Folkbiblioteket och postmoderniteten en hermeneutisk studie av debatten om folkbiblioteket i DIK Forum 1998-2002
The main issue of this master is to investigate what influence the phenomenon of postmodernity has on the Swedish public library. Is it possible to talk about the Swedish public library as postmodern, and if so, is it expressed by a postmodern discourse? The concept of postmodernity is defined as an open and inclusive value system where all kind of opinions and preferences take place. According to a postmodern point of view there is no such thing as an objective or general truth. A postmodern ideology does not talk about reality but about realities. Everything humans are able to perceive is considered subjective and contextual. Relativity is the main and fundamental characteristic of postmodernity. The author has studied how the debate about the contemporary public library takes place in DIK Forum, one of the branch papers in the field of library- and information science. The text analysis is done with help of posing three questions: 1 How does one look at the public library as a social institution? 2 How does one look at the target groups that the public library is supposed to serve? 3 How does one look at the financing of the public library? The methodology used is hermeneutic. The author finds that the public library discourse in the debate in DIK Forum is characterised mainly by modem features. Though threatened by postmodern influences, the modernistic belief in progression, that society is moving forward in a more or less imperative way, is still very vivid.