Bilden av biblioteket - ett prisma av kommunikation

Sammanfattning: The aim of this bachelor’s thesis is to reach a deepened understanding on the effects of increased communication within the public library sector. Few studies in the field of library and information science and social sciences focus on strategic communication in a library context. Thus contributing to knowledge on non-profitorganizations adapting to increased entropy and need for change. The study is based on three collaborative marketing projects in Sweden taking place independently during the time period of 2005–2013. In the region of Norrbotten 25 public libraries were involved in the one year Maracasprojektet. The 37 public libraries of Halland participated during two years in Synliggörprojektet. The four year project Futurum.Kom involved 400 library employees from 23 libraries in the region of Blekinge and southeastern Småland. The source material of the comparative study consisted of four sector reports regarded as trace of public practice. Through descriptive text analysis the phraseology, representations and culturally dependent patterns in the change projects was studied and discussed. Insights and reflections within the organizations provided by the end reports contained the effects of increased communication. Using the theoretical framework Communicative Constitution of Organization (CCO) the two creative processes of the retrospect and the reconstruction of the organizations was examined. In all three projects the recurrent phrase the image of the library functioned as an umbrella concept. When decontextualizing the core value words and graphic symbols chosen by library staff and marketing agencies, the desired image of the library appeared. The text analysis results show a clear tendency towards the trend of experiential marketing in the early 2000s. The results also reveal an increased awareness of the organizational effects created through strategic communication.