Digitalization with the patron in focus

This bachelor’s thesis aim to examine the way librarians at public libraries work with improving their patrons’ digital competence. This was done by conducting semi-structured interviews with eight librarians, code them using a SWOT-analysis and then present them in relation to Jochumsen, Hvenegaard Rasmussen and Skot-Hansens Four Spaces model. The result showed that time, resources and the librarians’ own interests are key to give satisfactory help to the patron. Age also seemed to impact the way the librarians took on learning new services the library offered. The younger librarians had an easier time trying it out themselves while the older wanted more instructions. The main problem the librarians saw was how to handle questions regarding sensitive information, the patrons’ money and documents to the bank or the government. Few libraries seem to have a policy regarding such questions. Still most of the librarians already saw work with digital questions as part of their normal routine. Rather than a change in work assignments they saw a change with how they were carried out and the nature of help the patrons’ needed, now there were more question regarding how things work instead of pure information questions. The question did not seem to be that of the librarians’ own competence but rather that of the patrons