The aim of this study is to look at how librarians express theirpart in reading groups organized by public libraries. Thestudy is based on interviews with seven public librarians insouth regions of Sweden. The main theory used to analyse isfound in the article Bibliotekaren som litteraturformidler(1994) written by the Norwegian librarian Jofrid KarnerSmidt, where she talks about five different roles that alibrarian can have in this context and how they appear. Threeof these roles were used in this study: the pedagogue, theliterature expert and the marketer.The interviewed librarians mostly had a similar view on howthey look at their role in the reading group. They saw theirpurpose as to provide all kinds of people with a possibility tojoin in discussions about mutual interests and share variousopinions about books. Some librarians saw it as a chance tohelp the members of the group to read books they mightnever have read otherwise, and to learn more from eachother.The librarians in this study sometimes use other media likemovies or audio books for their work with reading groups. Itis also a chance for the librarians to heighten their ownexpertise, to learn more about their users; and how they feel.Furthermore, the reading group provides means to market allthe services a library can give. The reading groups are also away to market the expertise of the librarians against othercolleagues and the politicians. / Program: Bibliotekarie

The aim of this qualitative study is to create knowledge about the change of conditions in the librarian profession in relation to newly arrived people's information needs in swedish public libraries. The data for the study were produced through semi-structured interviews with four librarians from different public libraries in western and southern Sweden. The method for analysing our data is through qualitative analysis of content and Annika Lundmark's competence model. The competence model presents five different categories of competences: occupation-technical competence, strategic competence, personal competence and social competence. These four categories are  summarised in the fifth category: functional competence.   In the discussion we use Andrew Abbott's profession theory to study the possible change in the librarian profession. Abbotts profession theory focuses on how a profession work in relation to other professions in society and how jurisdictions acts when more than one profession is competing over the same competence area. Our result shows that the librarians seek competences in relation to newly arrived people's information needs that is not necessarily associated with traditional library work, but also that the librarian profession is in permanent change to fit in with the rest of the society's development. We can also conclude that the participants of the study talk a lot about the digital challenge in the libraries but also about the importance of cooperation with other authorities and actors in society.