Digital competence and the public libraries’ role : a qualitative analysis of strategies and manifests

The aim of this study is to find out what digital competence entails, and how it is defined, according to the Swedish government, the National Library of Sweden and IFLA/UNESCO. It will also seek to answer what the role of the Swedish libraries is expected to be when it comes to the development of digital competence in the general public. The research questions are answered by studying documents from the Swedish government, National Library of Sweden and IFLA/UNESCOs manifestoes for libraries. A qualitative analysis of content is used together with Douglas A.J Belshaws (2011) theory on digital literacies. The results shows that the definition of digital competence in the analysed documents is just as multifaceted as Belshaws (2011) theoretical model about digital literacies is. All documents also say that the libraries role in developing digital competence is big and important.