Librarians’ skills in working with e-books : a quantitative survey study

The purpose of this bachelor’s thesis is to examine which skills Swedish public librarians consider necessary for their work with e-books regarding the acquisition and handling of e-books, as well as the meeting with the user. This study also examines how the librarian’s role as mediator has changed due to e-books, according to librarians. The method used to collect the data was a digital survey that was distributed to 75 public libraries in Sweden and Lundmark’s “skill flower” and Abbotts theory of professions were used to analyze the results. The survey received answers from 132 respondents that showed that it is important for librarians to have technological skills in order to assist users with problems regarding e-books. Librarians should also have a good understanding of how the relationship between the library and the e-book provider works in order to understand why there are certain limitations surrounding e-books. It is also important for librarians to be able to communicate and listen to the users’ problems, as well as inform the users of e-book services at the library. The biggest change for librarians role as mediator is that there are new things that needs to be mediated to the users and librarians need new skills, such as technological skills, to be able to do this. Other skills such as pedagogical skills and literature knowledge the librarians already possess, they simply need to adapt them to newer technologies