Berlin, Humboldt-Universiẗat, Diss., 2003.

This bachelor thesis analyses the role and identities of the prison librarian in three Swedish prisons in order to see how the librarians themselves understand their role and their different conditions. After interviewing and recording the three librarians I analyzed the material with the identities created by the researchers Anders Ørom and Trine Schreiber. Ørom mentions three identities which focus on the content both from the librarians´ perspective but also from the users´ perspective. A fourth one discusses the more practical work, for example cataloguing and classification. Two other ones stress the technological aspects of the librarians´ work tasks. Finally an identity is described by Schreiber which focuses on the experience the library is able to create which in some way competes with other media. It also stresses the information technology aspect of intermediation. The study shows that the more content-focused identities are mostly used by the respondents. Time and restrictions are two existent conditions which affect the possibilities to use the identities. Technology is discussed as an important part of preparing the inmates to a life after release, but is not a major focus for the respondents at the moment. The most important role according to the respondents seems to be the needs of the inmates.

Due to the fact that worrisome geopolitical conditions and rapid technological development may have changed the tasks performed in public libraries, the purpose of this survey has been to investigate the professional identities demanded on the Swedish library market today. In order to achieve this, a qualitative content analysis - based on the seven librarian identities recorded by Ørom and Schreiber - was conducted by recently published job advertisements. The result shows that all seven identities are present, and that the so-called social worker identity is the most frequent one. This could be due to the fact that some of the public libraries have been forced to assume more outward and socially conscious social roles as a result of the aforementioned geopolitical conditions. The study also shows that there are differences between which of the identities can be said to belong to the various general library types. The breakdown could be due to the fact that some of the profession specialized in the technical parts of the profession, while another assumed a more general intermediary role.

The problem of today’s public librarians is that no one really knows their identity, they try to be everything for everyone, which makes their identity fuzzy and confusing for both librarians but also for the librarian visitors. The purpose of this paper named “A profession in change? A qualitative text analysis of the identity of the public librarians on today’s public libraries”, was to investigate the current identity of the public librarian at the public libraries today in order to have a better understanding of what their identity is.  In order to achieve this, a qualitative text analysis – based on Ørom’s and Schreiber’s seven librarian identities – was conducted on online job advertisements. The result showed that the public librarian have nine different identities. In addition to the seven roles, two other roles were found in the job advertisements. It also showed that all seven roles were present in the advertisements and that the so called “culture intermediary” was the most frequent one. When it comes to the qualifications, academic degree was the most important one and was found in all job advertisements, followed by “teamwork”. The result also showed that the public librarian can have many different kinds of titles and that the title “librarian” was the most used one. This result can be due to the fact that the public librarian has many different kinds of identities and that the public libraries are supposed to be for everyone in the society. This is exactly the problem with public libraries. They try to please everyone and by doing so risking to lose their identity as a democratic place for culture and literature.

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