Between craftsmanship and outsourcing - challenges in purchasing literature in languages other than Swedish and English at Swedish public libraries. This paper examines how ten librarians working in Swedish public libraries perceive challenges connected to the acquisition of books in languages other than Swedish and English. It makes an attempt to explain how these challenges affect the librarians’ acquisition process and push it towards either a craftsmanship based process or a process based on a high degree of outsourcing responsibility. The method used was qualitative interviews with librarians that had acquisition of books in languages other than Swedish or English as part of their work responsibilities. A total of eight interviews, two of them group interviews with two participants, were conducted. Five of the interviewed librarians worked in a large city, while five worked in three smaller municipalities. The analysis was inspired by Evans’ & Saponaro’s model of the collection development process and Brian Quinn’s use of George Ritzer’s theory of McDonaldization to examine the state of academic libraries in the U.S.A. Three main challenges are discussed; identifying user needs, absence of language or literature knowledge and poor availability of books. The interviewed librarians acquisition processes could be said to exist on a scale between a high degree of craftsmanship and a high degree of outsourcing. One factor pushing librarians towards an outsourcing of responsibility was absence of language knowledge, which lead to a higher degree of dependency on vendor assessment of literature. Mandatory purchasing agreements and lack of adequate technical and cataloging services inhouse were also factors affecting the acquisition process as they lead to less choice in vendor selection and as a consequence hindered the librarians’ ability to take on responsibility in selecting and acquiring books.

The aim of this bachelor’s thesis is to gain greater knowledgeabout some multi-language librarians’ perception of theircompetences in the library activities that are conductedtowards people with other mother tongues than Swedish, inwhat way these competences are gained and whichcompetences they miss. The method that is used to answerthe research questions in the study is semi-structuredinterviews with four public librarians who mainly work withmulti-language activities. Lundmark’s competence model isused together with theory of the competence term to analyzethe collected data. The results that can be drawn is that themulti-language librarians in this study consider manydifferent competences to be needed in the profession, but thatthe formal education, language skills, ability to conductsurrounding analysis, personal and social competences arementioned as very important. The librarians described theirwork tasks and responsibilities as varying, which results in ademand of certain competences. The professionalcompetence is mainly obtained via university studies and canbe updated through both formal and non-formal education.Strategic competence can be further developed throughtraditional courses and regional or local competencedevelopment efforts but also through individual initiatives asnews coverage. Everyone possesses personal and socialcompetences in some form, and these competences are oftendeveloped through experiences in a person’s personal andprofessional life. The different competences are not separatedfrom each other but overlapping and completing each other.

This thesis aims to investigate how librarians work with acquisitions of multilingual literature and how their work has changed due to the European refugee crisis. In this study four main librarians with a special responsibility for this type of acquisitions have been interviewed. The questions were created to explore their experiences of changes, difficulties and existing qualifications. The study uses a new theoretical model, inspired by Evans and Saponaros’ (2005) “Collection development process”, to illustrate how librarians create relevant collections. Since the model was not enough, Andrew Abbott´s theoretical conception “External sources for system change” was added. The conception completed the model, since the study’s aim also included changes. The findings were that all librarians had identified changes in their work with acquisitions of literature. For example, they all pointed out language barriers and difficulties locating literature as the most palpable factors. All respondents found that the library’s purpose was to reflect the societal needs, which constantly change. Another challenge was therefore that the librarians constantly needed to redirect the way they worked with collection development, since the users and their needs aren’t always the same. Another finding was that collaboration between libraries and/or other institutions may become more common. Sharing of knowledge seems to be a necessity since the challenges are of different natures. They are not something foreign or unexpected, but they might require the libraries to ally in order to bring these tests to a soluble level.

Studies have shown that public libraries are important meeting places to support integration. However there are not many studies including Swedish school libraries and integration. The purpose of this paper is to explore newly arrived and multilingual pupils visits in school library to develop new knowledge about school libraries possibility to support integration. This study is based on the following questions: 1. How do school librarians perceive their work with newly-arrived and multilingual pupils? 2. Which methods are used and how are they noticed in school libraries? 3. In what way can school libraries be meeting places for integration? We used two different methods. First we observed when 10 year old pupils visited the libraries and then qualitative interviews were used to get answers from librarians. We applied parts of Diaz model of integration and also earlier related research to analyze the empirical data into categories. We found that cooperation with teachers, social skills and structure of working methods could be important keys to school libraries to support integration. The results show that school libraries can be both spontaneous meeting places for pupils where they could talk to someone who challenges their point of view and also structured meeting places where newly- arrived meet others for different activities. The librarians themselves experienced duality to the school library as an open meeting place.

By interviewing informants from six different libraries this study aim towards knowledge about which methods the libraries use to provide books in minority languages and how they take on questions concerning different groups and their particular needs. The study is based on the following research questions: Which factors govern how the different libraries work with books in other languages than Swedish? How do the libraries think when it comes to different language groups and their needs? How do the libraries consider the acquisition of books in the multilingual field? With the answer to those questions as a basis the study aims at investigating which factors govern the way the libraries work with the subject and how it affects the visitors in a bigger perspective. The results of the study show that the libraries are extremely dependent of budget, resources and the initiative from the librarians themselves as a result of vague and deficient guidelines and control documents. This results in a system where the working methods tend to be loose and controlled by cultural or normative elements. A lot of the informants explain that a reason could be the reorganization among the libraries as well as identity crisis in the library field in general.

This study aims to examine how study participants at the International Library in Sweden work with multilingual literature. Interviews with members of the staff were performed by using the critical incident technique. Qualitative content analysis was used to find themes and categories in the interviews. The following research questions are used in this study: According to the informants, what governs their work, how is it organized and who, according to them, are the library’s users? How do the informants work with multilingual media, what challenges do the informants encounter and how do they work with these challenges? The theoretical framework used to analyze the results originates from models of collection development, theories of strategies in organizations and theoretical frameworks of learning in organizations. The results of the study show that the informants face several challenges in the process of working with multilingual media. The study also presents different strategies used by the informants to meet these challenges. The results suggest that the International library in Sweden is an organization characterized by adhocracy and learning with a strong occurrence of emergent strategies. Many times the informants must make their way up as they go along. The results suggest that working with multilingual collection building demands experience and adaptation to new situations and highlight the importance of language skills and support between colleagues

Studien ämnar att undersöka hur vocational awe manifesteras i de attityder och föreställningar som kommer till uttryck hos mångspråksbibliotekarier och hur de relaterar till dels sina egna, dels andras förväntningar i arbetet med mångkulturalitet och mångspråk. Det empiriska materialet består av sex semistrukturerade intervjuer med mångspråksbibliotekarier från olika delar av Sverige. Empirin analyserades utifrån ett teoretiskt ramverk baserad på Fobazi M. Ettarhs teori vocational awe. Fem tematiseringar identifierades ur studiens empiriska data. Analysen av resultatet visar att vocational awe manifesterar sig hos alla intervjupersoner och yttrar sig huvudsakligen genom självuppoffrande tendenser i arbetet med mångspråk och mångkulturalitet. Intervjupersonernas självuppoffrande tendenser katalyseras av höga förväntningar på att existensberättiga sin yrkesroll som mångspråksbibliotekarie. Studiens centrala slutsatser är att vocational awe manifesteras starkt hos mångspråksbibliotekarier och att det är särskilt utmanande för mångspråksbibliotekarier att dra gränser mellan privatliv och professionalitet, där arbetet med målgruppen fungerar som en katalysator. / The study aims to examine how vocational awe manifests in the attitudes and beliefs expressed by multilingual librarians and how they relate to their own and others' expectations in working with multiculturalism and multilingualism. The empirical material consists of six semi-structured interviews with multilingual librarians from different parts of Sweden. The empirical data were analysed using a theoretical framework based on Fobazi M. Ettarh's theory of vocational awe. Five themes were identified from the study's empirical data. The analysis of the result shows that vocational awe manifests in all interviewees and is mainly manifested through self-sacrificial tendencies when working with multilingualism and multiculturalism. The interviewees' self-sacrificial tendencies are catalysed by high expectations to legitimise their professional role as multilingual librarians. The study's key findings show that vocational awe is strongly manifested in multilingual librarians. Furthermore it is particularly challenging for multilingual librarians to draw boundaries between personal life and professionalism, which is catalysed by working with the target group.