The study examines the recountings of the work of five librarians at four public libraries in smaller municipalities in southern Sweden with their assignment of national minorities. Reports have shown that there are shortcomings in many libraries with regard to the fulfillment of goals described in the Library Act’s writing about national minorities. The study aims to investigate what activities representatives of libraries recount they work with, how they reason about national minorities’ visibility in the library space and how they view the library’s minority policy role. The method used is semi-structured interviews. The material is analyzed thematically. The theory guiding the study is R. Audunson et. als theory of libraries as a meeting place and its ability to bridge gaps in society. In the librarians’ recountings it appears that they primarily work with libraries as being low intensive meeting places which includes collections, expositions and visibility in the library space. Some of them work with events that can be described as high intensive activities. The results of the study cautiously suggests that it may not be sufficient to solely serve as low intensive meeting places in same ways as before in order to break old traditions of not having prioritized national minorities in the past. The study contributes with descriptions of librairians’ experiences of and thoughts on the subject at a time when national minority policies are being raised and the results may provide insights on how additional incentives for public libraries can be designed.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:hb-26418 |
| Date | January 2021 |
| Creators | Jansson, Josefin |
| Publisher | Högskolan i Borås, Akademin för bibliotek, information, pedagogik och IT |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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