Det digitala folkbiblioteket
vision och verklighet
Digitala bibliotekFolkbibliotekBiblioteksplanerMåldokumentMålstyrningMission statementsDigital librariesDocumentationInformationLibrary scienceArchivisticsArkiv- och bibliotekskunskapDokumentationPolitical and administrative sciencesStatsvetenskapFörvaltningskunskapSocial SciencesLaw and Political Science
Today, "the digital library" is the common way of describing a managed collection of information, with associated services, stored in digital formats and accessible over a network. Digital libraries have mainly been developed at research libraries, but during the last few years public libraries have started to offer similar services.The aim of this Master's thesis is to study how the Swedish public libraries plan to develop their digital libraries according to their mission statements, and in what way they have implemented them at their web sites. 21 public libraries, the largest in each Swedish county, were investigated.The library mission statements are investigated to find out in what terms the digital libraries are described and to what extent. The library websites are examined with respect to what kind of digital services are offered, to what extent they supplement or replace the physical library, and if there are new digital services not found in the physical library.In most mission statements the digital library is referred to in sweeping terms like "IT activities" and "new media". However, a few of the libraries clearly regard the digital library as an important part of the future operations, speaking of it in well defined and extensive terms.The public library websites are relatively homogeneous when it comes to services supplementing physical library activities, like web access to the library catalogue and links to other library catalogues. Regarding services that substitute those of the physical library, the range of variation is larger. We have also found examples of new digital services such as listening to music through the home computer.In the future we can expect to see a continued joint development of services since the digital area is well suited for collaboration between libraries. It is also possible that the public libraries will venture into pure digitization projects to a higher degree than today.