Librariess upport for people with neuropsychiatric disabilities. : What are libraries doing to help people with neuropsychiatric disabilities and how can their support to the target group be developed?

Libraries support for people with neuropsychiatric disabilities. What are libraries doing to help people with neuropsychiatric disabilities and how can their support to the target group be developed? The research questions that sets the base for this paper is How does libraries provide aid for those with neuropsychiatric disabilites?How can libraries improve their aid? Background research that is used in this paper are sources that approaches disabilities generally or singular diagnosis such as dyslexia. The reason none off the used sources for the background research is specifically about neuropsychiatric disabilities is that no appropriate sources about the topic was found in library science. An attempt to find sources on the Swedish database Onesearch using the Swedish terms for the Swedish research question, “NPF+Bibliotek” yielded no results. The research method used to answer the questions above is semi structured interviews. A total of six librarians from different libraries and library types were interviewed. The interviews were anonymous and focused on the research questions. An interview guide was sent to the participants prior so they could be more prepared for the questions and that way have more flow in their conversation. The theory used to analyse and organize the results is institutional theory that looks at the organisation and changes in a institution. With the theory the results were analysed in different parts approaching the organisation the themes in focus were, rules both formal and informal, surrounding, changes and the building. Results and analysis is organised with the research questions and the focus points from the theory as headlines. The results from the interviews showed what kinds of aid the libraries provided for visitors with a neuropsychiatric disorder such as audiobook resources. The results and analysis also showed different departments where the library could improve as well as where push for change can come from. Conclusion and discussion brings up the research questions as well as the focus from the theories. The conclusion and discussion brings up patterns in the results such as the aid used and how libraries need to expand their knowledge off the group. Concluding the paper although aid for neuropsychiatric disabilities may be a newer focus for libraries there is an ongoing discussion on what they do to support and what they can improve.