Barn väljer medier : Erfarenheter från tio projekt där barn medverkar vid medieurval på folkbibliotek

Sammanfattning: The aim of this Master's thesis is to investigate why and how projects with children participating in selecting media at children s sections are made and how the projects effect the collections and the usage of these collections. We have studied literature dealing with how the selection at children s sections traditionally are made, how children participate in society and the question of quality. We have also made a survey to find out whether it is common to do projects like this in Sweden. In addition to this we have studied the discussion of patrons participating in library activities, having found mostly Danish material. Our study deals with five Danish projects, the reports of which we have read, and five Swedish projects, whose responsible librarians and assistants we have interviewed. The most common reason for doing projects like these is a question of democracy. Other reasons are to get a collection more adjusted to the patrons, to increase numbers of loans and visitors and to improve the contact between staff and patrons. The projects are made either in cooperation with a school or with children in their spare time. Librarians are sometimes worried that the quality of the collections will decrease if the patrons participate in the selection. We show that this does not have to be the case and also that adults and children do not always appreciate the same things in media. Many of the projects have improved the contact between staff and patrons and have also increased the number of visitors.