The development and institutionalization of Library- and information science in Sweden

The aim of this Master thesis is to examine the institutionalization of Library- and Information Science in Sweden. I focus on the period 1978-1991, and pay special attention to the development of the discipline at the University College of Borås. My main method of investigation has been analysis of printed sources. After a brief description of the discipline and its history internationally, I describe how research and graduate education in Library- and Information Science developed in Sweden during the 20^th century. A major part of the thesis is an analysis of three reports from the chosen time period which are all, with slightly different prerequisites, trying to find a solution to the problem of how to establish Library- and Information Science as an academic discipline in Sweden. I also examine how this problem was discussed in the library press. Finally I describe how research is organized at the Swedish School of Library and Information Science at the University College of Borås today. My conclusions are that the discipline was institutionalized more due to external reasons, such as the need for a more academically oriented graduate education for librarians, than to internal reasons, such as the development of a common scientific outlook for the entire field, and that I find it difficult to determine whether there is currently a shared epistemology in Swedish Library- and Information Science or not.Uppsatsnivå: