decided that all Swedish citizens shall be digitally included, but there are people that are not. For example people with different disabilities. In Sweden it is common that school librarians work with MIL in schools – but it is also common to not have either a school library or an educated librarian in the school library.  In this study I have interviewed three school librarians that are educated and work full time in their schools´ library, with all the pupils in the school, also the pupils with ID. The theory in the study is the TLC-model, Teacher and Librarian Cooperation, by Professor Patricia Montiel-Overall. The model is explaining how teachers and librarians can work together in school, to fulfill the curriculum for every student. The model has four stages, where the first stage is not working together so much at all, and up to the fourth stage, where teachers and librarians work closely, and also plan the lessons and education, together. Monitel-Overall´s model is based mainly on sociocultural theory, which means that we learn things best in a social context, as the Russian philosopher and psychologist Vygotsky said. His thoughts on sociocultural theory has often been used and referred to in pedagogical research and also in school context. This study shows that the school librarians that are interviewed all have support from their headmasters and the teachers. The librarians are creative and often make their own material. But it also shows that librarians often are quite lonely in their profession in school, even when they have teachers as colleagues. 

The aim of the study is to, with an interest in gender segregation, examine discourses about libraries, librarians and the role of women in working life. The empirical material for the study is documents published within the time period from the 1850s to the 1910s that touch on the themes of the essay. These are analyzed based on a discourse-psychological and a complementary idea-analytical approach to make interpretation repertoires and power relations visible. The results of the study show two approaches to, and interpretation repertoires based on traditional norms within the empirical documents. Partly the maintaining interpretation repertoire, partly the challenging interpretation repertoire. Furthermore, the impact of the gender system and the unstable gender contract on the status of librarianship was made visible

The aim of this study is to investigate a makerspace in a Swedish upper secondary school and how the use of makerspaces in school libraries can be understood based on Ernesto Laclau’s and Chantal Mouffe's theoretical framework. There is a tension between the makerspace's original idea, which is about openness, shared knowledge, exploration and curiosity, and entrepreneurial purposes that have emerged as of late. At the same time, there is a lack of legislation regarding the design of school libraries, and school libraries have both the cultural policy mission and school legislation to adhere to. The empirical material consists of qualitative interviews with school librarians, students and teachers, also observation, and policy documents. The analytical work has been carried out in four stages by identifying statements, concepts, subject positions and discourses. The result and the analysis show that an educational discourse is constantly challenged by an exploration discourse and a community discourse in the makerspace activities and that these discourses in turn influence which positions the subjects take. The study also shows that the libraries’ cultural missions have the opportunity to take place in an educational context.

Purpose: The purpose of this exploratory study is to provide modern local governments with potential use cases for their open data, in order to help inform related future policies and decision-making. The concrete context was that of the Växjö municipality located in southeastern Sweden.

Design/methodology/approach: The methodology was two-fold: 1) a survey of potential end users (n=151) from a local university; and, 2) analysis of survey results using a theoretical model regarding local strategies for implementing open government data.

Findings: Most datasets predicted to be useful were on: sustainability and environment; preschool and school; municipality and politics. The use context given is primarily research and development, informing policies and decision making; but also education, informing personal choices, informing citizens and creating services based on open data. Not the least, the need for educating target user groups on data literacy emerged. A tentative pattern comprising a technical perspective on open data and a social perspective on open government was identified.

Research limitations: In line with available funding, the nature of the study was exploratory and implemented as an anonymous web-based survey of employees and students at the local university. Further research involving (qualitative) surveys with all stakeholders would allow for creating a more complete picture of the matter.

Practical implications: The study determines potential use cases and use contexts for open government data, in order to help inform related future policies and decision-making.

Originality/value: Modern local governments, and especially in Sweden, are faced with a challenge of how to make their data open, how to learn about which types of data will be most relevant for their end users and what will be different societal purposes. The paper contributes to knowledge that modern local governments can resort to when it comes to attitudes of local citizens to open government data in the context of an open government data perspective. 

The aim of this study is to examine whether or not male and female academic librarians describe their professionalidentity differently from one another, and how they use a gender-based language in their descriptions. The study makes six semi structured qualitative interviews with three male and three female academic librarians, and the transcribed interviews are analysed using discourse psychology. The study shows that the male and female respondents use a gender-based language when describing their work tasks and academic libraries as a whole, but there was no difference between how female and male respondents described their own professional identity. The study came to the conclusion that academic libraries are attributed male characteristics by the respondents, in contrast to public libraries who are attributed female characteristics. Academic libraries are therefore perceived to have a higher status in society compared to public libraries.

The basis of this bachelor thesis is to analyse how public libraries work for the development of democracy in society, through their programmes. The values that form the framework of democratic societies also form the basis for describing the mission of public libraries. This includes that public libraries should work for the development of democratic society and work compensatory for groups that, for various reasons, find it more difficult to assert themselves in society. There is a tension between the values underlying representative democracy (negative freedom) and those of the compensatory work (positive freedom) of public librarians, especially with programme activities. The purpose of this work is to explore how public librarians perceive the importance of program activities in developing democratic society, the attitude to neutrality and the role of program activities in the social turn. The study is based on research on the social turn within public libraries (Audunson 2020) and the possibilities of public libraries to function as a public sphere (Larsen 2021). It also examines how central values for the library profession come into conflict when librarians support vulnerable groups (Gibson et al. 2017, Seal 2016) and work compensatory with the priority groups (Hansson 2011), as well as how public librarians work proactively through pluralistic agonism and interact with local external actors for their users (Rivano Eckerdal 2018). The qualitative research is carried out through interviews with public librarians, whose statements have been thematized. The results are then analyzed by examining them through a modified typology of different democratic forms (Lund & Schultz Nybacka 2021). The conclusions are that the study confirms the social turn but that public librarians do not fully perceive the possibilities of the program activities for the public library as a public sphere, as discussion and debate are lacking. Public librarians emphasize the equal value of all people and that the public library should be a safe place for everyone. The collective values that govern program activities are most similar to those that characterize representative (liberal) democracy, but also other values that can act as developing and strengthening democracy, for example through co-creation and learning are common. This study indicates that public libraries have opportunities to amplify their impact on the democratic development of society through program activities that contribute to user empowerment and participation in society by arranging more activities where users are co-creators and discussions that are urgent for them. 

The aim of this thesis is to analyse debates and discourses in Swedish media about the support of  literature from the Swedish cultural council from 2009 and up to and including 2021. The empirical material  consists of 22 articles derived from the daily press, and by using discourse analysis as theory and methodology,  several debates are problematized. Questions posed in this study are: What views of the support of literature are  expressed in the debates? What positions do the different voices occupy in the debate? What discourses emerge  and what characterises these? The theoretical and methodological framework is based on Hedemark’s use of  discourse theory. In the analysis three discourses appear: an arm's length discourse, a quality discourse and a  diversity and a commercial one-dimensionality discourse. The analysis revealed that cultural writers as well as  politicians often have a prominent position and a great influence over the content of the debates, and that they are  of the perception that the government ignores the principle of arm’s length distance to cultural creation. The  debaters are arguing over quality judgment, but also how much importance should be considered regarding the  content when deciding which titles to support. The professionals, e.g., librarians, however, did not participate in  the debates. We believe that this invisibility is a result of only some being admitted into the debate, but also in the  end, it is up to each library how the dissemination of literature-supported titles takes place.

I en studie från Södertörns högskola undersöks vilka demokratiska visioner som präglat utvecklingen av den nationella plattformen Digiteket, som en del av projektet Digitalt först med användaren i fokus. Här kan du läsa en sammanfattning av studien och dess resultat.

At Södertörn University, Sweden, a collaboration model has been developed from the theory of academic literacies, aiming to support students’ writing development. In this innovative way of working, university librarians and writing teachers collaborate with lecturers to integrate a teaching element on academic writing (including searching for, appraising, reading, and writing texts) into existing university courses. In this article, we describe and discuss our experiences of implementing this model in nursing education. We observed that the collaboration made it possible for all professionals to share their knowledge, both in a theoretical and practical sense. Among other things, the lecturers appropriated several linguistic tools which they were able to use in their continued teaching of academic writing. However, challenges regarding the collegial sharing of knowledge were also experienced. If the lessons learned are to be implemented in the organisation, both resources and a mandate from the management are essential. 

Digital platforms are a primary means of communication in society. Public libraries play an empowering role in these processes, strengthening citizens’ digital competences. This raises questions about what democratic processes the digital technology is made to enable. The study investigates how a Swedish Digital Library (DL) is envisioned and organised within a national digitalisation strategy. Qualitative methods are used, and a theoretical democracy framework is developed and used together with the concepts of education and Bildung in the analysis. Four empirical themes are identified. The analysis centres on tensions related to horizontality and hierarchy, and Bildung and sociality. The DL vision is dominated by a hierarchical and instrumental educational vision that connects to representative democracy. A subordinated social and pedagogical vision of inner motivational drives and partial forms of sharing, connected to deliberative and semi-participatory democracy forms, exists, mostly in the form of some cherry-picked Web 2.0 discourses.

This book tackles the concept of openness (as in open source software, open access and free culture), from a critical political economy perspective to consider its encroachment by capitalist corporations, but also how it advances radical alternatives to cognitive capitalism. Drawing on four case studies, Corporate Capitalism’s Use of Openness will add to discussion on open source software, open access content platforms, open access publishing, and open university courses. These otherwise disparate cases share two fundamental features: informational capitalist corporations base their successful business models on unpaid productive activities, play, attention, knowledge and labour, and do so crucially by resorting to ideological uses of concepts such as “openness”, “communities” and “sharing”. The authors present potential solutions and alternative regulations to counter these exploitative and alienating business models, and to foster digital knowledge commons, ranging from co-ops and commons-based peer production to state agencies' platforms. Their research and findings will appeal to students, academics and activists around the world in fields such as sociology, economy, media and communication, library and information science, political sciences and technology studies.

In response to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, academic libraries limited access to the physical library space. At the same time, the library's resources became increasingly available digitally. This has posed a challenge for libraries in expanding the image of the library beyond a collection of resources. The purpose of this study is therefore thus: to investigate students' usage and experiences of acamdemic libraries, and to examine their experiences of sense of place and the library as a social meeting place, and whether this may have been influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic. Qualitative semi-structured interviews were used in this study. The results were then analyzed through a theoretical framework consisting of Ray Oldenburg's concept of third place, as well as a collective understanding of the concept of sense of place, with a focus on Edward Relph's definition of the concept. The study conducted four interviews with teacher education students from a Swedish university. The results of the study indicate that there may be a connection between students' library usage and their experience of sense of place in the library, and that the COVID-19 pandemic may have been a contributing factor in this regard.

The purpose of this bachelor’s thesis is to examine what changes have taken place in space and spatialisation at hospital libraries during Covid-19 and how the changes have been experienced by the librarians. The empirical material consists of five semi-structured interviews conducted during April 2022. In the development of the interview guide and analysis of the interviews, the theoretical framework "La Production de l'Espace" by Henri Lefebvre has been used.

Lefebvre’s theory is based on the fact that the social space is produced in a three-part dialectic based on the three dimensions: the perceived space, the conceived space and the lived space. The research questions for this study are: What changes were implemented at the hospital library during the pandemic? How have these changes been experienced by hospital librarians? How do the spatial dimensions of Lefebvre’s theory interact in the changes that the hospital library has implemented?

The result of the study shows that the biggest changes that took place at hospital libraries during Covid-19 were that they needed to close their physical services and thereby increase digital communication, and that the librarians felt that the changes mainly had positive effects for the library and their own work situation. The results also show how the dialectical relationship between the dimensions is made visible through changes as a change of space and spatialisation affects and is expressed in several dimensions. By making changes in the library room, the physical aspects are affected, which in turn affects the experience of the room and also how we produce the room we are in.

Problem and purpose: The purpose of the study is to examine the role of academic librarians as information experts within the context of teaching. This is done by examining how university librarians sensemaking relates to their conditions for controlling and developing their professional field of knowledge within their professional teaching.

Method and theory: The study's results are based on empirically collected material via qualitative semi-structured interviews with four teaching academic librarians. Karl E. Weick has researched how people create meaning in relation to their surroundings within an organization. His sensemaking theory constitutes the theoretical framework and main analytical tool of this study.

Results and conclusions: This paper has identified academic librarian’s assumptions about lack of time, communication, and the effort to integrate their teaching at the university, as general and influencing organizational factors. Where the librarians' previous experiences regarding their teaching, planning, implementation, and evaluation have been synthesized over time, which has created individual and social interpretations and assumptions within the organization about what makes library teaching successful or not. The study's conclusion is that the sensemaking process of academic librarians limits their ability to control and develop their professional field of knowledge within their professional teaching. As sensemaking is constantly influenced by the organization's context, it makes it more difficult for librarians to include new theoretical perspectives into their teaching.

Arbetsplatsbiblioteken ingår i en historisk bibliotekstradition och syftar i grunden tillatt ge människor i arbete möjlighet att läsa och folkbildas på fritiden. Sedan 1980-talet har arbetsplatsbiblioteken minskat i omfattning. ”Arbete och fritid pågår” är enrapport som utforskar fenomenet arbetsplatsbibliotek. Vilken relevans har de idagoch i framtiden för bibliotekens uppdrag? Vilken betydelse kan de ha för regionalaoch kommunala intressen som tillväxt, välfärd, kultur och hälsa?

Ett centralt ställningstagande i rapporten är att relatera frågan om arbetsplatsbibliotektill utvecklingen inom arbete, arbetskompetenser och arbetsliv. Digitaliseringenoch det ökande behovet av bibliotekens kompetens inom medie- och informationskunnighet (MIK) är här kritiska faktorer.

Bara knappt fyra av tio skolelever har tillgång till ett bemannat skolbibliotek. Det är ett brott mot skollagen och ett hot mot demokratin, skriver Pamela Schultz Nybacka, universitetslektor som arbetar med Bibliotekarieprogrammet vid Södertörns högskola.

Svensk biblioteksförening stod inte bakom kraven på stärkt lagstiftning kring kulturen som publicerades i veckan. Ett upprörande beslut, menar Pamela Schultz Nybacka, samordnare för bibliotekarieprogrammet vid Södertörns högskola. Hon anser istället att svagheter i existerande lagstiftning borde motivera föreningen att stödja kraven.

Biblioteksprofessionen har på senare tid uppmärksammats för att vara en homogen kår, som inte längre speglar befolkningen i Sverige. Trots att medvetenheten om problemen finns, saknas fortfarande kunskap (Jones 2012), tydliga mottagare av kunskapen (Karam 2013), liksom konkreta åtgärder på biblioteken (Meier 2016). Detta får konsekvenser för relationerna och bemötandet mellan medarbetare, liksom mellan medarbetare och besökare. Bibliotekarier med annan bakgrund än normen har vittnat om erfarenheter av särbehandling och diskriminering som bottnar i strukturell och institutionell rasism (Rahman-Olsson 2022), det har i sin tur långtgående inverkan på rekrytering och retention av individer som tillhör synliga minoriteter, till utbildningar såväl som till bibliotekarietjänster. Detta har nu uppmärksammats av tunga aktörer som Kulturrådet (2022) i sammanhanget kring läsande förebilder och Svensk Biblioteksförening utifrån en diskussion om representation. En återkommande synpunkt i paneldiskussionerna har varit föreställningen att bibliotekarier räknas till “de goda” i samhället och därför inte kan hållas ansvariga för rasismen på bibliotek (Schlesselman-Tarango, 2016). 

Det finns flera fruktbara teoretiska perspektiv och ramverk för att kritiskt belysa dessa problem. Postkoloniala perspektiv blottlägger de sociohistoriska maktförhållanden som råder inom den västerländska normen och där “den andre” exotifieras och förfrämligas (hooks, 1992). Kritisk rasteori (Critical Race Theory, CRT) granskar hur hudfärg och vithetsnormen spelar in även inom bibliotekarieprofessionens arbetsområden (Hall 2012; Schlesselman-Tarango 2017.) Studier utifrån ett socialt rättviseperspektiv bidrar med kritisk analys av hur samhället kan agera för att jämna ut villkoren för medborgarna, till exempel genom disciplinen biblioteks- och informationsvetenskap: dess läroplaner och lärande (Kumasi & Manlove 2015; Cooke & Sweeney 2017). Dessa teoretiska ramverk är ytterst givande och angelägna för bibliotekarieprofessionen, men riskerar att avfärdas av såväl professionen som intressenter av politiska skäl. 

Ett annat fruktbart perspektiv adresserar de problem som drabbar minoriteter utifrån dygdetisk kunskapsteori. Filosofen Miranda Fricker (2018) diskuterar hur samhällelig orättvisa drabbar människor i egenskap av kunskapssubjekt. Minoriteter möter enligt Fricker epistemisk orättvisa på två sätt: dels genom tolkningsorättvisa när normsamhällets begreppsliggörande systematiskt skymmer minoriteters erfarenheter, dels genom vittnesorättvisa när de inte erkänns som bärare av kunskap i egen rätt. Dygdetisk kunskapsteori torde vara relevant för biblioteksprofessionen givet bibliotekens lagstadgade ändamålsparagraf, som har bäring på demokrati genom bland annat fri kunskapsförmedling. Ett dygdetiskt perspektiv kan också kritiskt granska på vilket sätt bibliotekarieprofessionen agerar för det dygdiga och goda, samt liksom de tidigare nämnda perspektiven, diskutera vad som behöver förändras. 

Denna artikel syftar till att belysa hur epistemisk orättvisa i samhället reproduceras på biblioteken och verkar inom bibliotekarieprofessionen. Särskild tonvikt läggs vid vittnesorättvisan, som ligger till grund för konsekvenser som kan härledas till tolkningsorättvisa. Artikeln bidrar till Bibliotek- och informationsvetenskaplig teori och praktik med hjälp av ett dygdetiskt kunskapsteoretiskt perspektiv på strukturell orättvisa och rasism på bibliotek. 

Bokutgivning är i mångt och mycket ett lagarbete - oberoende av om man arbetar självständigt eller i ett team. Under de möten som sker mellan medlemmarna i Nordiska oberoende förlags förening, NOFF, väcks alltid intressanta diskussioner och frågor: Hur fungerar upphovsrätten? Vilka distributörer finns? Hur söker jag litteraturstöd? Hur marknadsför jag mina böcker? Så växte tanken fram att vi skulle kunna samla svaren på dessa frågor i en handbok som kan utvecklas och uppdateras i takt med tiden. Vi har länge önskat en kärnfull och aktuell introduktion till professionellt förlagsarbete och här är den - Förlagshandboken som guidar dig i bokutgivningens underbara värld! 

The aim of this study is to identify the information behavior of fanfiction authors by applying Reijo Savolainen’s model of Everyday Life Information Seeking to the function of information in fandom spaces. Fandom is a group of people and a space that is constantly dealing with and surrounded by information, which requires specific strategies and knowledge to be able to search for and find information. Fanfiction authors are in a role where they both require information in order to produce their works, and creators of information which are of use to other members of the fandom and other fanfiction authors. Through qualitative semi-structured interviews with five fanfiction authors who write multi-chapter fanfictions in the Sci-Fi genre this study seeks to answer how they seek, choose and value information in the creation process of their work, how they produce information in their work, and how this behavior can be understood by applying the theory of Everyday Life Information Seeking. A thematic analysis identifies six recurring themes in the interviews: verification of sources; choice of platform for publication; social searching; passive searching; avoidance of searching; attitude towards and utilization of Wikis. The themes are then analyzed to identify whether the Everyday Life Information Seeking model fits these themes. This analysis shows that fanfiction authors have diverse and creative methods for searching for information, methods that are similar to ones developed for other areas of their life. They have good skills in evaluating sources but still end up selecting sources that might be inaccurate if it is more convenient or better suited, and they avoid seeking information they deem too difficult to find, understand, might elicit negative feelings, or they believe the reader won’t notice. In conclusion, fanfiction authors keep within a rigid role of authors, and do not aim to reproduce facts, but to tell a believable story, and in the process they become producers of information themselves.

According to the Swedish library law from 2013 it is the duty of the library to prioritize diverse groups. These minorities include people who speak other first languages than Swedish, the Swedish national minorities, children and adolescents and people with disabilities. People with disabilities is the focus of this study. A big difficulty with the formulation in the library law is that there are many kinds of disabilities that all have varying forms. Regarding the language, there exist different terms for this priority group. This study uses semi structured interviews with four public–librarians from different libraries in the Stockholm region. Based on critical theory with Foucaults theory of power (which focuses on structural relations in society) as a core and conceptual history for analysis, we aim to analyze and discuss the collected material. We want to get an idea of how public librarians are working to make the library accessible for everyone and how their everyday language and the words they are using affects how they view the group of people with disabilities. The pattern that accurses based on both the answers from the interviews and scientific studies shows that larger forms of accessibility have to be in the building plan from the start, since it is difficult to do later. Smaller forms of accessibility such as noise dampening fabrics or earmuffs can serve well for many library visitors and that outreaching work and activities for people with disability often is performed by one person in particular in the workforce. Colleagues are perceived as perverse and nervous and seems to think that the group of disabled people are more difficult to handle than other visitors and are scared to do something wrong.  

The conclusion is that availability happens in both the physical room and in the personal treatment and that outreaching to people with disabilities is key to make more people come to the library. The term usage is decided more by the single librarian than the work-team, which can result in misunderstandings. Education to get more personnel to be more comfortable in meeting people with different grades of functionality could be important to bring into future librarian education since several of the librarians we have spoken to can look back on their education and see that it was missing this particular question. We believe that more studies about accessibility and disability would bring more perspectives and a more scientific base to develop work towards the group in question would be important to the research-field Library- and Information Science.  

The aim of the study is to describe how Judaism and Jews are classified in the bibliographic classification systems that are used in Swedish libraries. The chosen systems are the Dewey Decimal Classification System (DDC), Classification System for Swedish Libraries (SAB) and the Jewish Library’s Classification system (The Stockholm System). Hermeneutics is the theoretical basis in combination with Hope A. Olson’s theory of the power to name and Broughton and Lomas model of the classification of religion. This is used to analyze the results of the study. The empirical material was gathered using a qualitative text study, which entailed a close reading with a coding schedule. The result was thematized into six categories and analyzed with the aforementioned theories. The DDC and SAB systems represent Jews as a minority and Judaism as a religion is given little space in the classification systems. Judaism and Jews are the norm in the Stockholm system and Jewish chronology and name variants are promoted. The DDC system presents Judaism and Jews with diversity, the Stockholm system less so and the SAB system contains no diversity.

From an ongoing neutrality debate in library and information science, the aim of this study is to investigate librarians’ conception of neutrality as a professional value. This is based on whether librarians consider there to be possible tensions between their professional identity and active political engagement. Qualitative semi-structured interviews have been conducted with librarians. The results have been analyzed with Macdonald and Birdi’s (2020) descriptions of conceptions of neutrality and Hysing and Olsson’s (2012) roles of public officials as theoretical tools. The librarians’ conceptions of neutrality have been characterized through an idea- and ideology analysis. The analysis is developed through characterizing the interviewees’ ideas of the librarian role with different roles of public officials. The study’s conclusions show that there are different conceptions of how neutrality can be interpreted. The respondents have in common that they consider it impossible to reach full neutrality. Neutrality is considered most important whilst facing users. The librarians differentiate between a personal and professional role, but the combination of roles is considered easiest when professional ideals accord with the personal political engagements. Statements are a part of the librarian’s professional role which makes some of the roles as public official easier to assume than others.

Problem and purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate how the national minorities are made visible in a Swedish public library and how the library´s work can be understood from R. David Lankes theoretical framework The New Librarianship. According to previous studies, several of Sweden’s public libraries do not fulfill their statutory mission towards the national minorities. The mission must be realized by various actors in society, including libraries and librarians. How the assignment is carried out seems to depend on resources, but above all by the librarian’s knowledge and competence, which is likely something that affects the visibility of the target group in the libraries. This applies both at the individual level and at the institutional level. It creates an inequality in society and is problematic from several aspects, but mainly due to not complying with the legislation on democratic, human rights. Lisa Hussey (2010) argues that the way library and information science professionals provide services can reinforce positive social structures but also reinforce injustice.

Method and theory: The survey is a qualitative case study of Upplands Väsby library’s work towards the national minorities in Sweden. The empirical material consists of a semi structured interview with two respondants, an observation study of the library room and a text analysis of Upplands Väsby municipality library plan 2021-2024. For analysis of the study’s result, selected parts of R. David Lankes theoretical framework The New Librarianship are used.

Materials and results: Through studies of the semi-structured interview, the observation study and a close reading of Upplands Väsby’s library plan, seven themes emerged which the result were divided into. The survey shows that the commitment, knowledge, and competence of the individual librarian play an important role in the library’s work to strengthen and promote the national minorities. It also appears that it is a political issue and a matter of resources that affect how the target group is made visible in society. The result also highlights the importance of cooperation with the minorities themselves and with other actors in society.

Conclusions: At Upplands Väsby’s library, a conscious and targeted work is carried out for the national minorities. It can be seen as a development of the mission and a new librarian role, which with the right skills and knowledge has room to carry out value-driven library work. With limited resources, priorities need to be set, but even with small funds you can collaborate with and make the national minorities visible in different ways. By observing the world around you and being in conversations with other, you can expand your knowledge. Those parts together and working for a diversity of people, literature and program activities can still make a certain difference in the work of the libraries for the national minorities.

This bachelor’s thesis deals with how the spatiality of libraries can correlate with instances of disorderly user behaviors. The fact that public libraries are among the types that are most prone to disorder, while Kriminalvården’s (the Swedish correctional service’s) librarians rarely experience similar problematic behaviors, could be said to illustrate a balancing act between anarchy and a manic need for control; where the most ideal compromise is, is based both upon personal values and the situation at hand.

To compare different reasonings about the room and the users, public librarians’ perspectives on factors of architecture and design have been contrasted with how librarians within Kriminalvården view the matter. The study has mainly been carried out using qualitative semi-structured interviews as well as a supplementary questionnaire. Operationalized factors of spatial influence in the form of categorized opposites (accessible/inaccessible, comfortable/repellent, visible/obscured, enabling/forbidding), which were identified early on and have guided the investigation, are used both implicitly in the interview guides and the questionnaire as well as explicitly in reading for the thematic analysis.

The terms “ideal type”, “heterotopia”, and “panopticon/panopticism” are used theoretically to deepen the understanding of the essay’s collected data: their suitability emerges in the nuances of what libraries can/should be; what happens when you bring together multiple functions in one space; as well as how control through surveillance can be understood and applied in library spaces.

The results show several differences at the operational level, but also similarities in terms of the librarian’s approach and view on problematic factors. Public libraries often have many functions (that do not always interact harmoniously) and offer more freedom, which risks their orderliness, while Kriminalvårdens library operations (which consists almost exclusively of literature distribution) have more order – but at the expense of user´s freedom. 

The study’s outcome can be used as a basis of knowledge for practical planning of library design, but also as a springboard for further research. The effect of spatiality on users can prove important for the orderliness, atmosphere, and security of a library: cultivating an awareness regarding these possibilities of influence can thus be considered of great interest.