The influence of culture on perceived use of public libraries by forced migrants in Scotland and England

Salzano, Rachel

Abstract

The work reported in this thesis is concerned with public library use in Scotland and England by forced migrants. The findings extend knowledge of the information practices of forced migrants in the context of public libraries. These are derived from the analysis of empirical data collected from (1) formal Scottish local authority documentation on the integration of forced migrants, (2) interviews with service providers who act as integration intermediaries for forced migrant communities in the UK, and (3) community validation through interviews with forced migrants in Scotland and England.

There are five contributions of the research:
1. An understanding of the relationship between cultural factors and use of public library resources by forced migrants;
2. The need to consider the culture of service providers in explorations of culture;
3. Further understanding of the role motivational theories such as Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs has on information practices of specific communities;
4. Demonstration of a novel method of validation conducted when working with participants other than that of the target population.
5. An extension of work by Appleton et al. (2018), Appleton (2020), and Appleton and Hall (2022) on the epistemic role of public libraries.

The specific cultural factors of social norms and information value are identified as determinants of information practices of forced migrants in public libraries. This contribution on the role of culture in the information practices of forced migrants is significant in the context of prior work with its focus on public library use by forced migrants and best practices for library staff to support them. In addition, the role of service provider culture was distinguished as an important explanatory factor alongside the culture of forced migrants. Here the detailed treatment of explanatory factors of information practices generates both theoretical and practical value for library and information science research.

• Thesis Type: Thesis
• Deposit Date: Aug 21, 2023
• Publicly Available Date: Aug 21, 2023
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.17869/enu.2023.3175395
• Award Date: Jul 7, 2023