The purpose of this thesis is to examine the role of bibliotherapy in Swedish hospital libraries. The aim is to try to identify and evaluate the difficulties with using bibliotherapy in a hospital library. And also see what opportunities bibliotherapy can offer. Choice of method is case study with qualitative interviews with five hospital librarians and two family therapists who use bibliotherapy in treatment. What are their thoughts and beliefs about bibliotherapy? My study also aims to highlight the differences between bibliotherapy as described in the literature and the way it is described in practice. Literature studies show that the term bibliotherapy is difficult to define. It can be divided in two groups, interactive bibliotherapy and reading bibliotherapy. This case study indicates that the knowledge of bibliotherapy in hospitals is limited and that the work is not done consciously and strategically. The interviews show that the librarians working with books as health promotion and that they have a strong conviction that literature has a positive influence on health.

The study examines how hospital libraries view patients as a target audience and their usage of the library’s analogue and digital collections, as well as what functions hospital libraries can perform for patients. There is a knowledge gap in the literature regarding the way that hospital libraries have viewed and formed relationships with the patients. The theory emphasizes relationships between the library and its user groups. The method for gathering empirical data was mainly qualitative semi-structured interviewing, which were conducted with the head of the library, a nurse and a voluntary staff, as well as qualitative content analysis of the webpage and policy document. The analysis of the empirical data and theories concluded that in a relationship marketing context the patient group corresponded to the customer market place, the nurse to the referral market and the voluntary staff to the influencer market, making the connection between the library and the customer market heavily relying on other markets in the model by Payne et al. (2005). The digital collections have mostly been built with the hospital staff in mind with the aim of aiding evidence-based health care. There is a lack of knowledge among the patients about the library’s existence and services. A potential is the patients’ own technological devices in reaching the library’s website and interacting with the staff. The hospital library has a “dually empowering effect”, referring to the physical space as a calm place to relax and finding literature in relevant fields. The aim is normalization of the patient. The lacking of resources calls for innovation, relationship building and collaboration between the parties in order for the library to reach the patients, here relationship marketing has potential.

This research explored the information needs of patient families and hospital staff at a pediatric hospital system in Dallas, Texas. Library statistics recorded in four hospital libraries from 2011 - 2013 were used to analyze the information requests from patient families and hospital staff. Crosstabulations revealed the extent to which patient families and hospital staff used the libraries to satisfy their information needs. The data showed that patient families used the libraries very differently than hospital staff. Chi-square tests for independence were performed to identify the relationships between the Classification (Patient Family, Hospital Staff) and two descriptors of information needs (Request Type, Resources Used). There were a total of 1,406 information requests analyzed. The data showed that patient families and hospital staff information requests differed greatly in the number of information requests, the type of information requested, the resources used and the time the library staff spent on the requests. Chi-square analyses revealed relationships statistically significant at the p < .05 level; however, the strength of the relationships varied.

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. / Syftet med denna kandidatuppsats är att undersöka vilka förändringar som skett i rum och rumslighet på sjukhusbibliotek under Covid-19 samt hur förändringarna upplevts av bibliotekarierna. Det empiriska materialet består av fem semistrukturerade intervjuer genomförda under april 2022. Vid framtagande av intervjuguide och analys av intervjuerna har det teoretiska ramverket ”La Production de l’Espace” av Henri Lefebvre använts. Lefebvres teori grundar sig i att det sociala rummet producerats i en tredelad dialektik utifrån de tre dimensionerna: det upplevda rummet, det föreställda rummet och det levda rummet. Frågeställningarna för studien är: Vilka förändringar genomfördes på sjukhusbiblioteket under pandemin? Hur har dessa förändringar upplevts av sjukhusbibliotekarierna? Hur samspelar de rumsliga dimensionerna i Lefebvres teori i de förändringar som sjukhusbiblioteken har genomfört? Resultatet av studien visar att de största förändringarna som skett på sjukhusbiblioteket var att de behövde ha stängt för fysiska besök och därigenom öka den digitala kommunikationen samt att bibliotekarierna upplever att förändringarna främst gav positiva effekter för biblioteket och sin egen arbetssituation. Resultatet visar även hur det dialektiska samspelet mellan dimensionerna synliggörs genom förändringarna eftersom en förändring av rum och rumslighet påverkar och tas i uttryck i flera dimensioner. Genom att göra förändringar i biblioteksrummet påverkas de fysiska aspekterna vilket i sin tur påverkar upplevelsen av rummet och även hur vi producerar rummet vi befinner oss i.