Problemformulering och syfte: Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka hur de nationella minoriteterna synliggörs på ett svenskt folkbibliotek samt hur bibliotekets arbete kan förstås utifrån R. David Lankes teoretiska ramverk för The New Librarianship. Enligt tidigare studier är det flera av Sveriges folkbibliotek som idag inte uppfyller det lagstadgade uppdraget gentemot de nationella minoriteterna. Uppdraget ska realiseras av olika aktörer i samhället, däribland biblioteken och bibliotekarier. Hur uppdraget utförs verkar vara beroende av resurser men framförallt av professionens kunskap och kompetens vilket sannolikt är något som påverkar målgruppens synliggörande på biblioteken. Det avser både på individnivå och institutionell nivå. Det skapar en ojämlikhet i samhället och är problematiskt ur flera aspekter men främst på grund av att man inte uppfyller lagstiftningen om demokratiska, mänskliga rättigheter. Lisa Hussey (2010) menar att det sätt som professionella inom biblioteks-och informationsvetenskap tillhandahåller tjänster kan stärka positiva sociala strukturer men det kan också förstärka orättvisor.  Metod och teori: Undersökningen är en kvalitativ fallstudie av Upplands Väsby biblioteks arbete gentemot de nationella minoriteterna i Sverige. Det empiriska materialet består av en semistrukturerad intervju med två respondenter, en observationsstudie av biblioteksrummet och en textanalys av Upplands Väsby kommuns biblioteksplan 2021–2024. För analys av studiens resultat, används utvalda delar av R. David Lankes teoretiska ramverk The New Librarianship. Material och resultat: Genom studier av den semistrukturerade intervjun, observationsstudien och närläsning av Upplands Väsby biblioteksplan framkom det sju teman som resultatet delades in i. I undersökningen framgår det att den enskilda bibliotekariens engagemang, kunskap och kompetens spelar en viktig roll för bibliotekets arbete med att stärka och främja de nationella minoriteterna. Det framgår även att det är en politisk fråga och en fråga om resurser som påverkar hur målgruppen synliggörs i samhället. I resultatet lyfts även vikten av samverkan fram, dels med minoriteterna själva, dels med andra aktörer i samhället. Slutsatser: På Upplands Väsby bibliotek drivs det ett medvetet och riktat arbete för de nationella minoriteterna. Det kan ses som en utveckling av uppdraget och en ny bibliotekarieroll, som med rätt kompetens och kunskap har utrymme att bedriva ett värderingsstyrt biblioteksarbete. Med begränsade resurser behöver prioriteringar göras och man kan även med små medel synliggöra och samverka på olika sätt. Genom omvärldsbevakning och att vara i samtal med andra kan man vidga sin kunskap. De delarna tillsammans och att verka för mångfald av människor, litteratur och programverksamhet kan ändå åstadkomma viss skillnad i bibliotekens arbete gentemot de nationella minoriteterna. / 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.

The purpose of this Master thesis is to examine whether the term elasticity is relevant and functional to apply to public library organisations. Another aim of the thesis is to relate the term elasticity to public library organisations in a network society. Sociologist Manuel Castells provide the theoretical framework on the network society. Three investigations (meant to complement each other) in two Swedish public libraries seek to give answers to these questions.To be able to examine which areas of public library activity are elastic, I make a rough definition of what public library organisations consist of – nine activity fields are identified using IFLA’s guidelines in combination with Swedish law of public libraries. I also define elasticity. Three qualities make the term interesting to apply to public libraries: 1) elastic objects (libraries) have an ideal shape, 2) they (libraries) are moulded when pressure is applied from outside, and 3) when pressure applied from outside becomes too intense, elastic objects (libraries) break (or become dysfunctional).The essay undertakes three investigations in Alby public library and Dieselverkstaden public library in Nacka (both in Stockholm). In the first investigation two aspects of elasticity (in relation to public libraries) are examined: One aspect regards how elasticity is expressed in two texts that govern public libraries in Sweden – Swedish law and IFLA’s guidelines for public library activity. Is elasticity intrinsic in these norms and in what way? Secondly a comparison is made between how elasticity is expressed in these normative texts and the actual situations in two public libraries, in which way they are elastic, and what discrepancies there are between texts and scenarios from practice. I study the library – its collections, public activities, documents and rules and regulations regarding loans.In the second investigation I aim to find out how the visitors of public libraries shape the library, how they perform pressure on it. Short survey-like interviews are completed with twenty visitors at the two libraries.The third investigation consists of interviews with two members of the staff at each library. These interviews assist me in the process of developing thoughts regarding elastic libraries in a network society.Results show that the term elasticity is relevant but evasive. It becomes clear that studying IFLA’s guidelines and Swedish library law will not answer the question where the elasticity of the activity fields end. That limit seems to become evident only when examining libraries in practice. I find that five activity fields can be called elastic (in practice): the collections, the librarians, to give access to information and ICT, the library room and environment and management.Results also show that qualities that signify the network society combined with political changes, affect the way public libraries are perceived and opinions of how they ought to be managed. This is what I consider to be pressure on a global level. I also find that this pressure is difficult to measure.

In this thesis we explore the idea presented in the Swedish National Library Strategy (2019) to tie the public libraries closer to the nation’s total defense system. The purpose of the study has been to understand which problem this idea was formulated as a solution to and how the suggestion is problematized by information science professionals, using critical discourse analysis methods developed by Carol Bacchi. Our material consists of the finalized National Library Strategy, its first draft from 2018, and the referral responses by various interested parties, as well as interviews with 15 public librarians, library directors, and scholars of information science. We discuss how the psychological defense relates to the librarian’s statutory duty to facilitate citizen participation in deliberative democracy and to counteract misinformation. We also ask how the library professions might be affected by an active involvement in future civil defense efforts. Our results show that the National Library Strategy construes the idea as a security problem by portraying our society as affected by growing political tensions, rapidly spread misinformation, and chaos, making the total defense suggestion into a meaningful solution. In our interviews with information professionals, some respondents viewed the total defense as an extension of their work to advocate democracy and intellectual freedom, whereas others perceived ethical tensions and incongruity between the two missions, referring to traditional library ideals of political neutrality and independence. All respondents based their reflections of the total defense idea on the importance of deliberative democracy and the library’s prominent place in promoting it, but with differing perspectives of its relationship to the total defense system as either problematic or emblematic. Drawing on these results, we argue that a total defense mission is compatible with librarians’ professional ethics and statutory democracy advocacy, as long as libraries can continue to foster free opinion formation and unbiased information evaluation independent from state interests during wartime and times of crisis. This is a two years master's thesis in library and information science.

In this master’s thesis I examine how services like societal service and citizen service are described and motivated in municipal library plans over time, and how the design of these library plans affects the descriptions of service. Services are in this thesis described as services that members of the municipality needs help with, in order to perform tasks important in their everyday lives. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted these types of services in Swedish public libraries since local re-strictions affected the use and non-use of these services in the library. Previous research show that in Sweden during the pandemic, access to computers in the library was crucial to some visitors in order to pay bills and communicate with authorities. Therefore, it is of interest to study how this phenomenon is portrayed in strategic public library planning, particularly in plans established in the midst of a crisis. The material of the study consists of 22 library plans from 11 different Swedish municipalities. The material is described and analysed through qual-ity content analysis and the perspective of new institutional theory.In the analysis I identify four themes in which services are described and motivated. These themes connect to the documents descriptions of knowledge, (digital) participation, user needs and the library space. The design of the library plans has implications for the description of service and are illustrated through the municipalities different approaches to document revision and the use of references to other documents in the texts.The study also shows that the Swedish library law, which is ruled to be the point of departure in the design of the library plans, has been interpreted differently when describing and motivating these types of services. In some library plans the law hasn’t been interpreted at all, merely mimicked. This is a two years master’s thesis in Library and Information Science.