The vinyl record’s roll and status at today’s public libraries

The purpose of this thesis work is to bring out the causes of public libraries preservation or phase-out of vinyl collections. The study in this thesis work makes a survey as a first step in figuring out what role vinyl record have at today’s public libraries as there is missing information about what the vinyl records changed status has meant for public libraries.What factors have been critical of what the public libraries have done or doing with their vinyl collections today? What role does the public library’s music responsible staff think the vinyl records have at the public library today?As a theoretic frame Taljas three different music perspective/repertoire at music libraries were used, the general education repertoire, the alternative repertoire, and the demand repertoire. The collection of the empirical material was collected with help of quantitative phone interviews. E-mails were sent to 107 public libraries asking them to take part in the study. Out of 58 replies 28 ended up participating in the study.The results showed that most libraries have had vinyl records. The factors that played a part in what the libraries had done with their vinyl collections were the following. Pro phase-out: cd records, less demand, lack of space, and move to new location.Pro preservation: cultural value, local value, and they have remained.According to the staff in charge of the music collection, the vinyl record has had a very small role in the libraries which will remain unchanged, but they do think that the vinyl record is an important upholder of culture