Att tala för döva öron. Döva och hörselskadade studenter om bibliotek, information och kultur
The purpose of this Masters thesis is to examine the attitudes of deaf and hear-impaired people towards libraries, information, and culture. The issues are: What are the attitudes of the informants towards libraries and culture? What do reference group theory and the theory of information access-/avoidance implicate concerning the information behaviour of the informants? In-depth interviews with five deaf and hear-impaired university students have been carried out in this qualitative study. The world of deaf and hear-impaired people is presented as well as a survey of political guidelines to make, for example, libraries and theatres more available to disabled people. The research overview analyses scholarly studies on deaf and hear-impaired people. The hermeneutic interpretation of the research material shows that the informants of this study have a general positive attitude towards libraries, though with certain reservations. The application of the two theories, implicate that due to the fact that they no longer regard themselves as members of Deaf Culture, these informants are likely to, to a great extent, use information from the hearing society. These conclusions concerning deaf and hear-impaired people in relation to libraries, information, and culture are drawn: the environment of the hearing society needs to be made more available to deaf and hear- impaired people; deaf and hear-impaired people need to be given chances to define their own needs. These conclusions lead to proposals for further research on deaf and hear-impaired people, in the field of Library- and Information Science.