Ett bibliotek blir till : En kvalitativ fallstudie av förväntningar och förhandlingar i etableringen av ett områdesbibliotek

Sammanfattning

This study examines the establishment of a new local public library in Planteringen, Helsingborg, as a process of institutional becoming. The aim is to examine how expectations of the library's role are articulated and negotiated by actors in the local network surrounding the new library during an early phase when organisational structures and practices are not yet stabilised. The study addresses a research gap by focusing on role construction and legitimacy work during formation rather than in already established library operations. An exploratory qualitative case study design is adopted, based on seven semi-structured interviews with eight interviewees from different organisations connected to the neighbourhood in which the library is to be established. Institutional theory provides the primary analytical lens, enabling examination of how actors mobilise and relate different institutional logics. Carol Bacchi's What's the Problem Represented to Be?-approach is used to analyse how expectations are articulated through problem representations that organise responsibility, collaboration, and participation. The analysis identifies three dominant problem representations through which the library is constructed as a solution: as a meeting place, as a knowledge institution and as a compensatory resource. These representations rest on different institutional logics and construct different subject positions for the neighbourhood in which the library is to be established and its residents. The analysis of collaboration further identifies four conditions that simultaneously enable and complicate the library's establishment: a normative ideal of complementarity rather than competition, the institutionalisation of place, the projectification of welfare work and the person-bound character of relational labour in the field. The study contributes empirically by documenting early-stage institutional formation in public libraries and analytically by clarifying how collaboration and democratic ideals are negotiated across multiple institutional logics.