The aim of this thesis is to investigate and increase the understanding of a present function of today´s public library, namely the function of meeting place; here called the social function or social space. Two small town libraries are included in the study, and the questions examined are:How is this function described at the two libraries and what similarities and differences are there between the two? How can one describe the relation between how the library as social space is described in research and at the libraries? The theoretical framework used in examining these questions, consists of three different discourses in culture policy (the discourse of state, market and civil society) and theories on civil society and the public library. A summary of current research makes visible eight different aspects of the public library as a social space. These aspects functions as parts of the theoretical framework as well.

This master thesis is aiming to find out how school libraries work towards children in school years 1-6. The mainfocus is how the school librarians and teachers work with literature and reading. The theoretical viewpoints aremainly the sociocultural theory and the child perspective.The study was conducted with participants from five different schools in Uppsala, in the form of qualitativesemi-structured interviews. The results show that schools work with literature first and foremost in a pragmaticway, with reading-strategies and activating discussions. Very little time is spent on reading for its own sake.

The purpose of this master thesis is to investigate and analyse how the concept of lifelong learning is expressed in political documents concerning public libraries and education and how it can be related to earlier concepts of education within the discourse of public libraries. Focus is the official approach to the concept of lifelong learning and public library. The documents examined contain the political aims for education and culture policy on a national and local level. The theories used in the study concern the background and meaning of the concept of lifelong learning, they describe public libraries and their earlier perspectives of education and they also give a picture of practices of governing within the framework of public libraries. The purpose is to see how the speech in the documents is reflected in discourses of society and public library.

The aim of this Master thesis is to describe why and how public librariesuse the social networks Facebook and Twitter. The focus is to study whatbrought about their use, how the work is carried out, ideas and objectivesbehind the use and what libraries actually convey on the networks. Themethodology is twofold: semi-structured interviews with responsiblepersonnel at four Swedish public libraries, and an ethnographic contentanalysis of four months of the libraries' status updates and tweets onFacebook and Twitter. The theoretical framework consists of a model forthe roles of the public library in society, and of discourses about thepublic library in media.Results indicate that social networks are used to market, make accessibleand inform of the library's resources and services. Furthermore, networksare used to communicate/interact with followers and to inspire people toread.

Ten years ago the public computers with Internet access were introduced in the public libraries. The purpose of the public computers was to give the possibility of searching information. Along with the Internet came also communication media like chat and e-mail. This type of communication was a new function for the libraries and the reactions among the librarians were mixed. It has been a source of big frustration and attempts to block it has not succeeded.

?Facebook has become as natural as having a phone? The use of social media in three libraries in the Umeå region ? an evaluationSocial media has come to be an integral part of people?s everyday life, as well as the business world in terms of communication and marketing. More and more libraries also embark in the use of social media, and the purpose of this study is to evaluate the use of social media in three libraries in the Umeå region. The libraries all use Facebook as their current, primary social media. Thus this study focuses partly on the analysis of the content on each library?s Facebook page, and partly on the experiences of the responsible librarians. The evaluation is based on a mix of existing tools in evaluating social media that are relevant in a library context.

The purpose of this study is to analyse the offer from the ministry of education and cultural affairs to Swedish public libraries concerning a computerised connection to SUNET (the Swedish University Network). The study is based on analyses of the main texts from the campaign and interviews in order to identify arguments that caused the libraries to accept or decline the offer. My conclusions are that the marketing of the SUNET-offer was to a large extent filled with technicalities, and that the campaign failed to identify and focus on the true recipients the decision-makers. The wordings used in the written material were too negative and discouraging. In order to succeed with future concentrations concerning public libraries, it is vitally important to overcome the boundaries between the decision-makers in the local government, the people responsible for information technology and the library staff..

This master thesis deals with the problem of integrated libraries. The number of integrated public and school libraries has significantly increased over time. These libraries are integrated for different reasons, most often because of economic considerations. The goal of the thesis is to investigate librarians´ understanding and perceptions of the professional role in this type of integrated libraries. I have investigated how librarians see and interpret their own professional role, and what factors influence their perceptions in an integrated library.The three main questions are: How do the librarians explain their professional role in an integrated library? How does their professional role change because of the fact that they work in an integrated environment? What factors, according to the librarians, influence and/or change the professional role mostly? The data has been collected through interviews with eight librarians at integrated libraries.

This master´s thesis is a comparative study of the importance of eight factors suggested in the literature to be related to the perceived utility of the service Book a librarian (Swe. Boka en bibliotekarie). Disciplinary differences were also analysed. 73 encounters between students and librarians in 11 Swedish Academic libraries were studied using a survey. Six factors were significantly related (at the .05 level) to the utility of the service.

Eight libraries, seven public libraries and one college library, in the northeast of Skåne serve as foundation in a collaboration where students and adult learners are placed in the center of attention. The aim of this Master's thesis in library and information science was to study how the students and adult learners in the northeast of Skåne perceive the library services that are developed with their needs in mind.Our method for this thesis was a quantitative interview study. We aimed to conduct interviews with users at the public libraries within the cooperation and thereby find out whether or not users within the target group were aware of the services that are developed and established within the northeast Skåne collaboration.The results showed that only a few respondents in the key target group did in fact know about certain parts of the library services especially developed for the northeast of Skåne-collaboration. The majority of the key target group also thought that study-related literature and reading rooms were the most important means that the libraries have to offer them in their studies. The northeast of Skåne-collaboration had many ideas concerning library services.

The role-playing game attracts a growing number of practisers. The aim of this master?s thesis is to examine role-playing literature as phenomenon in libraries through librarians´ attitudes. The paper is based on qualitative interviews with eight librarians: one personal interview with two librarians and six e-mail interviews with six librarians at different libraries. The paper starts with a definition of the term ?role-playing game?, its different categories and genres and a description of its background.

The purpose of this thesis is to explore the experiences and views some users have of the library environment and services of the University Library of Halmstad. The main question to be answered in this thesis is what importance the users attribute to the library environment and services while pursuing their most recent library errand. To answer this question a study of relevant literature on the subjects of library environment, library services and user-surveys in other Academic libraries was carried out and a questionnaire was distributed to 22 respondents in the process of visiting the University of Halmstad Library. The literature background and the results of the conducted study were interpreted and discussed and led to the following conclusions: 3 respondents encounters with the library environment and its services were negative in part and thus their experiences and views were relevant to the completion of their library errands. The other respondents? encounters confirmed their overall positive earlier experiences and views of the library environment and its services, but had no real concrete significance for the completion of their library errands..

This thesis is a study of Futurum.kom´s campaign "Lyssna dig rik". Futurum.kom is a regional marketing project between Länsbibliotek Sydost, Regionbibliotek Kalmar and 25 public libraries in the county of Blekinge, Kalmar and Kronoberg. The aim of the Futurum.kom project is to strengthen the role of the public library in society. "Lyssna dig rik" was a cluster group campaign with the aim of making people know about the possibilities of loaning audiobooks in libraries. The target group was lorry drivers in the age of 30-65 with the possibilities to listen to audiobooks at work.

The purpose of this Master?s thesis is to present a survey of how Swedish libraries provide information services for children. In this thesis ?information? means non-fiction material and ?children? do not include preschool children. The method used is knowledge overview and the material (mostly Master theses in LIS published January 2001-June 2006) is related to user studies of children as information seekers.

The purpose of this Master?s thesis is to investigate the library needs of fourteen-to-fifteen-year-olds. We have limited the investigation to the significance of libraries for the teenagers in their leisure time. Our focus is the public library with a particular reference to the plans for a new local public library with a youth profile in Malmö. With a departure point in the idea that young people?s use and view of libraries is to a large extent depending on factors such as social and cultural background and lifestyle, we chose to do a qualitative interview study with eight teenagers.