This paper reports from a study produced within the currently ongoing project Public libraries in a changed political landscape – a democratic mission for a new era? The paper compares experiences of librarians and library assistants in Sweden and Denmark concerning how they perceive the democratic role of the library profession in the political landscape of today. Relating to research on the democratic role of libraries, library ethics and issues on neutrality, empirical data was gathered through seven group interviews with library professionals from eleven local libraries in south Sweden and Jutland in Denmark. Results indicate a commonly perceived discrepancy between general formulations of values formulated in professional codes of ethics, and practical librarianship. Dealing with threats and challenges against liberal democratic values in the public library requires an ethical toolbox that in individual cases may question the need for value-neutrality among librarians and library assistants if the basic mission of the library is to be upheld.

This paper presents an analysis of how library professionals in Sweden and Denmark perceive the democratic role of the library profession in the polarised political landscape of today. Relating to research on the democratic role of libraries, professional ethics and cultural policies, empirical data was gathered through seven group interviews with library professionals from eleven local libraries in south Sweden and Jutland in Denmark. Results indicate a commonly perceived discrepancy between general formulations of values found in professional codes of ethics, and practical librarianship. Dealing with threats and challenges against liberal democratic values in the public library requires professional ethical considerations that in individual cases may question the need for value-neutrality among library professionals if the basic democratic mission of the library is to be upheld.

This dissertation examines socio-cultural community identity processes.Initially, I have studied how cultural strategies of different eras – since the Ministry ofCulture Affaires was established in 1961 – have endeavoured to include social movementsin a national, mono-cultural concept of culture using various strategies and teachingtools. It appears that different the cultural strategies of different eras rearticulate socialmovements in terms of sub-, socio- and counter-culture, depending on which culturalperspective is valid. This realization has lead me to study how a socio-cultural communityhandles the identity shifts originated by various cultural strategies. The wayidentity shifts are handled by members of a given socio-cultural community is analyzedon the basis of a series of micro-sociological processes in which activists, among others,become conscious of themselves and each other and put them in a position to negotiatemeaning in public.The study is planned and conducted as a cultural analysis study with referenceto Norbert Elias’ sociological theories on social figurations. Cultural analysis is aninterdisciplinary field that draws on different traditions including Marxism, Structuralismand Social Constructivism. The choice of cultural analysis as a starting point forthis dissertation, thus, involves a number of theoretical and methodological implications.Theoretically, the thesis departs from more traditional library and information sciencestudies’ foundation in natural science which among other things is reflected information thinking, focus on engaged life processes and interest in the subjects’ worldlife, their practices as well as everyday routines. The thesis is not based on one, unifiedtheory, but lets the activists’ narrative topics guide the choice of various theoretical approachesused to reconstruct a cultural analytic image of the socio-cultural community.From a methodological point of view, this means that the thesis is builtaround etno-metodological activities, field observations, active participation in socialand cultural processes, and through a series of narrative interviews. The study is conductedas a case felt study of a social movement called “1000fryd” in Aalborg. 1000frydhas existed for 25 years as an alternative to established arts and culture (communication)institutions in Aalborg. 1000fryd is an association whose members identify themselvesand each other as being in opposition to the established artistic, cultural and politicallife in mainstream culture, and therefore they operate under the auspices of 1000-fryd. As such, 1000fryd appears as a cultural and political underground scene in NorthernJutland. The members of 1000fryd host well over two hundred events annually: concerts,festivals, happenings, exhibitions, etc., all of which are based on voluntary labour.1000fryd is organized according to participatory principles meaning that the influence of each activist on the movement’s cultural profile, event calendar, activities, etc. is relativelyhigh.The coupling between library and information science and this socio-culturalobject field is made out of interest for different knowledge forms used by the activistsin their handling of identity shifts at 1000fryd. Through analysis of how the activistsempower themselves and one another, their various internal and external inclusion andexclusion processes and their handling of emotional involvement and intellectual distance,I have studied the forms of knowledge that are active in the 1000fryd organisationand how they are used for identification purposes. By analyzing the activists’ negotiationof meaning and coherence in various public and semi-public contexts and theirhandling of late modern, cognitive and bodily experience, I have concluded that the organizationof knowledge that takes place at 1000fryd is mainly enabled through the useof symbols / symbol systems, discourse and key scenarios, polarization and narratives.Throughout the study, I have gotten a glimpse of the topics that currently preoccupy themembers at 1000fryd and how they administer this joint preoccupation.The dissertation contributes to research in library and information sciencewith new perspectives on the factors that motivate subjects to engage in socio-culturalcommunities, the various effects and consequences labelling and categorization have onthe members of such social movements, and the fact that members are not only surrenderedto comply with labelling and the stigmatizing naming of categorization, buthave different options to maintain an initiative. Members of social movements are activelyco-constructing their socio-cultural identities in a tension field between internaldebates and negotiations and external structures. In addition, the results indicate that artsand cultural (communication) institutions – especially public libraries – are acting in atension field between the interests of individual subject autonomy and collective obligationstowards society’s cohesiveness. This dualism appears in the role of public librariesas public arts and culture (communication) institutions that are subjected to local authoritycontrol, economics and legislation who, at the same time, stage themselves as civilarenas for individual experience, intellectual growth and interpersonal interaction.Those two roles are not always compatible.Last but not least, the thesis appears as an example of how cultural analysisas a scientific theory may be implemented in a library and information scientific context.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate what democratic challenges the digitisation of thepublic libraries in Denmark has entailed. Using the concepts from a national library professional strategyfrom 2012, an analysis of 9 librarians’ experiences with digital dissemination in practice is conducted.

Design/methodology/approach – The paper is a part of a larger research project called “If digitisationis the answer, then what was the question?”. This sub study builds on the semi-structured interviews withlibrary staff members, case-descriptions of two central providers of digital public library materials, as well asliterature studies of missions, vision and strategies from different public library policy institutions. To framethe study, a literature review has been conducted.

Findings – The author detects the presence of several incompatible conditions in digital dissemination.These conditions are predominantly of an organisational nature, potentially containing major consequencesfor citizens’ free and equal access to information, knowledge and culture. Among other things, the Danishpublic libraries risk substantiating an already existing and problematic polarisation between technologicallycapable and incapacitated groups of people.

Originality/value – The digital transformation of society has only just begun. Therefore, it is important toexamine the consequences of the transition to digital media types for central cultural institution such as thepublic libraries. The present study is an early and minor contribution to the illumination of a processrequiring many more and large-scale studies.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate what con`sequences the digitisation of publiclibraries’ knowledge dissemination and the transition to online services has, for library staff members’perception of their skills. This discussion is interesting because library staff members, by politicians,stakeholders, and other opinion makers, have been appointed as key facilitators of citizens’ continuedattachment to civil society and the labour market.

Design/methodology/approach – This study is based on interviews with library staff members atDanish public libraries. Empirical data were collected through semi-structured e-mail interviews, basedon an interview formula, and via follow-up telephone conversations. Library professional rapports andresearch literature were identified and applied as a theoretical framework in the creation of theanalytical apparatus.

Findings – There were several different explanatory models available when respondents had to articulatetheir current challenges. The first model regarded the library staff members’ lack of skills as a political-organisational issue, occurring because of a lack of invest in their continuing education. Continuing educationhad therefore become a personal matter. The second model highlighted the library staff members’ lack ofskills as an individual, library professional problem, where the responsibility for solving the problem lay withthe individual employee.

Originality/value – Several studies have been conducted on library staff members’ skills and how theychange, due to the transition to digital forms of dissemination. The present study strives to give employees avoice, which is why the respondents’ experiences are the starting point for the analytical work. Such studiesare essential to understanding the extent and nature of the problem

Dette kapitlet belyser folkebibliotekernes almendidaktiske opgaver, og hvordan disse omformes af den igangværende digitalisering, især med fokus på overgang fra bog til e-bog. Udgangspunktet er, at ændringer i materielle vilkår og betingelser fordrer en række nye kompetencer, for at det enkelte menneske kan bibeholde sin evne til at forstå, fortolke og reflektere over indholdet af kunstneriske artefakter som for eksempel bøger. Fokus i kapitlet er især på underprivilegerede menneskers betingelser. Konklusionen er, at e-bogen medfører en instrumentalisering af adgangen til litteratur, hvilket i sig selv ikke forbedrer underprivilegerede menneskers intellektuelle tilgængelighed. Tværtimod betyder e-bogens digitale karakter at de yderligere lag af (informations)kompetencer der er nødvendige for at interagere med e-bogen som medie, , kan betragtes som en mulig barriere for visse menneskers demokratiske medindflydelse.

In an increasingly networked society, citizens expect to participate in open negotiations of what is right and proper whenever civil servants are about to make decisions affecting their specific life conditions. This expectation challenges the self-understanding that has hitherto been a part of contesting a public office. According to Schreiber and Elbeshausen, civil servants can react in different ways whenever their identities are up for discussion: 

1. They can struggle to maintain a monopoly of knowledge and practice in an effort to protect the practice field, e.g. against outside theories, methods and knowledge, 

2. They can adopt a laissez-faire approach and provide the public with what they want, whereby their relationship is commercialised, or 

3. They can engage in dialogues with the public to jointly negotiate what functions they are expected to perform (2005, pp. 15–16). 

In Scandinavian public libraries, the latter has been the case. During recent decades, citizens have gained more possibilities than ever before to participate in co-creating activities regarding public libraries’ raison d’être. Thereby, they enter realms that were previously reserved for professional practitioners. Library staff, conversely, increasingly become facilitators of the participation of the citizens. This raises the question what competences is required of library staff to meet this role. More specifically, what is required for them, i.e. to both contemplate the needs and wants of a more diverse and participating public and at the same time engage in negotiations about the framework for the fulfilment of these needs and wants. In this chapter, I provide a characterisation of thesocietal development which caused the shifts in the relationship between the public and library staff, with the aim of discussing the resulting need for a redefinition of library competence.

Public libraries have a societal duty to promote the peaceful coexistence between population and are therefore involved in integration work. However, the question is whether the integration perspective is suitable for addressing current issues or if other perspectives are more adequate. To study this, I conducted a literature review of published articles on Scandinavian public libraries’ integration work, six semi-structured interviews with male asylum seekers and an email interview with the chief operations officer at three asylum reception centres in Denmark. Using a lifelong learning perspective, I was able to consider the six asylum seekers’ experiences with integration in new ways. It became evident how integration is an ambiguous concept, and how the integration process does not constitute temporary phases but rather initiates lifelong learning processes, just like the activities native Danes conducts in their efforts to handle their lives in late modernity. The lifelong learning perspective probably cannot replace the integration perspective, but it may help us understand which activities are appropriate for public libraries to engage in. The public libraries’ task is not to assimilate, but to promote new citizens’ opportunities for peaceful coexistence by facilitating people’s participation in society.

The aim of this article is to investigate how the digital conversion that currently takes place in public libraries in Denmark, affects the perception of those cultural dissemination activities that result from the work with documents. My starting point is that the digital conversion means an increase in digital documents and that the characteristics of these documents differ so significantly from analog documents that it potentially means changes in both the practical handling and the conceptual universe associated with the designation, identification, and definition of practice. The study is conducted as a literature survey, where Johan Fjord Jensen (1988), Dag Solhjell (2001) and Jens Gudiksen (2005) constitute the theoretical framework and where eight public libraries’ digital strategies from region Midtjylland are analyzed on the basis of a heuristic approach to the discourse concept. The conclusion is that the eight digital strategies do not explicitly refer to concepts that traditionally denote the cultural activities of the public library (e.g. 'enlightenment' and 'cultural activity') but that these concepts are thematized and understood in new and more transmissive terms such as 'accessibility' 'usage frequency' and as 'need', 'consumption' and 'demand'. This happens because the eight strategies consider technology and the use of technology superior to content, which makes the strategies more part of the public libraries' legitimization work and less a part of the facilitation of people’s common actions in late modernity. 

Dette pilotstudies ambition er at undersøge, hvordan og hvorfor narrative elementer lejlighedsvist aktiveres af aktører i deres kontakt med bibliotekarer i folkebiblioteker. Ved hjælp af en kulturanalytisk tilgang studeres forskellige aktørers narrative udvidelser af referenceinterviewet. Teoretisk bygger pilotstudiet på Anthony Giddens karakteristik af senmoderne ekspertsystemer som funktionelt uddifferentierede og på Reijo Savolainens teori om informationssøgning som udgangspunkt for aktørers forskellige måder at håndtere livsudfoldelse på, i bestræbelserne på at opretholde det gode liv. Pilotstudiet bekræfter de 2 indledende antagelser:

1) at nogle aktører anvender narrative udvidelser, fordi de vælger at betone den mellemmenneskelige relation mellem aktør og bibliotekar, som om det var enhver anden social relation og derved ignorerer andre, mere repræsentative dele af bibliotekarernes funktioner.

Og 2) at nogle aktører anvender narrative udvidelser i bestræbelserne på at legitimere egne sociale positioner og identitetsdannelse gennem kritisk refleksion over bibliotekarernes og folkebibliotekets institutionelle position og magt.

Gennem den narrative udvidelse formår disse aktører at iscenesætte sig selv som aktivt handlende individer, der ikke blot er udleveret til et ekspertsystems forgodtbefindende, men medbestemmende i konstruktionen af egne sociale positioner.

Og endelige fremtræder, gennem det analytiske arbejde, konturerne af en tredje antagelse, at 3) aktørerne alle, på forskellig vis, og ud fra forskellige livssituationer og sociale positioner, benytter kontakten med bibliotekarer til at forhandle mening offentligt. Denne meningskonstruktion betragtes som essentiel for forståelse af, hvad kontekst betyder for interaktionen mellem aktør og bibliotekar og udgør samtidig et afsæt til videre studier

Introduction. Since the 1960s, intensified migration movements have changed the nation-states’ cultural composition, and this is why integration efforts have increasingly been targeting newcomers. In 2007, a reform of the public administration in Denmark entered into force and the purpose of this article is to initiate an investigation of what this initiative has meant for the integration work in public libraries.

Method. The article is based on selected research articles and reports on the changing missions, visions, and objectives of Danish public libraries and subsequently used as a theoretical framework for the analysis of an interview with an integration librarian.

Findings. The Structural Reform changed the public library paradigm and promoted an administration perspective that focuses on the public’s existing knowledge of libraries, requiring an upgrade of librarians as teachers to make library use more efficient. Vice versa, the integration perspective is based on target groups’ ignorance of the library and this is why integration activities strive to create equality through compensatory discrimination. This ambition requires initiatives to be personalised and an interest in target groups’ preferences.

Conclusion. When the professional attention shifted from compensatory discrimination to formalised education, the public libraries’ raison d’être was changed, too.

In 2015, the United Nations adopted a program of principles, Agenda 2030, to create a more sustainable world and better the living conditions for people. In this ambition, culture plays a crucial role. As such, the world goals seem to be an obvious topic for Danish public libraries, but this has not been the case until recently.

This study is based on a mixed-method approach including document studies, semi-structured interviews, and participation in a practitioners’ conference. It finds that Danish librarians strive to make the world goals comprehensible and articulate the parent institution as local communicators. Libraries are shown to be correctives to current commercial structures, but apart from this display great variation in how far the various libraries are advanced in their sustainable transformation.

The study concludes that public libraries inform citizens about the ambition of the world goals as a starting point for adjustments in the citizens’ actions. Public libraries have ventured into unknown territory, where previous practices do not hold much status. Many library professionals lack this awareness, which is necessary for our understanding of the United Nations world goals as a library policy task.

Introduction: The starting point for this article is the assumption that librarians who participate in integration activities not only activate their institutional values and LIS skills (Schreiber & Elbeshausen, 2006) but are also always personally involved. In a study conducted in spring 2019, I demonstrated how a major change in Danish society's administrative structures again directed the public libraries' focus toward rationalisation and efficiency processes and reshaped the relationship between the librarian and the public. Consequently, the reform led to larger but fewer library units, digitisation and higher levels of self-service. This contrasts with the focus on integration work that preceded 2008. However, integration work has not disappeared but exists in a transformed edition.

Methods: This article is based on two different approaches: a study of different theoretical perspectives on librarians' skills, as well as two semi-structured interviews (Brinkmann, 2013; King & Horrocks, 2012, pp. 35, 49-53). The first interview was conducted with an integration librarian mid-January 2019 and represents the main empirical findings. The second one was conducted in a series of interviews with asylum seekers at the end of July 2018. The latter interview function as a supplement. Ten research and dissemination articles on the evolution of the librarian profession concerning integration were verified and reviewed. I use these articles’ theoretical and practical observations to substantiate the analytical model I developed in the spring of 2019 – and apply it to analyses of the above-mentioned interview.

Findings: In my model, the librarians’ skills are placed in a field of tension between the librarian as generalist and specialist (horizontal axis) and between the librarian's professional skills (vertical axis). The analysis shows that the integration librarian is professional and uses both her generalist and specialist skills when involved in integration activities, e.g. facilitating individuals or communities by applying search and dissemination skills. Furthermore, the analyses show a deep, personal commitment. The integration librarian's professionalism systematically ensures equal treatment of individuals, while personal involvement means a commitment far beyond the LIS domain.

Conclusion: My study shows that the integration librarian is professionally involved in integration activities and uses both generalist and specialist skills to assist individuals and communities of other ethnic origins in their everyday life. Additionally, the integration librarian evinces a deep sense of personal engagement – with the benefits and challenges this entails. 

Denne artikel omhandler et forsøg med integration af praksis i undervisningen, som har til formål, 1) at give de studerende en fornemmelse for, hvordan fagene på uddannelsen har relevans for arbejdet i praksis, og 2) at kvalificere de studerende til mødet med praksis. Derfor inddrages især Etienne Wenger og Jean Laves teorier om ’praksisfællesskaber’ med fokus på ’situeret læring’ i overvejelserne over og planlægning af forsøget. Forsøget betegnes Situationspraktik og organiseres ud fra tre overordnede aktiviteter: asynkrone studieaktiviteter (litteraturstudier, planlægning og forberedelse af delarrangementer), klassisk konfrontationsundervisning (teori- analyse og metodepræsentation) og som et arrangement, hvor resultaterne af disse aktiviteter omsættes i praksis. I forsøget deltager 12 studerende, der alle går på 4. semester. Situationspraktikken resulterer for underviser i erfaringer med, hvilke pædagogiske muligheder og udfordringer der er med at facilitere læringsfællesskaber de studerende imellem og med inddragelse af eksterne stakeholders.