Dewey i praktiken : en undersökning av bibliotekariers förändrade praktiker under övergången till DDK

Sammanfattning: In 2008 the National Library of Sweden made a decision to change the Swedish classification system SAB to the internationally used Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC), a decision that was supported by the Swedish Library Association that recommended all Swedish libraries to make the change. The main reasons and arguments were internationalisation and rationalisation; less time should be laid on classifying foreign material, the Swedish bibliography would become increasingly visible in the international context, and the maintenance of a national classification system were not considered rational for a country of Sweden’s size. The gain of the change has so far almost solely been a matter for the academic libraries, with a few public libraries beginning the changeover from SAB to DDC. This thesis aim to examine the impact that this change of classifications system may have on the social practice of the professional librarian in a large-scale public library within the Swedish library context. The thesis also aim to observe how a changeover from one classification system to another is handled within the examined public library. The thesis apply the theory of social practice combined with qualitative interviews, in an attempt to find what changes in the practice of the professional librarians the changeover might cause. The thesis also consider theory about classification itself, and how the classification is visible within the investigated social practice.