"Det handlar om oss" : Diplomering som strategi för hbtq-arbete på folkbibliotek

Sammanfattning:  Research has shown that the lgbtq community not always feels included and represented in the library’s collections and services. In the last 10 years the public libraries in Sweden have started active work towards the lgbtq community in changing this exclusion byengaging the lgbtq community in library services. One way to do that is to make the libraries undergo a process to get a lgbtq-certificate which many libraries in Sweden have done. The libraries in Umeå and Västerbotten have undergone a lgbtq-certificate process that recently hasbeen completed. This study has examined how the librarians in Umeå have experienced the process of getting the certificate. The result shows that libraries through their democratic mission have good pre-conditions to work towards lgbtq-people. The librarians experience that their knowledge about lgbtq has improved during the process, and the knowledge is expressed through increased insights about the needs of the community. The challenge the libraries in Umeå have after the process of getting the certificate is to manage the knowledge inside the organizations. The results show that there has been an increased cooperation between the libraries in Umeå in how they should work towards the lgbtq community, and that the work is less bounded to one person. The libraries now must work on how to manage the knowledge acquired as a result of the certificate process in each library in an effective way.