In recent years it has been discussed in the media that library users often request help and support from librarians regarding for example digital tasks and services that relate to government agencies and commercial companies. The aim of this study is to contribute with knowledge of public librarians' views regarding their mission and approaches to help and support to library users in the library. The study focuses on all types of help and support that library users request in addition to the library's traditional services (which are here understood as services clearly related to the library collection, e.g. reference work and user instruction). In order to examine this matter eight semi-structured interviews were conducted with public librarians at libraries in the municipality of Gothenburg. The transcripts from the interviews were then analyzed using qualitative content analysis guided and structured by a practice theoretical framework. In accordance with the practice theoretical framework, help and support to library users is considered as a practice. The result show that the library's mission in terms of help and support to library users can be seen both as narrow, primarily comprising reference work and as wide including all kinds of information, and that the participants help and support library users in different ways and with a wide range of questions and matters, within the wide description of the mission.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:hb-26792 |
| Date | January 2021 |
| Creators | Thanner, Carl |
| 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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