Ska biblioteket göra allt eller ska det göra halt? : En historisk studie av allmänkulturell verksamhet på folkbibliotek

Sammanfattning: There are various ideas about what defines the public  library and its cultural activities. The aim of this thesis is to examine how perceptions of the public library as a place for cultural activities are expressed in the library journals ​Biblioteksbladet​ and ​Bibliotek i Samhälle​ during the 1930s, 1970s and the 2010s. The main questions posed in this study are: Which perceptions of the public library as a place for cultural activities can be identified in professional journals in the 1930s, 1970s and 2010s? Which discourses can be identified regarding the cultural activities at the public library over time? Has the perceptions regarding the public library as a place for cultural activities varied over time? The method and theoretical framework is a discourse analysis inspired by Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory. Two discourses are dominant during the 1930s. The educational discourse and the modernizing discourse. The major discourses found during the 1970s are the activating discourse and the outreach discourse. The distinct discourses in the 2010s are the conservational discourse, the culture center discourse and the compensatory discourse. The result of the analysis showed that the discourses have many similarities and to some extent they have replaced each other. Throughout all three periods there is a notion that the libraries' tasks, assignments and roles is hard to fully identify and need to be clarified.