Biblioteket i civilsamhället. Ett komplement till kommunens uppgift för en hållbar utveckling?

Sammanfattning: The purpose of this master thesis is to find out if library activities in civil society may be seen as a complement to public activities. The incitement lies in a discussion in the research activities of social sciences and among politicians, where the opinion is that civil society may function as a complement to governmental policy. The NGO-library Föreningen Miljöbiblioteket i Lund and the municipality of Malmö stad where chosen as units for examination. The common feature of the two units is the global task introduced by the UN, to create a sustainable development. The material used is exclusively concerning domestic information activities. The literature used for the background and theory chapters is taken from academic disciplines such as sociology and business economics. The method used is document analysis, which includes a comparison between the parts that Miljöbiblioteket and Malmö stad plays in the work for a sustainable development. Parts of the theory of Ulrich Beck on the risk society were used to perform the analysis. The conclusions of the thesis are that library activities in the civil society may make up a complement to public activities. Because the two units emphasize different qualities of their work, there are some differences. For example, Miljöbiblioteket uses the global perspective to a higher extent than Malmö stad, and the group that Miljöbiblioteket aim to reach are citizens who are already engaged in environmental affairs. After all, the main conclusion is, that there is more that connect then divide the two activities.