A survey conducted by the union DIK among 1,800 library employees shows that every third public librarian (32 percent) estimates that more than half of the working hours are spent assisting visitors with various types of community services. This can involve printing or filling out forms, interpreting or translating government decisions, or helping with bank-id.
Part of the service is included in the libraries' mission, but the consequence is that librarians have poorer opportunities to carry out their social mission of strengthening reading, education, source credibility, and free access to information.
Public activities, purchases and weeding, and work towards targeted groups also have to give way to the benefit of keeping open and manning the information desk.
"The policy treats public libraries as if they were society's drainpipe. They are expected to catch all the balls that the rest of society drops, at the same time as they do not get enough resources to even manage their basic mission," says DIK's union chairman Anna Troberg in a comment to TT.
