Folkbibliotekariers uppfattning om personlig integritet i biblioteksverksamheten: En fenomenografisk studie

Abstract

The purpose of this masters’ thesis is to investigate how public librarians perceive privacy in connection with new technology in libraries. The main research questions are:

- How do librarians experience the phenomenon privacy in the library? - How do librarians experience the relation between privacy and technology in the library? - What does this say about the relationship between privacy, technological development and library work?

The study was performed with a phenomenographic methodological approach. The material consists of qualitative interviews with eight librarians who work at public libraries where the technology RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) has been implemented. The material was analysed according to a model of four phases which finally lead firstly to outcome spaces and lastly to the result. The result consists of perspectives that show that librarians experience privacy in the library, mainly in connection with library patrons. The majority of the librarians also experience a connection between privacy and technology in the library. A few librarians experience that the main threat against privacy only comes from the outside of the library. All of the experiences are either problematic or unproblematic in relation to the perspective they represent.