Bibliotekariers diversifierade profession : en studie av folkbibliotekariers upplevelser av en yrkesroll i förändring

Public libraries have in recent decades been affected by widespread cultural, political and societal changes and there are several opinions about what public libraries’ role in society should be. Three major areas that has largely affected the development of public libraries and thus librarianship are: the academization of the library- and information science educational programs, professionalization of the profession, and new technologies within information and communication practices. The overall intention of this study is to, from a librarian perspective, discuss how various types of change can affect primarily the library profession but also the library as place seeing the two are closely connected. The purpose of this thesis is to examine how public librarians relate to their contemporary and future profession in relation to change within the library. We conducted nine interviews with public librarians in Malmö with the aim to gain a deeper understanding of how public librarians relate to their professional role. The study is based on an example of organizational change within the city of Malmö and focuses on what attitudes towards the approaching changes can be found among librarians. A secondary objective is to examine if librarians share the same view of the profession or if there are different ways to look at librarianship and the future of the profession. We place our study within the field of library- and information science and we use theory of professions as a framework and phenomenological theory as a perspective. Theory of professions serves to more closely examine the characteristics of the library profession, and what knowledge and competences the library profession is made up of. The phenomenological perspective serves to give the study a direction: a focus on the respondent librarians’ experiences and perceptions of their professional role and of change within the profession. The result of this study show that there are different perceptions and experiences of the professional role among librarians in Malmö. There are also different perceptions of change within the profession. The professional role showed to be closely connected to the workplace and thus the librarians portrayed multiple different roles. Regarding the future of the profession, the librarians expressed two major viewpoints that can be seen as contrasting: a more traditional view of the profession and a focus on the library as a meeting place with emphasis on social aspects of the profession. Albeit their different views on future developments, they all share a common understanding of literature promotion, culture, and being advocates of democracy as main values of librarianship

Läsning som gör skillnad : bibliotekariers arbete ur ett biblioterapeutiskt perspektiv

The term bibliotherapy is well known in several scientific fields as well as among practitioners in the US and in the UK, but in Sweden there seems to be a more modest use of the term as well as presence of practical bibliotherapeutic activity. On the other hand, some of the effects of reading that are commonly associated with bibliotherapy in the scientific literature seems to be similar to the effects often mentioned in connection with the literature mediation that is performed and discussed in Sweden today. Our aim with this master’s thesis is to examine if bibliotherapeutic elements are included in the literature mediation oriented towards caregiving or social work conducted by librarians in Sweden, and if so, how this work can be understood in relation to the profession of librarians. The research questions that are used are the following: How does the definition of bibliotherapy in the research literature relate to the description given by Swedish librarians of their practical work oriented towards caregiving or social work? How is bibliotherapy described in the scientific literature? How do a number of librarians describe their work oriented towards caregiving or social work? Will that work conducted by librarians have any impact on librarians profession in Sweden in the long term, and if so, which ones? In order to answer these questions a triangulatory approach has been used. Starting off with a systematic collection of scientific literature about bibliotherapy further on used in relation to empirical data collected by semi-structured interviews as well as in relation to Andrew Abbotts theoretical framework about professions. Our results show that no standardized definition of the term bibliotherapy exists in the scientific literature and that bibliotherapeutic work can be performed in various ways. None of the librarians in the study are labeling their work as bibliotherapy but all of them are describing the aims and pracital parts of their work in similar ways as bibliotherapeutic practice is described in the scientific literature. The study also reveals a mutual understanding among the librarians of fiction literature as something that can have a powerful impact on the health of readers, in either positive or negative ways. The study suggests that the common resistance among librarians towards emphasizing medical or therapeutic aspects of literature mediation could be handled by developing cooperation between librarians and professionals with other qualifications, so called professions of federation

Har du leg eller? : En kvalitativ studie gällande frågan om legitimation för kuratorer inom hälso- och sjukvården

The aim of this study was to examine the concept of authorization of hospital social workers in Sweden. More specifically with reference to the relationship between hospital social workers and psychologists relative to psychosocial work. The study was based on a document analysis of several different document types from different source categories. Additionally a semi-structured interview with one hospital social worker was used. The analysis was based on two different theories, one regarding social closure and strategies used by professions to limit or expand influence in their respective work environments. And the other regarding professional jurisdictional claims made within or between professions. As a conclusion our study showed the significance of clarity regarding the role and jurisdiction for each of the two professions within the health-care context. Furthermore our study testifies to the possible view that an authorization of hospital social workers could contribute to a more clear distinction between the two professions. However the width of psychosocial work might make a clear distinction difficult and possibly increase the already somewhat strained relationship between these professional groups

Diagnosens betydelse: En kvalitativ studie om biståndshandläggning för äldre med demensdiagnos.

The purpose with this study was to investigate how social secretaries in elderly care receive to dementia patients over the age of 65 in the care administration, focusing on the social secretaries discretion and the rights of the patients with dementia. The population consisted of four social secretaries in elderly care, granting assistance to dementia patients over the age of 65, and one nursing assistant working in two different municipalities in the county of Skåne. The age limit of the patients was set to 65 due to the fact that dementia is more common over the ages of 65, and due to the fact that the age limit affects current legislation. The used method was a qualitative method with semi-structured interviews, in order to document the respondents’ perspective on discretion, their relationship to the individual and her diagnosis and how they estimate the individuals capacities to act in relation to rights and insights. The results of the study showed that the interviewed professionals believe their to have great discretion but highlight that their work is controlled by legislations, rules, values/standards and guidelines. When estimating the individuals’ capacities to act in relation to her rights and insights, relatives were significant as they can provide information regarding the individual as a person before the affection of dementia. The diagnosis of dementia did not appear as important when mapping the individual's right/capacities to act, but appeared as significant when granting intervention. This since it was seen as the key to be granted the service of particularly demented and also since the diagnosis could provide information important to the nursing staf

Är registratorn även arkivarie? : En yrkesroll i förändring

The aim of this master’s thesis is to examine the registrar’s role within the organization, their relation to the archival profession and their professional status. As the title suggests, the question is raised whether registrars also could be considered archivists. The underlying background that brought this question forward is the notion that the information management within Swedish government agencies is changing, which effects not only the archival profession, but also registrars; a professional group which is pivotal for the management of information in Sweden. Although registrars are essential, they have not been the focal point for Swedish research in neither archival nor information science. Using semistructured interviews, nine registrars working in government agencies in southern Sweden were interviewed. In addition, a second source material was used in the form of the book I handlingarnas centrum – registratorer berättar, containing occupational memories from registrars in Sweden. The theoretical framework is mainly based on Andrew Abbott’s the System of professions and his thoughts on jurisidiction. The theory is applied when analysing the material to assess registrar’s informal claims of jurisdiction by focusing on the workplace arena. Furthermore, a profession is interpreted by utilizing Thomas Brante’s defintion. The results show that registrar’s role within the organization, and in government agencies overall, is indeed changing to fit the needs brought forward by digitisation. There are apparent similarities but also demarcations between registrars and archivists, which indicates a fragmentary divison of responsibilities and the actual work. Furthermore, the results substantiates conclusions from recent literature that registrars are occupying more strategic positions within the organization. The final discussion highlights that there is an apparent division of intellectual and practical jurisdiction between registrars and archivists, where registrars hold the latter. However, a potential development is identified where registrars are permitted to make claims on the archival professions jurisdiction, thus effecting them both in their role within the organization. The most important conclusion suggests that registrars and their work should be included at a higher degree in the archival science and education, in order to strengthen their professional status

När det professionella omdömet inte överensstämmer med lagen - Kuratorers förhållningssätt till anmälningsskyldighet på ungdomsmottagningar

The purpose of this essay is to describe and analyze how counsellors in youth centres in the south of Sweden handle ethical dilemmas that might appear when they meet young clients. We interviewed six counsellors about how they handle the dilemma they are faced with when meeting someone under the age of fifteen who is sexually active even though they aren’t old enough according to Swedish law. In Sweden, it’s a crime to have sexual intercourse with a person under the age of fifteen, and the counsellors has to respect the duty to report as well as their confidentiality when they meet someone below fifteen who is sexually active. The results of our interviews where then analyzed using an ethical approach and we used the theory of professonal ethics, utilitarism and deontological ethics. We also used some reports about knowledgebased social work. The outcome of the essay was that the counsellors tend to lean on the utilitarism and their professional opinion, rather than the law, when deciding whether to report the young person or not. Their former experience of working with youth had a great impact on their actions