Borrar bland böcker - Folkbibliotekens roll i en omställning till delningsekonomi

Sammanfattning: The sharing of goods and services has a lot of potential in tackling the environmental consequences of consumption. Studies indicate that public lending has advantages over private individuals lending each other necessities. It is therefore important to investigate how public lending can be organised most efficiently. Some Swedish libraries provide tools and other things that are not typically associated with libraries. The aim of this study was to investigate the role of public libraries in increased public sharing in cities. Six interviews with librarians were carried out. The results indicate very different views concerning the possibility and appropriateness of making libraries play a larger part in the development of sharing. The study shows that different circumstances have made different libraries implement these services, whereof municipal projects was one. Librarians were mostly positive to how the services had been working out, even though some obstacles were identified. Most of the things offered were popular, even though people tend to not spontaneously request them. Lending services were thought to reach a lot of people if placed in existing public libraries. However, there were some concerns about the risk of the core purpose of the library being pushed aside. Different solutions were being proposed, where the advantages of libraries were utilised without putting too much pressure on the library as such. The importance of cooperation in municipalities to work with sustainability was emphasised. The study may be used as a tool when working to develop public sharing in cities. Such work should however be combined with other measures to ensure that increased sharing leads to less consumption.