Digital Libraries: A Human Centred Study of Computerisation in a Finnish Academic Library

From the perspective of librarianship some alarming, rather global changes have taken place in the library field. Firstly, the increasing use of information technology (IT) in publishing is a challenge for the libraries. For example, electronic publications have already radically changed the traditional domain of the library, causing uncertainty among employees as they have to modify their work practices. Secondly, the development of IT has made it possible for the customers to take over traditional tasks of librarians. The tendency to increase self services can be seen as a threat for the proficiency of librarians. In this article we report experiences and perspectives of different stakeholders from an interpretive case study of a Finnish academic library. The case study illustrates well the environment which should be understood by management when planning the solutions for organisation and IT.