Multicultural competence and working methods in purchase of multilingual media : a qualitative study of librarians' experience in the public libraries in Gothenburg

This is a study of how multicultural competence is supplied within a centralized purchasing group of librarians in Gothenburg. It is also an investigation in librarians' working methods in purchase of multilingual media and their approaches to multilingual users' needs and demands. The purpose is thus to reach a deeper understanding of these librarians' multicultural competence and their work with multilingual media in relation to user's demand. This since we in prior work experience faced obstacles with the acquisition of multilingual media. This is problematic in a diverse society where all needs and demands should be fulfilled within the public libraries. We based our theory in research regarding multicultural competence, with an approach to the concept as a process that is developing over time. The study is conducted in Gothenburg, we found that the city's primary working method is a centralized purchasing group from different branch libraries. Within this group we made semi-structured interviews to assemble data. These interviews concerned if and how the librarians use multicultural competence in the purchasing group, how they approach and use them in their working methods and strategies, and, if and how, they relate to Gothenburg's districts populations and their demands. We proceeded thus from the librarians' perspective. We found, along the interviews, that the librarians were all multicultural competent but that the working methods in some cases could limit their work. The working methods could also in some cases limit their work to satisfy demand