The aim of this Master’s thesis is to examine how public librarians, including school librarians, express themselves about librarians in library journals. Questions asked in the study are: How is the knowledge, tasks and roles of librarians described? How do the librarians describe their own and others perceptions of librarians? Are there any contradictions in how the librarian profession is described and if so, what are they? 56 articles from three Swedish library journals, Biblioteksbladet, bis and DIK-forum in the period from 1990 to 2007, are analysed. The theory and method used is discourse analysis. Concepts from Ernesto Laclau’s and Chantal Mouffe’s discourse theory, such as elements and nodal points are used in an analysis model in four steps. The results show that the knowledge of librarians is described with such words as information, literature, tacit knowledge and their ability to systematize and organize. Tasks and roles described are mostly related to the pedagogical aspects of the librarian profession, such as teaching, conveying and guiding. Two positions are distinguishable in the discourse, information and culture. Both are important parts of librarians’ work, but the information tasks are sometimes seen as too dominating at the expense of the cultural aspects of the librarians’ work. The contradiction can also be seen in how perceptions about librarians are described. The librarians express, often in a negative tone, that others mostly associate them with books. They also express that they need to be more visible and become better at communicating the knowledge of their profession.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:hb-19394 |
| Date | January 2009 |
| Creators | Årebrink, Anette |
| Publisher | Högskolan i Borås, Institutionen Biblioteks- och informationsvetenskap / Bibliotekshögskolan, University of Borås/Swedish School of Library and Information Science (SSLIS) |
| 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 |
| Relation | Magisteruppsats i biblioteks- och informationsvetenskap vid institutionen Biblioteks- och informationsvetenskap, 1654-0247 ; 2009:20 |
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