The browser you are using is not supported by this website. All versions of Internet Explorer are no longer supported, either by us or Microsoft (read more here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/windows/end-of-ie-support).

Please use a modern browser to fully experience our website, such as the newest versions of Edge, Chrome, Firefox or Safari etc.

Den nya stadens bibliotek : Om teknik, förnuft och känsla i gestaltningen av kunskaps- och upplevelsestadens folkbibliotek

Technology, Sense and Sensibility : Enacting the Public Library of the Knowledge- and Experience City

På svenska

Author

  • Hanna Carlsson

Summary, in English

This dissertation explores how perceived challenges and changing conditions for public libraries are translated and enacted in a local library setting. In 2008, Malmoe City Library, a public library situated in the third largest city of Sweden, initiated an ambitious strategy for renewal and change of their services. The strategy was given the name The Darling Library and expressed a vision to enforce a “paradigm shift”. In recent years, public library sector debates have been coloured by calls for change. By conceptualising Malmoe City Library’s efforts to realize The darling library as an attempt to handle a perceived crisis and demands for change, this study investigates how current challenges are met by local public library services and handled in everyday library work practises. The aim of the study is thus to explore how conceptions of crisis and change are expressed and translated in the transformation process of Malmoe City Library, 2009-2011, and how the changes made to face the perceived challenges are enacted. Thereby it seeks to contribute to a research-based understanding of how the changed conditions for public libraries are handled in a local service an in the everyday work of library employees. The data collection was guided by an ethnographic approach. Drawing on practice theory and ANT, different articulations of the conceptions of crisis and change was followed through a chain of translations, from research about public libraries, through policy and strategy documents, to moments of doing in everyday work practices. The findings show how the enactment of the “paradigm shift” implied that services and everyday work in many respects took on a different shape. Still, several established elements remained significant, for instance the printed book, but were ascribed new roles and meanings. The study shreds light on how enacting change also implies enacting stability.

Department/s

Publishing year

2013

Language

Swedish

Publication/Series

Lund studies in arts and cultural sciences

Volume

3

Document type

Dissertation

Topic

  • Cultural Studies

Keywords

  • experience economy
  • creative economy
  • cultural policy
  • digital media
  • digital technology
  • ethnography
  • practice-theory
  • public libraries
  • actor-network theory
  • urban development
  • information studies

Status

Published

Research group

  • Information Studies

Supervisor

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISBN: 978-91-7473-691-5 (print)
  • ISBN: 978-91-7473-692-2 (pdf)

Defence date

25 October 2013

Defence time

10:15

Defence place

Sal 314, Institutionen för kulturvetenskaper (hus Josephson), Biskopsgatan 5, Lund

Opponent

  • Nanna Kann-Christensen (Lektor)