Fanfiction och folkbibliotek : Föreställningar, förutsättningar, och framtiden

Sammanfattning: Fan fiction has emerged as an area of interest for public libraries as the reading of it grows more widespread and visible. This study aims to offer an analysis of the practice that furthers the knowledge and understanding of the phenomenon and its perceived benefits for its readers in a way that allows librarians to better work with it. This mixed methods qualitative study builds on an partial overview of activities related to fan fiction on Swedish public libraries, 25 semi-structured interviews with both librarians and fan fiction readers, two small surveys concerning librarians’ knowledge of the phenomenon, and a few additional secondary sources in the form of previous research and ethnographic data not collected especially for the purposes of this thesis. In a thematic analysis the ways in which fan fiction readers and librarians make sense of the phenomenon and its perceived benefits to its readers are identified and formulated, and compared both to each other and the general reading discourses identified and thematized by Catherine Sheldrick Ross. Drawing on the ways in which different discourses enables or prohibits certain actions, it is suggested that fan fiction can be usefully understood as an extended reading of the source material, as a genre in its own right, and as a more accessible reading option. Each of these discourses suggests various ways in which public libraries might work with fan fiction. However, both the understanding formulated by librarians in interviews and the fan fiction related activities already organized at Swedish public libraries draw almost exclusively on the discourse of fan fiction as extended reading, overlooking aspects of genre and accessibility and the potential activities suggested by these discourses. Paying attention to all three aspects would not only make space for the possibility of different and at times more suitable activities, but might potentially also improve the library services offered to users in general.