"... det är ju det som är att jobba ..." : En studie om hur bibliotekarier erfar referensarbete

Abstract

The purpose of this Masters thesis is to study how librarians experience reference work. We wanted to get a better understanding about librarians assignments through the study. We chose to limit the study to public libraries, and to the south of Sweden. The questions used in our study are: How do librarians interpret the conception of reference work? What values do librarians have concerning reference work? How do librarians experience reference work? How do librarians look at different roles in reference work? We chose to use a fenomenographically inspired method. The method distinguishes perceptions and describes variation in these. Nine qualitative interviews with librarians were conducted. The interviews were recorded and typed out in its entirety. The transcription was closely analysed and the perceptions found were categorised. A description of the informants perceptions of reference work was one result of this analysis. Later a comparison between our results and earlier discoveries was made. The study shows that librarians describe reference work as answering questions and helping people. The notion is out of date, and is seldom used in libraries, but all our informants are of the opinion that reference work is the most important service in the library. Librarians experience reference work as a great fun, even though there are some negative aspects of it. Librarians often take on different roles when they work with reference work. Such as the pedagogical role which is often used nowadays.