Alternative arrangement of books : A study in Jönköping public library children and youth department

In this Master we have studied classification system and alternative arrangements of books in a public library. The public libraries in Sweden use the SAB classification system. This system was created nearly a hundred years ago in order to suit the librarians and the Swedish society at the time. Today many library users find the system difficult to understand. This and other factors have inspired a number of libraries to arrange books in an alternative and more user-friendly way. We chose Jönköping public library to study their alternative arrangement of fiction books for children and youth. The purpose was to find out why and how the new alternative arrangement of books was done and where the inspiration behind the changes came from. We also wanted to know how the new shelf system had been perceived by the children and the personal staff. We made interviews with three librarians in the library and a questionnaire to the children who visited the library. In order to get a theoretical background we studied classification and alternative shelf systems in literature and in a few Masters. It seems that the main purpose behind the alternative arrangements in Jönköping public library was to make the library more user-friendly and self-instructive. In both interviews and questionnaire the respondents gave a positive picture of the new shelf-system.Uppsatsnivå: