Some library users view of librarians and their knowledge : a qualitative study of views at a public library

The purpose of this Master’s thesis is to investigate how public library users consider the knowledge of the librarians and to examine what the users expect from the librarians. To begin with, we contemplate our own view of the librarians, their knowledge and what help we expect at the library. Realising that we do not expect particularly much from librarians, although we have studied to become librarians for two years, we assume that the regular library user does not expect much either. This assumption resulted in our decision to investigate this particular question. To gather information about how library users regard librarians and their knowledge, we handed out questionnaires to the users at a public library and interviewed five library users about their opinion on the knowledge of librarians and about how they view librarians in general. The results from these inquires were analyzed according to the hermeneutic methodology and compared to literature relevant for the subject. In conclusion we find that library users think that librarians mostly know practical work, like sorting and lending books and other media. Users also think that librarians know about literature, information seeking and that they are service minded. What the library users in our study wanted help with was finding books, information seeking, finding study material and practical tasks, such as interlibrary loans. The users think of librarians as calm, helpful and professional.Uppsatsnivå: