Bibliotekets föreställda roller : En diskursanalys av biblioteksdebatten på 60-talet

Sammanfattning

The purpose of this essay is to examine, through discourse analysis, how librarians presented their role and the role of the library in the library debate during the 1960s in Sweden. The empirical material consists of debate articles from the Swedish Library Association’s Monthly Magazine, Biblioteksbladet. Using a discourse analysis model developed by Hedemark (2009), this essay identifies three major discourses in the debate. The status- and traditional discourse, the adaptation discourse and the service discourse. In the discourses the role of the libraries presents differently, from a more traditional role focusing on good literature and educating the public, to a more encompassing role of information dissemination and good service in different forms. The discourses point of difference relates to how the library should be defined; librarians and library users are conferred in different roles in the different discourses. Language analysis suggests that the status- and tradition discourse dominated the discourse landscape relative to the library’s role, while the other two discourses were seeking to replace the dominant discourse.