Students’ perception and use of their school library in an immigrant frequent Upper Secondary School

This thesis examines the perception and use of the school library for students at an Upper Secondary School. The school has a high frequent of immigrant students, and the students interviewed all have an immigrant background. The intention was to find out how the students used the school library and what perception they have of the school library. The method used was semi-structured interviews with eight students, both males and females, who studies different educational programs. The instrument of theory was that from Elisabeth Tallaksen Rafste’s theoretical framework. She has developed a concept about users and non-users of the school library, how the space of the school library is used and the actual use of the school library as a place for studies and a place for leisure. The study shows that the school library is a place that the students use for getting practical things done for their schoolwork. Most of the information seeking is done in the classroom as a result of the fact that the school provides all students with their own portable computers. Therefore the teachers assist the students a lot in their information seeking process. Another reason that the students don’t use the library as a place to find information as much, might be the fact that the staff of the library is not educated librarians. The school library is found to be a front region, a place with strong rules, under the control of the staff of the library