The Public Librarys mission in theory and practice. A discourse analysis of how the public librarys mission is formulated in a selection of library related journals during the period of 1999-2000

The aim of this Masters thesis is to examine and analyse how the public librarys mission is interpreted and formulated in a selection of library related journals. The journals are both international scientific referee journals from the LIS field and journals with a closer connection to the practitioners within the public library field. The idea is that these journals can be seen as windows to an academic theoretic perspective on public libraries, as well as to the practitioners way of talking about the librarys mission. The study also aims to examine if there is a difference in the way that the librarys mission is interpreted and discussed among theorists and among practitioners within the field. The theoretical starting-point is Ernesto Laclaus and Chantal Mouffes discourse theory, and the method is text analytic. By using a model in four phases based on Laclaus and Mouffes terminology, 30 articles from the two journal contexts are analysed. The result of the analysis reveals nine discourses which imply different ways of regarding the librarys mission: An information technology discourse, a democracy discourse, a cultural discourse, an educational discourse, a market economy discourse, a social discourse, a pedagogical discourse, a general education discourse and an overall discourse that concerns the fundamental values in the public library activities. The findings show that there is little difference between the theorists and the practitioners way of interpreting and formulating the public librarys mission. Even though some small differences are discernible, the overall impression is that there is a similar lack of conformity regarding the mission in both perspectives. The lack of conformity is due to the fact that there is no agreement within the public library field nor among theorists or practitioners on what the fundamental values for public libraries are, or should be in the future. To ensure the public library a place in the future society, this is an important question for further research in the library field.Uppsatsnivå: