Infoteket om funktionshinder
Information om funktionshinder som vägen till empowerment
The aim of this master?s thesis is to investigate a information center called ?Infoteket om funktionshinder?. The purpose of Infoteket is to collect information about disabilities and make it accessible to people with disabilities, their relatives and public. In this survey I will analyze how Infoteket can help people with disabilities to achieve empowerment. I use empowerment as a theoretical framework as Jay A. Conger and Rabindra N. Kanungo describes it in terms of sense of control and self-efficacy. For people with disabilities, empowerment is about ability to control his own destiny. The key to empowerment is information.My second theoretical framework is Carol C. Kuhlthaus? principle of uncertainty. I?ve found it possible to apply the phases from uncertainty to understanding to the information search process within the process of diag-nostics.The main method has been qualitative interviews where the informants have been selected according to their professional role. I have also studied Meeting Minutes and conducted a quantitative survey of visitor statis-tics.Infotekets? role to promote empowerment lies in the ability to examine the quality and reliability of infor-mation about disabilities. A close collaboration with authorities makes it possible to ensure the quality. An im-portant criterion for quality is scientific foundation and accessibility. The literature must be readable for the public rather than professional.To promote empowerment it?s also important to reach the target groups. I have discussed if it makes any difference whether the information is available at the library or the habilitation. The results show little differ-ence, but there are some disabilities that are more difficult to reach through habilitation. That?s why I believe that the library is an important complement to habilitation.This is a two years master?s thesis within Library and Information science.