Bibliotekarieprofessionen och det demokratiska uppdraget
(2022) ABMM54 20221Division of ALM and Digital Cultures
- Abstract (Swedish)
- In this master’s thesis I will investigate how librarians think about how their profession is affected by and relates to the democratic mission and various cultural policy decisions. I will also attempt to make more clear how librarians interpret, relate and deal with external forces of change such as technology, politics and other social forces. This has been done to investigate and survey the two main troublesome worrisome trends in society. The first trend is increasing populist tendencies in cultural policy. The other trend is an ever expanding ambiguous set of responsibilities put on librarians. The method used to conduct this study was semi structured interviews with eight publicly employed librarians in four different municipalities... (More)
- In this master’s thesis I will investigate how librarians think about how their profession is affected by and relates to the democratic mission and various cultural policy decisions. I will also attempt to make more clear how librarians interpret, relate and deal with external forces of change such as technology, politics and other social forces. This has been done to investigate and survey the two main troublesome worrisome trends in society. The first trend is increasing populist tendencies in cultural policy. The other trend is an ever expanding ambiguous set of responsibilities put on librarians. The method used to conduct this study was semi structured interviews with eight publicly employed librarians in four different municipalities in Skåne, Sweden. The collected material has been analysed in dialogue with Abbotts theory of the system of professions and other contemporary theory and research.
I have used two research questions in this thesis. The questions read as follows:
1. How and in what way does the public librarian profession receive a mandate to work for the democratic mission?
2. How can public librarians reason about external influencing factors such as technology, cultural policy and other social forces that challenge and force change in their profession?
It appears from the interviews that the informants have a complex approach to demarcation in terms of area of responsibility and tasks. In order for them to be able to justify their tasks for themselves and for others, the need to be able to invoke an abstract knowledge base is therefore made visible. Something that emerges can both strengthen but also weaken the profession's democratic mission. The abstract knowledge base was also made visible in relation to political influence as a number of informants expressed autonomous tendencies in relation to political decisions. The importance of recognition from social arenas also appears as a central part of the librarian profession's democratic mandate. In challenges and changes, the social arenas can both attribute their recognition to the profession and vice versa. Furthermore, the library colleges is highlighted as an opportunity and strength to tackle external changes and challenges. The study shows that jointly established professional ethical principles in harmony with the abstract knowledge base, which comes with the academic education, can contribute to strengthening the librarian profession in general. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9083990
- author
- Åberg Hellberg, Madeléne LU
- supervisor
- organization
- alternative title
- The profession of librarian and the democratic mission
- course
- ABMM54 20221
- year
- 2022
- type
- H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
- subject
- keywords
- bibliotekarier, bibliotek, demokrati, bibliotekarieyrket, librarians, libraries, democracy
- language
- Swedish
- id
- 9083990
- date added to LUP
- 2022-08-23 08:41:50
- date last changed
- 2022-08-23 08:41:50
@misc{9083990,
abstract = {{In this master’s thesis I will investigate how librarians think about how their profession is affected by and relates to the democratic mission and various cultural policy decisions. I will also attempt to make more clear how librarians interpret, relate and deal with external forces of change such as technology, politics and other social forces. This has been done to investigate and survey the two main troublesome worrisome trends in society. The first trend is increasing populist tendencies in cultural policy. The other trend is an ever expanding ambiguous set of responsibilities put on librarians. The method used to conduct this study was semi structured interviews with eight publicly employed librarians in four different municipalities in Skåne, Sweden. The collected material has been analysed in dialogue with Abbotts theory of the system of professions and other contemporary theory and research.
I have used two research questions in this thesis. The questions read as follows:
1. How and in what way does the public librarian profession receive a mandate to work for the democratic mission?
2. How can public librarians reason about external influencing factors such as technology, cultural policy and other social forces that challenge and force change in their profession?
It appears from the interviews that the informants have a complex approach to demarcation in terms of area of responsibility and tasks. In order for them to be able to justify their tasks for themselves and for others, the need to be able to invoke an abstract knowledge base is therefore made visible. Something that emerges can both strengthen but also weaken the profession's democratic mission. The abstract knowledge base was also made visible in relation to political influence as a number of informants expressed autonomous tendencies in relation to political decisions. The importance of recognition from social arenas also appears as a central part of the librarian profession's democratic mandate. In challenges and changes, the social arenas can both attribute their recognition to the profession and vice versa. Furthermore, the library colleges is highlighted as an opportunity and strength to tackle external changes and challenges. The study shows that jointly established professional ethical principles in harmony with the abstract knowledge base, which comes with the academic education, can contribute to strengthening the librarian profession in general.}},
author = {{Åberg Hellberg, Madeléne}},
language = {{swe}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Bibliotekarieprofessionen och det demokratiska uppdraget}},
year = {{2022}},
}