Playground or place of work? : A study of the importance of a school library for youths in ninth grade.

The aim of this Master’s thesis is to investigate the importance of a school library for youths, age 14-16, from their perspective. We intend to study how they use and experience the school library both for educational- and leisure related purposes. We also intend to inquire their possibility to influence their school library. The literature that has been used consists of material from research concerning youth culture and school library. The method used is interviews with twelve youths from four different classes on one school, an extensive interview with a school librarian and a shorter, less extensive interview with a teacher. The theoretical framework in this thesis comes from Elisabeth Tallaksen Rafste’s concepts about which the users are, how they use it and the importance of the school library. The study shows that all the youths in the study use the school library for educational purposes, a place for work. Only the regular users also use the library as a meeting place and for other leisure related purposes. The regular users represents foremost of the boys in the study and they decide the norms. The girls do not use the school library for leisure related purposes. In addition, the school librarian is significant for how the youths experience and use the school library in different ways.Uppsatsnivå: