En plats för alla : En intervjustudie över folkbibliotekens arbete med unga

Sammanfattning: The aim of this bachelor thesis is to examine how public librarians perceives the library role towards young people. This is done by interviews with four youth librarians in various cities in Sweden and the interviews were analysed with the aid of “the four spaces”.  The central questions for this thesis are: How do the librarians perceive the library role towards young people? Which role has the book in the library’s youth activities? What kind of library do the librarians believe the young people want?    The study identified a change in the library role from a “knowledge institution” to a “experience institution” which affected how the librarians thought of the library role towards young people. The study showed that most of the activities toward young people were based on creative experiences, in terms of music studios, theatre scenes and social events, and less activities were based on reading promotion and books. The book had overall a split position as a symbol for democracy and free speech on one hand, and on the other hand a symbol for the “old library” and the “knowledge institution”. The study also showed that young people tend to use the library as a place to socialize rather than taking part of the media supply the library offers. Finally we problematize the picture of young people and conflicts in the library and give an account of the library’s barriers where we establish that it is especially hard for library’s to reach out to young people from exposed socio- economic groups.