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The purpose of this investigation is to study how librarians experience bookcrossing. We focused on the two following questions: Which variations are there in librarians conceptions of bookcrossing as literature exchange and reading support activity? Which variations are there in librarians conceptions of bookcrossing compared to other methods of literature exchange and reading support? Bookcrossing is an international book club where you share your books by leaving them at public places. The thesis is focused on librarians’ conceptions and not the conceptions of members of bookcrossing. Fictional literature is central in our investigation. To answer the questions we conducted interviews with nine librarians at eight different libraries. By using a phenomenographical approach our analysis resulted in four categories of description for each question. For the first question the categories were: bookcrossing as publicity, bookcrossing as a new way of thinking, bookcrossing as being democratic and bookcrossing as an activity at the library. The second question resulted in the following four categories: bookcrossing as an alternative to other methods, bookcrossing needs development to be reading supportive, bookcrossing as a non serious event and bookcrossing as a different selection of books. After the second analysis three categories of conceptions emerged: bookcrossing as an advantage for the library, bookcrossing as a problematic method for the library and bookcrossing as unimportant for the library. The conclusion of this study is that librarians do not conceptualise bookcrossing as a good method for reading support. But the majority of them had a positive experience of bookcrossing and they conceptualise that bookcrossing results in positive attention in the media. / Uppsatsnivå: D

The purpose of this thesis was to explore the phenomenon called bookcrossing. To fulfill this I have asked the following research questions: Why do people participate in bookcrossing?What functions do books have for bookcrossers? The method used is qualitative, semi structured interviews. Four active bookcrossers have been interviewed. These interviews revealed that bookcrossing as an activity in a medium sized town is very small. It also revealed that many of the books that the respondents place out are never registered on the website, and probably get picked up by people who do not understand the concept of bookcrossing. Theories by Tveit and Ross have been used on the social function of books, and reading as a social activity. The results confirm the notion presented by Ross et. al, that reading is becoming an increasingly social and collective activity. One of the lessons learned from this study is that bookcrossing activity probably is greater in bigger cities. If a bigger city had been investigated, the result may have been much different. For bookcrossing to function well it probably requires a large population to draw from. / Program: Bibliotekarie