Since the opening of the first staff-less public library (meröppna biblioteket) in Sweden in 2009, the number of staff-less libraries has been growing at an increasing rate. Still, there has been little research published on this recent phenomenon in the Swedish library sector. The aim of this thesis is to fill a part of this gap by focusing on librarians employed at staff-less public libraries. The study targets their experiences with regard to changes in work content, competence requirements, and professional role. The findings are based on eight interviews conducted with ten librarians at staff-less libraries in six Swedish municipalities. The material has been analyzed using part of Wrzesniewski and Dutton’s job crafting model as the theoretical framework. In addition, Ellström’s concept of actual competence (rather than formal competence) and Ørom and Schreiber’s definition of librarians’ professional identities have been used to support analysis. The findings show that the introduction of staff-less opening hours impacts the librarians’ work content in terms of tasks, cognition, and patron interactions. This in turn makes room for librarians in staff-less libraries to develop existing or new competences. Changes in the professional role due to the introduction of the staff-less library are more difficult to identify. These changes seem to be triggered by developments in society rather than by changes at the local level.

The structure of the Swedish public library field has been evolving during the last decades. The traditional mission of educating the citizens to become responsible, democratic and knowledgeable members of society has in a way led to the integration between public and school libraries. Lately new co-operational models have been under debate and a sense of resistance has arisen because of the economical and market influences. In parallel with closure of library branches new libraries have evolved in malls and wash houses and some with self-service with no use of librarians. This work shows how co-operation in rural areas finds the common goals for the people living there who are concerned about keeping the service needed including the public library and thus using existing means and crossing borders of commercial thinking. Participators in the project are interviewed to find out their various wishes and a mutual goal. The degree of local democracy is also investigated. The outcome of this thesis is that in rural areas with tough municipal economy the citizens co-operate over borders to keep the services they want, and in this specific case it is found to be a meeting spot in the centre of the village, where also the library will be located, together with the country store.

Ett designförslag för Sundsvalls stadsbiblioteket om att öka tillgänglighet med fokus på både den fysiska och digitala informationstillgången. Detta innebär en förädling av entréområdet i biblioteket, alltför att göra digitala tjänster mer lättförståeliga och tillgängliga för biblioteksanvändarna.  Rapporten redovisar hela designprocessen, genom analysfas, kreativ fas och presentationsfas där den slutliga lösningen presenteras.  I analysfasen hämtades fakta och information genom möten med bibliotekspersonalen, en enkätundersökning (30), intervjuer och på platsobservationer. Den kreativ fasen utfördes genom skissarbete och rumslig skissmodellering i CAD för att därigenom hitta en balanserad lösning av digital tillgänglighet i ett specifikt rum. I presentationsfasen har en sammanställning gjort av de tidigare upptäckterna och där presenteras det slutliga designarbetet som en lösning till designutmaningen.