Public Library as a Forum for Minority Politics : Uppsala Library’s work to support and promote the national minority language Finnish

The aim of this thesis is to study how public libraries can work to support and promote a national minority language. In the thesis Uppsala Library’s work with the Finnish language is reviewed from 2000 to present. The data was collected through qualitative interviews with five key figures from Uppsala Library and the Uppsala municipality, visits in four local public libraries and the digital library during the spring 2019 and by examining the official documents of the municipality and information that the local public libraries have produced between 2000 and 2019. Uppsala Library’s work with the Finnish language is discussed in the thesis through themes of power, nationalism and identity processes and analyzed in terms of language revitalization. The findings show that during the first decade Uppsala treated the Finnish language as any other foreign language. It provided access to media in Finnish, but the Finnish language was not visible in the library policy or in the library’s information material and program activities in Finnish were few. A major change in Uppsala Library’s work with the Finnish language started in 2010 when the municipality joined the administrative area for the Finnish language. Since 2010 Uppsala Library has with special efforts supported and promoted the Finnish language. Finnish is used in the library’s information material and is visible in the municipality’s and the library’s documents. Uppsala Library offers many kinds of media in Finnish. The library has organized events where the Finnish language is used for children and adults. The events have also brought to light the Swedish Finns’ experiences and the historical connection the Finnish language has to Sweden. Information in Finnish in the physical and digital libraries, however, could be improved. The objective of the Swedish policy on minorities is to provide support for the historical minority languages so that they are kept alive. Uppsala Library’s work during the 2010s shows public libraries’ potential as a forum for minority politics and their importance in the work with minority language revitalization. This is a two years master’s thesis in Library and Information Science