Mediation of literature in change : about public librarians, Facebook and Twitter.

The aim of this bachelor thesis is to describe how librarians inSwedish public libraries use Facebook and Twitter in themediation of literature. Our study focus on the librarians’ role inthat process. The research questions are:• How do the librarians in this study regard mediation of literature through Facebook and/or Twitter in relation to othermediation strategies?• What goals and purposes do the librarians give in the selection of literature that they promote on Facebook and/or Twitter?• What do public librarians think about the future for mediation of literature through social media, how will it evolve?The methodology used was qualitative interviews. Six interviewswith librarians that work with mediation of literature throughFacebook and/or Twitter were conducted. The theoreticalframework used comes from Jofrid Karner Smidt’s theory of howpublic librarians view their mediation of literature. The conceptsused are mediation of literature due to public demand, activelyrecommending and informative mediation, and through dialogue.The results of the study show that, in relation to other mediationstrategies, librarians regard mediation through Facebook/Twitter asfast and easy, but the response from the users is often poor.Mediation through dialogue is thereby difficult to achieve. Theother two concepts – mediation of literature due to public demandand actively recommending and informative mediation – are bothto different extent supported by the informants. Speculating aboutthe future, librarians find it likely that mediation through socialmedia will focus more on the users and that dialogue will occur.Program: Bibliotekari