Bibliotekens möjligheter och begränsningar kopplat till digitalisering och bibliotekens webbsidor : Med fokus på digitalisering och barn och unga.

Sammanfattning: In Sweden, political decision-makers assume that digitalization has become part of people’s everyday lives and look at its possibilities. In 2017, a new digitalization strategy was formed by the government. The main goal is to improve the digital competence of Sweden’s residents and confidence in the digital society. Children and young people are a priority when it comes to investing in digitalization both in school and in libraries. Digital competence as well as good reading skills are considered crucial to be able to participate in society. At the same time, previous research indicates that reading ability in children is decreasing. The responsibility of improving digital competence falls on the municipalities who believe that libraries can promote digital participation by developing visitors’ digital skills. The question is whether all libraries have this possibility and can meet this need of the population and to what extent depending on the resources the libraries have and the local conditions and restrictions that exist. The research questions are: How do libraries work with digital media and e-books to reach children and young people based on libraries’ websites and library plans? How do library plans relate to local practitioners; libraries’ websites and libraries’ e-books websites? What conditions, opportunities and constraints are linked to digital media and digitalization; based on libraries’ websites and library plans? What does it mean for libraries that the municipalities have the power and emphasize certain views and discourses in the library plans? The purpose is to investigate dominant conceptions in library plans and how these are put into practice on the libraries’ websites, with a focus on children and young people. The result showed that in the library plans, digitalization and libraries were either described based on possibilities or challenges and limitations. Children and young people were described together with a wide range of media types which shows that libraries are aware that children and young people use different kinds of media. The analysis of the various websites for children and young people showed that the children’s websites of libraries can look very different in terms of both appearance and content. The best thing would be if the websites looked similar in order for children and young people to be able to receive the same service no matter which website they visit. The analysis of the websites with e-books showed that they were more similar in appearance.   This is a two years master's thesis in Library and information science.