The Göta Libraries : A step towards the library of the future?

More and more libraries nowadays interact more closely within their regions. Therefore, it is interesting to examine how a collaboration between libraries can contribute to development of the libraries. This study is about The Göta Libraries, a partnership consisting of public libraries in 14 municipalities, the thirteen municipalities in Östergötland and Tranås, and the county library in Östergötland. The study has examined the types of innovation the library collaboration can contribute to the libraries, the challenges that faces the Göta Libraries and what factors are important for the cooperation to work in a rewarding way. To find out this four interviews were conducted with library staff. Jennifer Rowleys theory on collaborative innovation has been applied to the study. The study results show that there has been different types of innovations for the libraries as a result of the Göta Libraries development. The main benefits are that libraries aquired much more reources in their collections when they coordinated their catalogues, which entails that they can give a better service to their users. The challenges that libraries were faced with was that it can take time to develop common rules and that too much bureaucracy can prevent people from trying out new things. As for the factors for a collaboration to be successful and rewarding it is of major importance that everyone contributes to the collaboration and that everyone follows the common rules