The background to this thesis is the impact of information technology on libraries and librarywork. If information technology causes changes in the tasks and work of libraries, thenlibrary organisations should also change. It is important to engage and inform the staff if suchchanges are to succeed. This thesis investigates the notions about library tasks and librarywork among eight "middle-managers" at Linkopings universitetsbibliotek.The investigation is based on interviews and then analysed with Soft Systems Methodology(SSM). By identifying the "Weltanschauung" of the staff, the thesis tries to create logicallydesirable and culturally feasible models of systems relevant to the situation at Linkopingsuniversitetsbibliotek. Based on the interviews, this thesis proposes two such models.The first model aims to make the library users competent to seek, find and evaluate their owninformation. The aim of the second model is to make library work more efficient by gettingthe staff to see themselves as parts of a process instead of isolated functions.

The main purpose of this Master’s thesis is to explore university librarians’ thoughts about the future. The analytical focus is thus on the librarians’ representations of the future. The theoretical framework used is narrative theory with a social constructionist viewpoint. Narrative theory is based on the premise that storytelling is an important part in the social and cultural context in which people are. By studying narratives one can get a glimpse of how people perceive their world, how they create meaning. A basic assumption of the thesis is that by studying the linguistic expressions used to create future the underlying ideas come forward. In order to realize the purpose of the thesis interviews were conducted with three university librarians who work as subject librarians. The interview material was analyzed both as a whole based on its content and on the basis of its linguistic form. The major finding is that the most frequent perception of time is as linear and variable, a view which is linked to the idea of progress. It seems important to be in favour of development to appear credible in relation to colleagues, partners and others within and outside the university. When librarians depict competing professional groups, for example lecturers, as they do not comply with these changes, it can be seen as a strategy to improve the status of their own profession.