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The aim of this thesis is to examine how library employees view and work with UX or User Experience. It also examines how they view library users, the library and their own professional roles and how these views are connected with the concepts of documentality, legitimacy and identity. The concept of power is also used. The study was carried out thorough a series of ten semi-structured qualitative interviews with employees at Karolinska Institutet University Library and Linköping University Library and is based on a social constructivist perspective. The results show that UX is viewed as a mindset where one tries to look at the library from the users’ perspectives and adapt the library after their needs. This was seen as a new perspective where the library aims to stand in the users’ shoes. Through the use of methods like interviews, observations and usability tests the informants try to understand their users and their needs. However, there was a strong emphasis on balancing the users’ wishes with the aims and conditions of the library which indicate a strong internal legitimacy. It also shows that UX does not indicate a loss of power in the informants’ minds. The study shows that an emphasis on the users’ perspective can also be linked to the core of librarianship further strengthening the internal legitimacy. The results also show that arguments can be made for the importance of both constitutive and performative documentality in academic libraries today. Among the informants there was a strong emphasis on a communicatively oriented professional identity with its focus om dialogue and cooperation with library users. In conclusion, the study shows that UX can be viewed as a way for academic libraries to cope with the many changes the last decades have brought and continue to be relevant in years to come. This is a two years master’s thesis in Library and Information Science. |
