Folkbibliotek och invandrares första tid i Sverige
En explorativ undersökning
The starting point for this study is the situation for immigrants during the process of integration. This study aims to describe and discuss, with a broad approach, if certain information needs arises when immigrants meet the Swedish labour market and in such a case, do they use the library and how does the public libraries meet those needs. A secondary aim is to help increase the understanding of immigrants and forming a basis for further efforts by the libraries to improve services for immigrants and point at areas where there is a need for further research. - Which expectations and demands meets immigrants on the labour market and which library needs are possibly generated by this? - What services and range of material do the libraries offer immigrants and how are they marketed at the libraries homepages on the Internet? - Do immigrants from outside the western culture use the library and in that case how? Swedish human capital and Swedish social capability are identified as demands that are often held by operators on the labour market. I survey the public libraries in ten different Swedish communities by studying their homepages on the Internet to and by interviewing staff. I conduct interviews with ten immigrants who recently have come to Sweden. The main conclusion is that the border line between demands that are discriminating and those that are justifiable are sometimes difficult to appoint and immigrants must be considered as a highly heterogeneous user group with different individual needs.