The Imperatives of Reading : The Construction of the Reading Practice in ”Barnbokskatalogen” 2013-2015

This master thesis’s in Library and Information Science examines texts from “Barnbokskatalogen”, a catalogue that primely presents children's books but also contains texts promoting reading. The aim is to critically examine reading as a social practice in these texts, where the aspect of power is the foundation of the analysis. This master’s thesis draws upon the theories of Norman Fairclough and uses Fairclough’s methods of critical discourse analysis. The reading practices constructed in the analyzed texts are mostly associated with idealistic values, expressed with an authoritarian voice where the author of the text is positioned as an initiator of the reading practice. This makes a closed and excluding reading practice in the texts. This is unfortunate when the library should undermine its power in the cultural field to include as many groups as possible in its practices, and not only those social groups where a cultural capital is an important part of the group’s identity. The most open practice, which is found in the texts, is reading as a personal experience