This thesis examines how school libraries can adapt their programme to new arrival immigrant students. The purpose is to survey the regulatory documents for school libraries to investigate how they adapt their programme based on the documents; how new arrival students regard their information needs and if the regulatory documents and practice cover those needs; and finally, if the regulatory documents and practice can lead to integration. The theoretical framework consists of integration theory, discourse analysis and SWOT-analysis. The methods used to collect data were semi-structured interviews, conducted with five librarians at four high school libraries, in addition to two student interviews, observations, and 26 questionnaires that were collected from students. Important findings are that the regulatory documents advocate an adaption to the new arrival students, and thereby interpellate them with certain needs, such as literature in their native language as well as easy reader books in Swedish. The school libraries adapt their programme based on these needs. From the students' perspective, the requirements specified in the regulatory documents align with the new arrivals’ needs to a certain extent. There are, however, additional needs, which the students expressed that are not yet being met by the regulatory documents or library programme. Based on the empirical material it is recommended to do an inventory of the newcomer students’ needs before adapting the library programme. Finally, the results suggest that the regulatory documents and the library programme make integration in the library context possible when it comes to the communicative dimension. However, more could be done regarding social integration, which is one of the needs the students express, but that does not have sufficient support in the regulatory documents. These additional needs should be met in order to improve integration for new arrivals into the library programme. This is a two year master’s thesis in Library and Information Science.

The aim of this two years master thesis in Library and Information Science is to examine how librarians and library managers in the three Stockholm suburbs of Alby, Fisksätra and Rinkeby think and reason about the role of public libraries in the integration process. The aim is also to examine whether their perception differ from that of local politicians at the municipal level. The theoretical framework is Marianne Andersson and Dorte Skot-Hanses model for analysis of the local library profile, and Jose Alberto Diaz theory on the integration process. The method used is qualitative interviews. The interviews were recorded and the content was analyzed using qualitative content analysis.  The results of this study show that the library services in the three suburbs, rather than being stipulated by the legal demand for special services towards immigrants, are based on the needs of the local population. Since a majority of the populations in the three suburbs are of foreign origin, no specific conceptual apparatus (such as immigrant) is required. Furthermore, the study shows no significant differences between library personnel and local politicians in their perception of the public librarys role in the integration process. There were, however, in the case of Fisksätra, different views expressed concerning the primary purposes of the local library.  According to Diaz model of the integration process, the library primarily plays a role in the social, communicative and personal integration dimension. All of the library's four roles (identified by Andersson and Skot-Hansen  as a cultural centre, a knowledge centre, an information centre and a social centre) are of importance for the integration, but the roles sometimes compete, indicating a lack of sufficient economic and human resources.

Enligt IFLA:s mångkulturella biblioteksmanifest och Unescos folkbiblioteks- och skolbiblioteksmanifest har folkbibliotek ett ansvar att främja kulturell mångfald. Samtidigt påvisar forskning att folkbibliotek kan fungera som en förlängd arm i den så kallade integrationsprocessen. Med detta som bakgrund har uppsatsen som syfte att studera bibliotekarier vid ett stadsdelsbibliotek i Uppsala och analysera de villkor som präglar deras verksamhet riktad mot invandrare. Uppsatsens teoretiska ramverk är inspirerat av ett sociokulturellt perspektiv så som det beskrivs av pedagogikprofessorn Roger Säljö i Lärande i praktiken – Ett sociokulturellt perspektiv och Lärande och kulturella redskap: om lärprocesser och det kollektiva minnet. Teorin betonar kulturella och sociala aspekter i läroprocessen. I den vardagliga mellanmänskliga interaktionen kommunicerar man via kulturella redskap och dessa kulturella redskap är uppsatsens huvudsakliga studieobjekt. Studiens empiri består av fem kvalitativa intervjuer med bibliotekarier anställda vid ett stadsdelsbibliotek i Uppsala och studien arbetar utifrån frågeställningarna hur bibliotekarierna menar att de förhåller sig till Stadsdelsbibliotekets mångkulturella arbete, hur bibliotekarierna beskriver bibliotekets mångkulturella verksamhet och hur bibliotekarierna ser på bibliotekets uppdrag och roll gentemot invandrare. Informanternas utsagor har tolkats utifrån sociokulturella analytiska begrepp. Vilken kontext arbetar bibliotekarierna i, hur handlar bibliotekarierna i förhållande till kontexten, hur kommunicerar de med den invandrade lokalbefolkningen och genom vilka kulturella redskap kommunicerar de. Studiens resultat visar att bibliotekets verksamhet för invandrare baseras på de lokala behoven och att bibliotekarierna använder sig av språkliga-, kulturella-, sociala- och digitala kompetenser i sitt dagliga arbete. Dessa kompetenser fungerar som kulturella redskap som bibliotekarierna kommunicerar genom. Jag påvisar ytterligare att det inte finns någon motsättning mellan kulturell mångfald och ett integrationsarbete, tvärtom visar dessa istället tjäna varandra. I min slutdiskussion argumenterar jag för att bibliotekarier som verkar i en mångkulturell kontext bör få kontinuerlig fortbildning för att stärka dessa kompetenser som har visat sig verka underlättande i arbetet med mångkultur och integration.

Diss. Uppsala : Univ., 2003.