"More Cinema than Library" : Classification and Media Presentation in the Late Modern Society

This case study examines the new media presentation system in Alby public library. The aim is to explore if the contemporary Zeitgeist, wich according to the sociologist Zygmunt Bauman, could be described as liquid modernity, has affected how the system was formed. The purpose is to find out how that would affect users and staff of public libaries of the contemporary. Interviews were conducted with the library staff, and plans and documents concerning the media presentation system was examined. The empirical part of this thesis starts with a study of the process that resulted in the new presentation system while the second part examines the system as such. I discovered that both the media presentation system, and the process which preceded it, contained aspects that could be traced to liquid modernity. However, I also found lingering signs of solid modernity, wich is the term Bauman uses to denote the modern era. The media presentation system could thus be described as a combination of solid and liquid modernity. I argued that the new media arrangment is a compromise with several disadvantages for both users and the library staff. The interplay between solid and liquid modernity in the contemporary public library results in a divergent situation for users and staff. On the one hand, it gives more freedom to use the library according to their own ideas. However, old structures, such as classification systems, sets limits for this development