The aim of this master thesis in Library and Information Science is to develop deeper knowledge of what is enabling or limiting the volunteer activities Lending an Uppsalabo. The perspective used is to understand how the volunteers’ involvement in new innovative services can expand the democratic work of the library. Furthermore, the intention is to examine whether the meetings between newly arrived and local residents, according to the volunteers' opinions, strengthen social ties and networks and whether links between newly arrived and Swedish society arise through the volunteers' cooperation with the public library. Qualitative semi-structured interviews were conducted with eight volunteers located in Uppsala. The interviews, together with volunteers’ reports were analysed and the method for analysing was theory driven and discussed with a set of theoretical concepts; bridging social capital, integration, high- and low-intensive meeting places and linguistic competence, which provided opportunities for interpreting the empirical material from different perspectives and accomplishing a theoretical discussion. The results show, according to the analyses of the volunteers' statements, that the meetings between newly arrived and local residents can strengthen social networks and create links between the newly arrived and Swedish society, which favors both communicative and social integration. Furthermore, according to the volunteers' opinions, the volunteers’ desk with its place in the library provides an arena for low-intensity meetings serving as a social meeting place and a place for language development. Additionally, through active citizenship, the volunteers wanted to create a new activity within the society to help newly arrived to integrate into society and this is one of the motive for participation.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:hb-23307 |
| Date | January 2020 |
| Creators | Löfroth, Karin Cecilia |
| 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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