The library book market : an idea analysis of competition between Internet bookshops and procurement in public libraries

The aim of this master thesis is to investigate the development on the Swedish book market for the beginning of the 21st century. During the 21st century a lot of things have happened on the Swedish market for library books. Twenty years ago in reality only one company existed that could deliver books with the demanded equipment to the libraries, but in year 2010 there are four companies offering the same service. Other news during this time is bookshops on internet. We found this development interesting and therefore decided to contact the four companies as well as six libraries to find out what they thought of the new situation. New factors for the companies to deal with were competition and the upcome of the law of procurement, while the libraries had to reconsider the accustomed procedures for purchasing books. We made personal interviews with representatives for the four companies as well as with representatives for six libraries of different sizes. We found that some of the companies were uncertain about the competition and they also claimed that the law of procurement did not work as planned. However, almost all libraries found that the arisen competition was useful; the costs of books were cut back, the delivery times got shorter and all libraries found the opportunity of buying books on-line as very helpful and practical.Program: Bibliotekari