Digital eller mänsklig service åt användare av folkbibliotek? En diskursanalys av artiklar ur fyra svenska bibliotekstidskrifter 2003-2004.
The aim of this Masters thesis is to examine the user service discourses in the field of public libraries that can be identified in four Swedish library journals. Also which underlying causes that control the discourses and the consequences of them are examined. Questions in this study are: which discourses can be found, what characterises them, what kind of different discourses concerning technology in society control the user service discourses and what are the consequences of them. The theoretical starting-point is Ernesto Laclaus and Chantal Mouffes discourse theory. The method is text analytic. 27 articles from four library journals bis, Biblioteksbladet, DIK-forum and Ikoner are analysed. Three discourses concerning service to users of public libraries are identified: a digital discourse, a human discourse and a pragmatic discourse. The digital discourse is found to be based on information technology and to have a nomological account of technological determinism as underlying cause. The consequences of the digital discourse may be more digitally based service and less human based service. The human discourse is found to be based on personal service and to have an underlying cause of technological determinism that is time-dependent. The consequences of the human discourse may be human based service in spite of technological development. The pragmatic discourse is found to be based on both information technology and human service and to have an underlying cause of technology seen as socially constructed. The consequences of the pragmatic discourse may be that both digital and human service are seen as complementary.