Folkbibliotek makt och disciplinering : En genealogisk studie av folkbiblioteksområdet under den organiserade moderniteten

Sammanfattning: This study is focusing of the Swedish public library as an institution for general education during the period of 1910 to 1990. The aim is to enhance the knowledge of the construction of the Swedish citizen during the organized modernity.  What were the functions of the educational efforts characterizing public library, what procedures, technologies and techniques were in use´, how did they govern and what was the inherent impact of the citizen? With inspiration from the work of Michel Foucault the library discourse have been examined from a genealogical perspective illuminating discursive and non-discursive apparatuses, technologies and relations of power within the public library practices. The public library activities were organized hierarchic, giving the national library the overall responsibility for strategic activities, thus governing regional and local libraries to form localities, book collections, methods for studies considered appropriate for people. The local libraries´ responsibility was to offer the citizens appropriate books and methods for general studies. Bio-power technologies and disciplinary techniques, such as panoptical, expert strategies and central governing are in use. Limited selections, exclusions, rating based on hierarchical principles, governing on distance, self-regulation are the most important and common not only within the field of public library but in society as a whole.  Thus, forming an active and accountable citizen that is capable of making choices, recurrently willing to reconstruct herself by studies and consumption of books. The conclusion is that this citizen, consuming knowledge and high culture, corresponds well to the requirements of the modern society.