Talking about the user : the public library's user discourses in three library journals

The aim of this Master's thesis is to examine the user discourses that can be identified in the public library field. Questions posed in this study are: what discourses can be found, what characterises them, how are users categorised and what does this categorisation imply. The theoretical starting-point is Ernesto Laclaus and Chantal Mouffes discourse theory. The method is text analytic. 62 articles from three library journals - Biblioteksbladet, Bibliotek i Samhälle and Ikoner are analysed through a model in four phases. These phases include designations of users, user categories, themes within which users are described and user discourses. A general impression is that users are used to legitimise library activity as such. The results of the analysis reveals four user discourses: a general education discourse, a pedagogical discourse, an information technology discourse and a market economy discourse. Among the three first a discrepancy is noticed between the rhetorical and practical contents of discourse. Both the rhetorical expressions and the discursive practice have consequences for the ways in which public library users are treated. These consequences may be direct for example in the human interaction of the reference interview or indirect through the selection criteria. The general education discourse is based on a tradition of fostering and refining as well as educating the general public. This dominant user discourse produces and reproduces inequality between the user and the library. The public library institution holds a cultural viewpoint, which implies the importance of a certain cultural and intellectual education. This viewpoint is often unreflectedly taken for granted in society. What may be regarded as objective facts are, from a discourse analytic perspective, grounded in ideologically formed structures of power. Åse Hedemark och Jenny Hedman erhöll delat förstapris i Säffle biblioteks uppsatspristävling "Framtidsspanare sökes!" 2002.Uppsatsnivå: