Talking about books : interviews with librarians and participants in different literary circles

The purpose of this masters thesis is to examine how librarians work in a literary educational role with literary circles for adults and youth, in public libraries and at school. The study also examines whether participation in book discussion groups has any effect on participants and librarians regarding changes in reading habits and in personal development. Another aspect investigated was how participants experienced the atmosphere in the group. We have conducted qualitative interviews with five librarians who have lead different literary circles and with two participants from each literary circle. In all 13 interviews were conducted. Apart from the interviews 37 persons filled in a questionnaire. The literary circles we have examined is one for adults and one for youth in the senior level of the nine-year compulsory school where the participants read the same book and two circles with book tip for adults were the participants read different kinds of books. Jofrid Karner Smidts work concerning the roles of librarians literature intermediary activities and Aidan Chambers model for talking about books, stand as our theoretical framework. Our study indicates that there are many similarities between Chambers method and our librarians way of working. Among Smidts roles the following were most frequent in our study: the librarian as a critic and literature expert, the librarian as educationist, the librarian as ordinary person. Less frequent was the role as social anthropologist and as marketing man. The result of the questionnaire shows an increased reading frequency which is relevant to all literary circles. Almost all participants and some of the librarians agree that they have received useful ideas about new books thanks to the literary circles. Two of the participants and one librarian have reported that they have developed personally during the literary circle work. The overwhelming majority of the interviewed persons were enthusiastic about the congenial atmosphere in the group and emphasized on the different positive effects of the literature meetings, for example book tips and interesting discussions about literature and other subjects.Uppsatsnivå: