HOMO LUDENS - Om eget skapande och lek i bibliotek

Sammanfattning: The aim of this Master´s thesis is to explore how the public libraries in Sweden work with children´s and youth´s independent, aesthethic and artistic creations and play as new ways for stimulating and developing children´s reading. The method is a literature study which gives an overview of the theories and the research on Children´s culture concept and The Concept of participation, the meaning of play, and how public libraries interpret these ideas and integrate them in there activities. The theoretical framework is based on Roger Säljö´s and Lev. S. Vygotskij´s sociocultural perspective, Vygotskij´s theories about the importance of play and Beth Juncker´s theories on children´s culture and the aesthethic process. The overview gives the basis for the survey and analysis of the study's object that is the reading stimulating project Läskonster (Arts in reading) and the projects culmination in so-called Litteraturhus (Houses of literature). The empirical material consists mainly of documents and websites related to the object. The main question of the issue is: How do public libraries in Sweden work with children´s and youth´s own creativity and play, in theory and in practice? The secondary questions are: Where is the place of children´s and youth´s own creativity and play in the project Läskonster? How do Läskonster and Litteraturhus reflect the research on children´s and youth´s own creativity and play? And: Is there something in the libraries current “Litteraturhus-activities” involving children´s and youth´s own creativity and play? The survey shows that Läskonster and Litteraturhus include sometimes, not always, children´s and youth´s own creativity and play in their activities. Independent creativity and play take different amount of space depending on the approach of participation. When the children and youth have been involved in the process and have been able to impact the activities, have their own creativity and play taken more place. The study also shows that digtal activities as computer games and social media have hardly been entered into the investigated objects. Given that this type of activities appeal to many children and youth, it is unfortunate that they are not included in the work of creating new methods for reading by widen the view of what a text can be. This study is a Master’s thesis in Library- and Information Science written by Carolina Thelin at Lund University 2012.