Bibliotekarier som övervakare? : En kvalitativ studie om lagförslaget tillträdesförbud till bibliotek

Sammanfattning: The Swedish government presented a bill last week of 2021 of refusal of access to libraries for some patrons. The focus of this bachelor's thesis is to find out the necessity of a bill, what possibilites the libraries have to apply the bill and whether the bill clashes with the democratic mission of the libraries. The thesis was done by reviewing the background material to the bill and a qualitative study of newspaper articles. The result was analyzed with a conceptual framework with Jurgen Habermas’ theory of ”public sphere” and Jeremy Benthams’ theory of ”panopticon”. The debate has been centered around whether the ban bill threatens public libraries democratic mission. The results show that librarians are quite concerned over this, librarians ask if the path to go is to exclude individuals from the public sphere. They also fear that they would be guardians of the public space. Librarians see their work environment as a problematic workplace due to situations with violence, threats and social unease. The extent of this is uncertain due to the lack of scientific research at Swedish libraries and their work environment. The study shows that a few libraries have reached good results in reducing the number of incidents through rebuilding the library to get a better overview of their premises and that they are using security guards at the libraries as a security arrangement. There are a few libraries that also work with meeting the visitors more activley at the floor instead of standing behind a counter and have reached good results reducing the number of incidents.