?När högskolan kom till byn..? Folkbibliotekets roll vid högskolestudier på distans.
The purpose of this Master's thesis is to investigate the role of the public library when the local government in the municipality arranges distance education at university level. The thesis has two main areas of questioning and these are goals and resources. In the study it is examined if the local goals have changed during the period 2000 until 2005, due to the development of distance education. It is investigated if change actually has occurred and if it has, in what way the goals have changed. It is also examined if and how the goals correspond with the work that is being performed in the public library. How the library's economic situation is affected and what the consequences are for the library are also examined. The study is carried out in two parts, one through interviews with five persons within the municipality and the other part is a study of the official documents concerning goals at different levels within the organisation. No change has occurred in the last five years despite the fact that the municipality has started ?Campus Alingsås?. The board of Culture and leisure has not made any decision on how to handle these questions and it is found that the librarians can find the situation rather frustrating. ?Campus? has both the attention from the local government as well as the resources. The project resources were destined for the public library as well as ?Campus? but so far the cooperation has just started and the money that was meant for the library has not yet been used, at least not for library tasks. It is estimated that as much as 10 % of the librarian's time is spent helping students. During that time the librarians could accomplish tasks closer to the actual goals of the library.