Biblioteket för barn av vuxna : en undersökning av barnbibliotekariers förförståelse av barns förutsättningar

The purpose of this master thesis is to investigate the understanding of children's librari-ans regarding children's needs and preconditions in a library context and based on devel-opmental psychology and information seeking theories. The children's perspective is said to be the guiding star in the children's library and the thesis also aims to study the chil-dren's perspective as defined by children's librarians. The master thesis is a qualitative study based on interviews with children's librarians working at major public libraries. Observations of the children's libraries in the study have to some extent been performed. The study reveals that children's librarians are fairly knowledgeable about children but do not to a full extent use that knowledge into adapting the library to children and their needs. The children are not contributing to the adaptation of the library to any extent as there are few routines for that matter. In society in general children are on a regular basis represented by adults and their perspective on children and children's needs, which may differ from the perspective children have on their own lives, and the same is applicable for the children's library. The older librarians in the study emphasize that the main objec-tive of the children's library is developing the child's reading abilities, i.e. useful knowl-edge, while the younger librarians define a broader mission for the children's library