Vem orkar vara på biblioteket? En studie om hur folkbibliotek arbetar med att särskilt uppmärksamma personer med utmattningssyndrom, en psykisk funktionsnedsättning.

Sammanfattning: A section of the Swedish library act stipulates that libraries are to pay specific attention to people with disability. Exhaustion syndrome is a mental disability that in recent years has started to grow rapidly in numbers. This master thesis is mainly aiming to study whether public libraries are welcoming and functional places for people with exhaustion syndrome but it also has a wider scope studying the availability of public libraries for people with mental disabilities in general. The study is based on three different questions that concerns the use of public libraries by people with exhaustion syndrome. I first discuss the needs of public library visitors with exhaustion syndrome, how these needs differ from the needs of other library users and how they overlap. The answer to this question is an important part of the rest of the study. Out of the result from the first question a second question is put: What services do public libraries provide that are appropriate for people with exhaustion syndrome? And if there are no appropriate services, what stands in the way? The third question concerns how my study contributes to the development of the theoretical framework used in this thesis. The main theory used for answering my two first questions is Critical disability theory and methods to get the empirical result has been through a research study, interviews and site observations. Interviews and observations were performed at four public libraries of different sizes in Scania. Chosen methods and theory have also been supported by two expert interviews that were performed to help answer my first research question. The results show that people with exhaustion syndrome need public libraries that offer a calm environment that is not noisy or jumbly. Technical solutions that may be of help are different kinds of audio assistance. It also points to the importance of distinguishable staff and clear spatial orientation. People with exhaustion syndrome are not to engage in lengthy cognitive activities and therefore they benefit from events held at the library that are based on experience. The study also shows that these needs are not often met even though some of them are quite easily rectified. There are different reasons for this; lack of priority by library management and/or politicians, lack of funding, lack of cooperation with people with disabilities themselves and lack of representation of people with disability in library management. In answer to my third question, the findings show that although there is legislation to help and protect people with disabilities, it is not always prioritized or followed in practice.