Information för barn – en kunskapsöversikt över de svenska bibliotekens informationstjänster för barn

Abstract

The purpose of this Master’s thesis is to present a survey of how Swedish libraries provide information services for children. In this thesis “information” means non-fiction material and “children” do not include preschool children. The method used is knowledge overview and the material (mostly Master theses in LIS published January 2001-June 2006) is related to user studies of children as information seekers. From the result and analysis can be found that librarians often adjust the common Swedish classification system, SAB, to children’s needs and that librarians have a clear view of how to achieve good reference interviews with children. Our material indicates that libraries seldom have plans for their acquisitions in order to develop the collection of children’s material, and we have found only a few libraries using other materials than books to find information suitable for children. In Sweden there exists no database which includes children’s journals. There are some library catalogues for children; one of them has been investigated by LIS-students and was found partially corresponding to children’s needs. The current Swedish list of subject headings for children is developed for fiction, and there is a need for discussing the indexing of non-fiction material. The providing of Internet for children varies a lot among libraries. There is a need for analysing children’s use of the big web portal Länkskafferiet. Only a few studies were found that investigate Swedish children’s interaction with information services, which leads to the conclusion that there is a clear need for such research.