En studie om bibliotekariers utmaningar, lärande och kompetens i mötet med barn och ungdomar med särskilda behov / A study on librarian’s challenges, learning and competence in meeting with children and young people with special needs

The aim of this master’s thesis is to contribute to the research about librarians’ experiences of their challenges, learning and competence in relation to the target group of children with special needs. The two research questions this study attempts to answer are: how do librarians view challenges, their learning and their competence in the work in relation to the target group of children and young people with special needs? And: how do librarians feel that their education has prepared them or not prepared them to meet children and young people with special needs? The study’s research method is qualitative semi-structured interviews. The results of the study showed that among the respondents with different backgrounds working in Swedish libraries with one exception, the respondents agreed that it was challenging to, without any pre-understanding, know how to welcome and make library activities accessible to children with special needs and a suggestion is that there should be a course in this subject in the education for librarianship. Two respondents who worked together had found a way to meet the target group in a well-functioning way.