Mediation of fiction for adult users in Swedish public libraries is a subject which has been little studied from a theoretical perspective. The motivation for this thesis was based on this realization, and the opinion that actual library users too seldom get their voices heard in library and information science-research. The thesis analyzes interviews with seven library users in which they have been asked to talk about the librarys work with mediating fiction. The answers are analyzed using a discourse analytic approach to see how the librarys work with mediating fiction is constructed in the users talk. Two main discourses are identified, one authoritative and one neutral. In the authoritative discourse librarians are talked of as experts who have the knowledge to guide users to the ”right” literature. In the neutral discourse the librarians role is to be open to all different kinds of literature that may be demanded by users. In librarians talk, as seen in previous studies, the mediation of today was often talked of as oriented towards performative experiences and a more personal role for the librarian. The traditional roles of librarian as mediator and user as recipient were being loosened up as there was talk of more user engagement in the mediation. This way of talking about the mediation however, was not that evident in the interviews with users. One could say that the users had a more conservative view. The public library does'nt have to be either a place that only values high quality literature or only happenings and user engagement. It should be the library's role to communicate more complex pictures of the library to the public. It should also be a task for libraries and people who do research on libraries to listen to the voices of real users, even if they don't always come with simple answers to how the library should develop their work with mediating fiction. This is a two years master’s thesis in Archive, Library and Museum studies.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-201217 |
| Date | January 2013 |
| Creators | Säätelä, Emma-Lotta |
| 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/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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