| Summary: | The aim of this master’s thesis is to examine how users at four public libraries experience the alternative shelf arrangement in their library. The purpose of introducing an alternative shelf arrangement in a public library is often to facilitate for its users. In each of our chosen libraries, the librarians have arranged the books in the non-fiction section in broad themes, with the Swedish Library Association Classification System as subsections. Using qualitative interviews, we examined a total of 26 users’ experience of the shelf arrangement and its accessibility, their methods for seeking information and their opinion about the presentation of the books. The main part of our respondents prefers to browse through the book shelves when searching in the library. Most of them also declared satisfaction with the shelf arrangement in their library and that they are more likely to borrow a book that is on display than a book that is not. We found that our respondents lacked awareness of the organisation of the shelf arrangement as well as of the signs showing the themes. The majority of our respondents do not question the shelf arrangement. Many of the respondents do not question it because they are so used to their library and have learned how to find what they are looking for. Others seem to feel that they do not know the library well enough to question it. === Uppsatsnivå: D
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