Children in focus : A comparative study of public libraries’ children’s sections in Sweden and Italy.

The purpose for this Master’s thesis is to describe the similarities and the differences of the work at the public libraries’ children’s sections, between Sweden and Italy. In order to do that we examine the cultural political presumptions that Swedish and Italian libraries have, such as policies concerning public libraries and children, on a national as well as an international level. We also look at existing attitudes regarding the work at the public libraries’ children’s sections, among authors of research literature in our subject. We are for instance interested in how these authors think the libraries’ activities for children should develop. Which opinions do the Swedish and the Italian authors have in common and how do their attitudes differ? In addition, the thesis includes interviews with librarians at the children’s sections and managers of libraries. How do the two libraries selected for our study conduct activities directed towards children? The method we use is comparative studies. One of our main conclusions is that there is a lack of research within our subject in both Sweden and Italy. However, we have discovered that the work with children at Swedish libraries is much more structured than in Italian libraries. We believe that the reason for this is the fact that there is no national library law in Italy. Neither is the education amongst the Italian librarians as high or advanced as the education of the Swedish librarians.Uppsatsnivå: