The aim of this two years master's thesis is to examine public librarians’ views of their pedagogical role towards school children, and to illustrate the relationship between public libraries and schools as a background for the role of the public librarians. The theoretical framework is Carol Cullier Kuhlthau’s theory of the roles of librarians as mediators in reference work (Levels of Mediation) and in education (Levels of Education). The main question of the study is: How do public librarians view their pedagogical role towards elementary school pupils and high school students? Related questions regarding the use of the public library for school purposes, the communication and cooperation between the public library and the schools, the difference between public libraries and school libraries and the librarians’ view of pedagogical work are also made. The method used is qualitative interviews. These are made with seven public librarians from different libraries in different communities. The study shows that the librarians are aware of their pedagogical role towards school children, but still the role is unclear and difficult to distinguish from the roles of other formal mediators such as school librarians and teachers. The study also shows that a number of conditions, such as the organization of the schools’ library use and the communication and cooperation with the schools affect the pedagogical role of the librarians. They are also affected by the traditional role of the public librarian, which is to be at the user´s service rather than working as a counselor. However, the public librarians in this study believe that the ideal way to work with school children is to support their learning process.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-130052 |
| Date | January 2010 |
| Creators | Lundin, Malin |
| Publisher | Uppsala universitet, Institutionen för ABM |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/masterThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
| Relation | Uppsatser inom biblioteks- och informationsvetenskap, 1650-4267 ; 512 |
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