Time and temporality in the work at the Gothenburg public libraires

Time and temporality have received little attention when it comes to work in the public libraries, above all in a Swedish context. Trying to fill this gap the aim of this study was to explore how librarians working within the public libraries of Gothenburg experienced time and temporality in relation to different work tasks and systems. The study was guided by a theoretical framework with focus on the sociology of time and was designed as a cross-sectional study witha qualitative approach. Empirical data was produced through semi structured interviews with seven librarians working at different public libraries in Gothenburg. Qualitative content analysis was used for analysing the empirical data. The result showed that the librarian's time was fragmented with task sbeing prioritised according to principles of economic time, i.e., tasks that were possible to determine in time and led to a clear outcome. The result also showed that tasks that worked according to non-economic principles dominated among the tasks the librarians wished to have more time for, i.e., tasks that were difficult to determine in time and required continuity, for example reading promotion tasks. However, this does not mean that the librarians did not engage in reading promotion work at all. The study also drew attention to the time-consuming work the librarians devoted to help the library visitors with information and communication technology. This work was understood as a side effect of technological acceleration