Bibliotek och sponsring ? en studie om sponsring vid sju bibliotek
This essay concerns sponsorship of libraries within Sweden. It takes its starting-point in the libraries economical situation where resources are decreasing. The main purpose of the essay is to investigate how sponsorship is used in public libraries. The main questions are:o Why are sponsorships appealing to libraries? o What does the processes of sponsoring look like? o What are the possible risks concerning sponsor-ships ? could it endanger libraries democratic role? o How does library staff reflect on the role of libraries in contemporary society? In our study we chose to investigate the sponsorship issue from the sponsored libraries perspective. We used quantitative and qualitative methods in gathering data. In a first step we made a survey covering 290 libraries in order to identify those who were involved in any form of sponsorship. In a second step we chose to interview seven libraries through an open-ended questionnaire, by e-mail. Our results show that sponsorship occurs only to a limited extent and that there are a variety of different models of sponsorship in practice. The most common purpose is financing activities outside the set budget. In times of economical savings, sponsoring allows libraries to arrange special activities. The participating libraries do not consider sponsorships a threat to the main task of the libraries. There may be a risk that libraries would need to rely on sponsorships for their survival. However, if sponsoring is used mainly to finance activities outside the set budget we don?t regard that as a threat.