Voices from the Margin : Perspectives on the Library's Accessibility

The aim of this master’s thesis is to examine the definition of ”accessibility” in regulatory documents for libraries and to study the actual accessibility at Malmö main public library through surveys and a group interview. The study is based on theoretical perspectives like postmodernism, disability studies, queer- and crip theory. The method for this master’s thesis is to study regulatory documents for libraries and to compare the goals in them with results from paper- and webbased surveys and a group interview with five participants. They study the accessibility at Malmö main public library from their point of view. The study shows that the library’s main focus today lies on physical accessibility, whereas results show that this focus needs to be widened to include psychological, cognitive, and sensory accessibility. This could improve accessibility not only for people with disabilities but for all library users. The study also shows that the library environment and services are formed according to a narrowing ableist norm that makes the library accessible for only a minority of library users. The goals set in regulatory documents and the actual accessibility at Malmö main public library are found to differ widely. A lot of measures have to be undertaken to guarantee fundamental rights for people with disabilities and to make the library “accessible for all”, as it says in the Swedish library law. This study is a two years master’s thesis in Library and Information Science