The aim of this master´s thesis is to examine how librarian´s views of the users can vary for different types of materials in public libraries. We have seen that literature and reading are the central parts of the libraries in Sweden. All other types of media are traditionally seen as complements and in focus for the study is feature film as an example of these other medias. We examine policy documents to see the official view of the general target group of the libraries and compare it to the view of the users of feature films as expressed by the librarians. The study includes several different types of empirical materials such as interviews, observations and documents and the method used is case studies. Our ambition is to have a hermeneutic approach in the analysis of the material and we therefore let the theories and the empirical material develop simultaneously.
The theoretical starting-point is mainly based on the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu´s field theories and the terms habitus, doxa, capital and agent let us approach the subject area in a specific way. The relations on and to the field are of great interest. As a complement to Bourdieu´s theories we use the identification of three library discourses, general education, alternative and demand, made by Sanna Talja. We are also influenced by a discussion of ways to relate to expressions of art and culture by Sven Nilsson.
The results show that the view of the users of feature film differs from the view of the general library user. The film users are seldom expressed in terms of everyone as the policy documents usually describes the target group of the library in total. Instead the librarians of the film departments focus on people with special interest in film who appreciate less commercial and widespread productions. This way of limiting the user group has various reasons. The attitude towards the media as not fully integrated in the libraries recourses has impact as well as the economical situation and the qualitative ambitions of the librarians. This might be problema...
