This master thesis was written in the purpose to study how the location and access to computers in the physical realm of the public library reflects the undergoing changes in the public libraries role in Swedish society. This study is done in a form of a case study of three small public libraries. All of them were in the process of transforming both their physical and virtual space. The thesis focuses on where in the library the computers are placed and how their location interacts with the libraries main tasks. It also focuses on the analysis of the relationship between these two elements and how that relationship reflects the alteration of the public libraries place in society.

This Master s thesis deals with the display of library media, whether it is conceivable and desirable to draw inspiration from the retail business when displaying articles. The questions asked are: are there, in the retail sector, well established display ideas and - if so - what do they look like? Are the similarities in conditions, between the branches, sufficient? In conveying the ideas to libraries, are the potential differences not obstructive? Is there, among librarians, a positive attitude towards further development of library display techniques? The results were achieved by interviewing shop window dressers and librarians. In addition, a survey was sent to the library managers of 65 public libraries in southern Sweden. The results show that there are established ideas and methods of displaying materials, and that the ideas are manifested in frequently used techniques.

In this Master's thesis we investigate the collection management regarding fiction for adults. The apprehension of fiction has changed over the years. From the beginning it was considered to be mostly educational rather than being the purpose of entertainment. As for today these views are not opposites to each other. Regarding this we discuss the problem concerning terms of quality.

The aim of this master thesis is to study how academic librarians can overcome the gap between themselves and the user. The gap, as we see it, is generated by the user's deeper knowledge surrounding her subject in comparison to the librarian. This knowledge gives the user possibilities to handle certain discourses attached to the subject and a knowledge how sub-subjects relate to each other within the main subject. At the same time the user is in need of help to find information within her subject, this need needs to be explained to the librarian as a search expert. The scope of this master thesis is to find how the librarian, tactically, can reach the users need despite lack of subject knowledge.

The aim of this Master's thesis is to compare the 6th and the 7th editions of the classification scheme of the Swedish classification system (SAB) to reveal which principles are used concerning the development of this system during the period 1985-1997. Guiding questions are: What kind of changes has been conducted? How do these changes relate to development of other general classification schemes and to theories concerning revision work? The results of the analysis show that possibilities to use synthesis have increased by an extension of use of geographic and chronological subdivisions. The classification scheme has also been easier to use by elimination of parallel subdivisions and regularization of the scheme. To maintain stability revision is performed on selected subclasses.

This research paper is a thesaurus construction for the interdisciplinary subject of landscape planning. The personnel doing the indexing of documents at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences had earlier expressed a need for such a work within the fields of Landscape Architecture and Landscape Engineering. However our objective was not to create a complete thesaurus, but instead a basic construction which the personnel at the Agricultural University could expand upon. The actual construction is based upon ISO 2788-1986, Documentation Ð Guidelines for the establishment and development of monolingual thesauri, and Aitchison, Gilchrist and BawdenÕs Thesaurus Construction (1997). The line of enquiry taken has dealt with the problems relating to the collection, selection and control of indexing terms.

The aim of this study was to find out if hypertext structure has any relevance for the efficiency of information retrieval. An experiment, in which three variants of hypertext structure were compared, was carried out in the autumn of 1998. Three websites with different structures were constructed for this purpose: a sequential version, a hierarchical version and a webcluster version. 44 subjects, all students at the University of Lund, were randomly divided into three groups. Subjects were requiered to answer a number of questions using one of the three versions.

The aim of this thesis is to explore the job satisfaction of librarians and try to nuance stereotypes, which the public has and which still exist in massmedia concerning librarians and their work. The study is qualitative and based mainly on semistructured interviews with ten libraries born between 1937s and 1973s of which eight are women and two men. Furthermore, I have divided them into two groups according to age in order to see if there are differencies between the older and the younger concerning job satisfaction. In addition, I have used participant observation to some extent. My assumption is that job satisfaction is effected both by individual factors and environmental factors at work.

The aim of this study is to investigate the public libraries use of their websites in their marketing. Our study is based on the websites of 60 public libraries. The libraries are chosen because of their geographical location in three different provinces? Skåne in the south, Östergötland in the middle and Norrbotten in the north. These three choices enable us to cover densely as well as thinly populated areas, the agricultural district, the woodland and cities of various sizes.

The explosion of new digital media puts pressure for developments within copyright law both in Sweden and internationally. These developments are taking place on two different international areas: (1) WIPO which is a part of the UN family and (2) the EU where a new directive on copyright law is being prepared and probably implemented during 2001. The aim of this thesis is twofold: (1) to study which considerations libraries must make when handling the new digital media both under today's copyright laws and under those which are being developed internationally. (2) What will be the consequences, for Swedish libraries, if the new EU-directive on copyright law is implemented in Sweden? By analysing current copyright laws, international treaties and the proposal for a new EU-directive as well as the national debate the thesis brings attention to a number of central issues for libraries.

In this work we study how the information provision should be organised in a new smaller size Swedish university college in a town without previous academic traditions. Specifically, our aim is to propose a possible model for information provision in Campus Helsingborg which is currently under construction. The study consists of two parts: literature review and empirical investigation. In the literature review we summarise a selection of articles about traditional and untraditional practically realised ways of information provision in nineties. The empirical investigation consists of 19 interviews with students, teachers and librarians from Kalmar, Halmstad and Helsingborg.

The aim of this thesis is to find out how users and libraries are constructed at public library websites in Sweden from a web 2.0 perspective. We discuss the development of public libraries in Swedish history and the change from an system oriented perspective to a individual oriented perspective and how these perspectives correspond to needs of the library user. We also discuss the concept of web 2.0 and library 2.0. These concepts are open for different interpretations. Some writers believe that web 2.0 and library 2.0 is something radically new and that it will change the public libraries, while other writers claim that these concepts is just a marketing plan.

This Masters' thesis is a study on the information behaviour of hospital personnel at the University Hospital in Lund, Sweden. A questionnaire was distributed to 301 nurses and physicians working in the intensive care unit, the population was reduced to 244 persons. The response rate was 52%, i.e. 125 questionnaires were completed. Nurses constituted 68 % of the population.

The main purpose of this study was to establish to what extent undergraduate students use reference services, what knowledge they have about those services and what their views of them are.The survey took place at Lund University Library, UB1, the main library responsible for collections in social sciences, humanities, theology and law. A total of 476 undergraduate students were asked to fill in a questionnaire, 273 accepted. The study is quantitative and was carried out during the autumn semester, 1996.The results show that the service used most frequently by undergraduate students is the reference collection. The least used service is the Internet, more than 50 percent of the students never use Internet at the University Library. In general, students are very pleased with the service given by the reference librarians, and with the collection of reference books.

The purpose of the following thesis has been to study librarians' attitudes towards comics for grown up people. I have compared the attitudes among the staff in two public libraries in Sweden, Malmö public library and Lund public library. I have conducted five interviews with librarians and observed how the comics are handled in each library. I have also carried out a literary study of the history and theories of comics. Initially a definition of comics is presented, and then an overview of the development of comics and of some theories regarding them is offered.