Biblioteksutvecklingen i Göteborgs södra skärgård, Styrsö folkbibliotek, 1943-1976
The purpose of this thesis is to describe and analyse the road towards a modern library in the southern archipelago of Gothenburg between the years 1943 and 1976. The archipelago consists of about thirty smaller and larger islands, of which seven are inhabited throughout the year. Styrsö and the surrounding islands composed a municipality of their own until 1973. In January 1974 it became a part of the municipality of Gothenburg, this is also the year when the only bridge in the archipelago was ready to be taken into use, between Donsö and Styrsö. There is no bridge between the mainland and the islands. Styrsö is since long the main island in the archipelago and it is there where the public library was founded in 1943. There were branch- libraries on four other islands, of which Donsö eventually got its own premises. It took about ten years for the main library on Styrsö to acquire enough books to be able to supply the branch-libraries with books. Previous to that the branch-libraries obtained books from the central-library in Gothenburg, which sent out travelling-libraries to them. The island communities were closely knit societies, isolated from the mainland by water. The free-churches played a great role in the daily lives of the population, something that also affected the library. The librarians at the library worked part-time and it was not until in the 1980s that a librarian was employed full-time.