Kultur hela livet : Om vikten av samarbete mellan bibliotek och äldreomsorg

Sammanfattning: This two year master thesis reviews the possibilities for how public libraries and geriatric care can cooperate on a long-term basis. By using a project called Prosit the study shows which approaches and actions that worked in order to create this kind of successful collaboration, and which ones that didn't. The theoretical framework consists of the sociocultural perspective developed by psychologist Roger Säljö in meaning to emphasize how these two departments can learn from each other. The theory also underlines the fact that both public libraries and geriatric care can develop their own way of improving the elderly’s daily life by working together. The thesis method is qualitative and based on Virginia Braun and Victoria Clarke’s thematic analysis. It’s being used because it demonstrates the general themes in the research and also reflects the six counties’ different ways of working within the project. The thesis concludes that the sociocultural perspective of learning within a group could be applied while studying these counties’ different ways of collaboration. Public libraries and geriatric care could easily learn from each other by sharing their knowledge and experience in order to create this long-term interaction. The main themes found in the material were “communication”, “learning from each other” and “time”. Each county found their own individual way to deal with different problems that occurred during the project. As it turned out, it wasn’t easy to develop a functional cooperation that would satisfy both sides and keep it that way after the project ended. Instead of getting stuck in old routines, the public libraries and geriatric care had to rethink and come up with fresh approaches to improve the elderly services and work together.  The counties which managed to do so, are the ones with an effective teamwork even today. All public libraries could learn from the project by studying how they did, or didn’t, find ways to cooperate with the geriatric care. They can be inspired and get influences by how the six counties managed to learn within the group and see each other’s strengths and weaknesses.