Andreas Vårheim

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Verified

Andreas verified their affiliation via an institutional email.

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• PhD
• Professor (Full) at UiT The Arctic University of Norway

Purpose Librarians and the library profession keep repeating that libraries contribute greatly to generating social capital by “building community”. However, little evidence of this has been presented. This paper aims to be a first step towards correcting this situation by asking whether public libraries matter in the creation of generalized trust....

This article discusses how public libraries contribute to the generation of social capital and social trust among refugees participating in library programmes while enrolled in a compulsory government introductory programme to Norwegian language and society. The students’ experiences with the library have made them more trusting toward the institut...

Studies of the creation of social trust and social capital indicate that informal social contact has a positive effect. Some studies find that uncorrupt public institutions have positive effects on trust and social capital. Additionally, a number of papers show that public libraries have a similar effect. The mechanisms that generate trust, however...

It is common in the literature to see libraries characterized as public sphere institutions, but the exact processes by which libraries support and engage in the public sphere remain under-explored. Based on a systematic review of the research literature on libraries as public sphere institutions, this study maps the questions, methods, theories, a...

Purpose In museum research, museums are held as vital in maintaining the public sphere. This scoping review takes stock of the present status of museum–public sphere research by providing an overview of the existing literature as a point of departure for future research. In short, it maps the research aims, theoretical concepts, research methods an...

Introduction. This study is the first to explore how public library services for migrants are prioritised in national government policies across eight European countries: Denmark, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Norway, Poland and Sweden.Method.Using a comparative case study approach, the study analyses national library and immigration policy d...

Public librarians in Hungary and Poland began coordinating and preparing response efforts even before Ukrainians fleeing the outbreak of war arrived in their countries. This was just the beginning of their impressive work. Read more about the remarkable response efforts by library professionals in these two countries in our newly published article.

Purpose The purpose is to investigate the professional identity of public library, archive and museum (LAM) professionals in Denmark, Germany, Hungary, Norway and Sweden. Design/methodology/approach The data have been gathered through the administration of three questionnaires. A comprehensive analysis is conducted to explore the variations in the...

Public libraries, archives, and museums have identifiable differences related to their founding missions and play many roles in today’s cultural sector and broader society, yet LAM institutions’ professional activities appear very similar. Moreover, increased digitization of LAM collections allows for increased collaboration and convergence across...

Looking at six decades of libraries, archives, and museums (LAMs) policies in Scandinavia, we see that the idea of what LAMs might contribute to society has changed. The ambitions for their part have become more prominent, their roles more numerous, and their tasks more general. Libraries and museums have widened their scope to become more general...

This paper presents research on how public librarians in Denmark, Iceland, Norway and Sweden view the importance of social reading and related professional roles. Previous research findings from a questionnaire administered to public librarians are analysed in depth in order to identify trends that can be further investigated in a subsequent qualit...

Purpose Libraries, museums and cultural centers have long served as cultural ambassadors and foreign policy instruments, bridging diplomatic relationships among nation-states and institutions. The purpose of this scoping review is to ascertain and understand the emerging areas of research on libraries, museums and cultural centers in foreign policy...

The Norwegian Archive, Library and Museum Authority (ABM-utvikling – Statens senter for arkiv, bibliotek og museum) existed between 2003 and 2010. This article raises the question of why ABM-utvikling was not continued as a cultural policy instrument for the LAM sector. The new body for LAM policy development was based on the notion of converging m...

In this chapter, we present empirical data on the use of digital services in libraries, archives, and museums (LAMs), and we elucidate how users relate to digital LAM services and LAM services in general. We think the present-day use of digital LAM services is a good indicator of where LAM institutions are heading in the coming years and relevant f...

This paper reports a case study on community-oriented public library programs in a metropolitan Texan city. A main purpose of the paper is to report the findings from this explorative case study on the relationship of a public library system with its communities from a community resilience perspective. The study is a part of a research project aimi...

This paper presents and discusses a historical institutional framework for studying institutional change processes in library, archive & museum institutions. A limited application of this framework is applied to the case of modern public libraries in Norway and Sweden, for illustra¬tive purposes. We conducted a literature review on institutional an...

LAM institutional convergence and divergence in Norwegian cultural policy The Norwegian Archive, Library and Museum Authority (ABM-utvikling – Statens senter for arkiv, bibliotek og museum) existed between 2003 and 2010. This article raises the question of why ABM-utvikling was not continued as a cultural policy instrument for the LAM sector. The...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyze the role of public libraries as institutions underpinning a democratic public sphere as reasons legitimizing libraries compared to reasons that are more traditional and the actual use of libraries as public sphere arenas. Design/methodology/approach A survey of representative samples of the adult pop...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the shaping of public libraries as an infrastructure for a sustainable public sphere through a comprehensive literature review. Design/methodology/approach In order to capture the whole picture of this research field, we utilize comprehensive review methodology. The major research questions are: fi...

The paper outlines a research effort into the changing representations, policies, strategies, activities, and practices of libraries, archives, and museums (LAMs) in the digital age. Comprehensive social changes including big slow-moving processes, such as aging populations, global migration, technological change, and environmental change, expose c...

Introduction. The role of public libraries in contributing to the resilience of their local communities is an underdeveloped area of research. This paper introduces, explores and develops the concept of community resilience in a public library setting. Analysis. The paper opens the broader literature on community resilience and analyses the specifi...

Resilience is the ability to cope with change. The concept of resilience originating in the natural sciences has been applied in a variety of disciplines, from physics through ecology and social ecology to psychology and cultural studies. In public library research, very little resilience research has been conducted. The derived concepts of communi...

Public libraries play important roles during disaster recovery, even when other government actors fail. Libraries are centers of local information and have local knowledge. Patrons, as well as government agencies and NGOs, benefit from public libraries’ local grounding. Along with their local communities, many public libraries in the Tohoku region...

In the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2008, with increasing unemployment, the small effects of economic stimulus packages and debt-ridden economies with deflationary tendencies, many economists see the downward economic trajectory of Japan as a possible route for the rest of the advanced OECD economies. In this context, the way Japanese publi...

Recent research on the generation of social trust and social capital gives public institutions prominent roles as instruments for creating social capital, the trust and connections between community members that yield collective action. Less is known about specific institutions and the mechanisms involved in creating social capital. In this paper,...

How are libraries used as meeting places, and by whom? Through survey data, six categories of places are identified: the library as a “square,” as a place for meeting diverse people, as a public sphere, as a place for joint activities with friends and colleagues, as a metameeting place, and as a place for virtual meetings. Representative samples of...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to show why studies of public libraries, regarding their possible contribution in creating social capital, are important for social capital research in general, and are important for library practice in particular. Design/methodology/approach Building on the latest theoretical developments and empirical finding...

According to librarians, public libraries create social capital and trust in most people. According to theories on the creation of social capital, this might well be true. However, there is little research confirming this. Overall, social capital theory is in an impasse regarding what factors generate social capital or generalized trust. Is it univ...

"The contribution of public libraries on social capital: Preliminary findings from the PLACE project" Within the research project PLACE: Public Libraries-Arenas for Citizenship: An Investigation of the Public Library as a Community Meeting Place Fostering Social Capital in a Digital and Multicultural Context, it has been necessary to develop concep...

La investigación empírica sobre las bibliotecas públicas y el capital social se ha centrado principalmente en descubrir cómo las bibliotecas contribuyen al capital social en el contexto local, más que en ayudar a resolver los interrogantes teóricos planteados por la literatura sobre el capital social. A pesar de esto, se han producido resultados in...

In: Roswitha Skare, Niels Windfeld Lund, Andreas Vårheim (eds.) (2007): "A Document (Re)turn". Frankfurt am Main, Peter Lang,pp. 299-309. Reprinted with permission.

Introduction. This paper presents a research project aiming at eliciting the potential of public libraries in building social capital, and promoting generalized trust in today's multicultural society. Method. Two approaches to research, the societal approach and the institutional approach are identified. The concept of low intensive versus high int...

Empirical research on public libraries and social capital has primarily been oriented toward discovering how libraries contribute to social capital in local contexts, rather than contributing to solving the theoretical puzzles of the social capital literature. In spite of this, it has produced interesting findings that align with new developments i...

Varieties of Capitalism» and Policy Change – the Impact of Political Institutions in Ire-land and Norway 1987–2000. The article describes how Irish economic institutions began to move from a liberal towards a coordinated market economy at the end of the 1980s and how this contributed to a period of unparalleled economic growth in the 1990s. Accordi...

The article describes how Irish economic institutions began to move from a liberal towards a coordinated market economy at the end of the 1980s and how this contributed to a period of unparalleled economic growth in the 1990s. According to the literature on «Varieties of Capitalism», this type of transformation is virtually impossible. The Irish ca...

Fra 1960-årene ril1990 fikk satsing på servicenaeringene gradvis en mer sentral plass i de offisielle distriktspolitiske programformuleringene. Privat tjenesteyting ble i første omgang forstått som en rammebetingelse for basisnaeringene på linje med fysisk infrastruktur. I perioden frem mot 1990 fikk service omdefinert sin stilling til også å vaere...

Summary Policy design: AWay to Make Public Planning Possible? The neo-Liberalism of the 1980's and studies of policy implementation combined to make public planning a rather shallow enterprise. The theory on policy design is an attempt to re-establish the possibility of successful design of policy. The basis of the negative conclusions of the liter...

Vil innføringen av målstyring i skolesektoren bety økt grad av nasjonal styring med skolepolitikken? Essensen i målstyringstankegangen er desentralisering av ansvaret for oppgaveløsning og myndighet til å avgjøre hvordan oppgavene bør løses. Skolesektoren er en av flere sektorer hvor prinsippene for målstyring skal innføres. Skolesektoren er samtid...