Debatten kring e-böcker på folkbibliotek

Sammanfattning: The increased popularity of e-books in the Swedish publiclibraries started a debate in newspapers and library journalsbecause of the increase in costs, which this popularity hadled to. The main subject of the debate was the businessmodel provided by the e-book vendor Elib, which accordingto some ruins the libraries financially. In this thesis, opinionarticles have been analyzed using a theoretical model ofcultural politics by the Danish Library and Informationscience researcher Dorthe Skot-Hansen. The results of thestudy showed that people from the library field, publishersand authors were the ones contributing to the debate. Theanalysis of the articles showed that the model of culturalpolitics which consists of four general motives: socialchange, education, economic growth and entertainment wasvisible in the articles. The motive of economic growth wasthe most dominant perspective in the articles, followed byeducation and social change. The arguments used in thearticles were different according to which part in the debateone had. Authors of articles from the library field were themost dominant part, using argumentations of the libraries asinsitutions contributing to social change, culturalexperiences and education. The perspective of economicgrowth was the most covered one in the articles, concerningthe economic situation for the libraries, the authors andpublishers rights to economic compensation for the lendingof e-books. The analysis of the articles also showed aconcern about the book markets and the libraries’ positionsin the digital society, a development which has lead to aninsecurity concerning the economics.