Litteratur i ögonhöjd: En studie av urvalspraktiken bakom skyltning av böcker på folkbibliotek

Sammanfattning

Book displays in public libraries engage a broad range of users and shape patterns of borrowing and reading. They therefore constitute an important means through which libraries can express institutional values and promote their collections. The aim of this thesis is to advance knowledge of how book selection for display is conducted in public libraries. The study draws on observations in four library spaces and interviews with six public librarians to examine librarians’ display practices and their accounts of the factors shaping selection. Using practice theory, the study analyses display practices through central concepts such as activities, actors, routines, and development. It is shown that the display practices examined are structured around four general understandings of values that the selection of books seeks to realise: the values of versatility and breadth, diversity, topicality, and increased circulation. These values are shaped by the institutional mission of public libraries as regulated by the Swedish Library Act, which is both explicitly referenced by the librarians in relation to display practices and materialised in local directives and instructions. The identified norms concerning the organisation of displays are linked to these broader understandings of their value. Competing norms are also present, reflecting both the interconnectedness of display practices with other practices, and the variation in how different actors carry out the practice. These include expectations that displays should market the collection, as well as differing views on the role of personal literary preferences in the selection of books. Finally, the study shows that librarians’ information practices for selecting books to display are spatially and temporally dispersed and shaped by the collaboration of different actors involved in the display practice.