Vilse på biblioteket : en kvalitativ studie om biblioteksbesökares åsikter kring processen att leta efter böcker

Sammanfattning: There are multiple things you can do at the public library such as study, borrow books and use the computers. The purpose of this master thesis is to understand what opinions the visitors to Lund Municipality's public library have about the process of looking for books in the library. Furthermore, it will be investigated whether the opinions differ between visitors to staffed or unstaffed libraries. Lastly the purpose is also to see how library users look for book in the library premises. The method used was semi-structured interviews with 11 visitors which 5 of them were made with visitors to unstaffed libraries. An observation was made of how the visitors moved in the library premises. This was done at three libraries which were Dalby library, Södra Sandby library and Lund city library. In addition, a go-along observation was performed with two informants to see what their process of looking for books looked like. The results were then analyzed using theories such as wayfinding, wayshowing, library anxiety, and theories about organizing materials. The results of the survey concluded that visitors do not have problems in finding their way in the library, but they do not understand the library systems. All visitors use wayfinding strategies to find their way through the library. Some visitors feel anxious when asking for help and prefer to avoid this. Most were content with the signs but there is potential for improvement in terms of accessibility. The conclusion is that more interconnection is needed between the search systems and the physical space for visitors to feel satisfied and find books more easily.