The information society creates new demands on the knowledge making individual; besides being literate one has to be information literate. And in the educational society there is an ongoing change from teaching to learning, the focal point being the active student and life long learning. The aim of this dissertation is to within a context of learning and teaching elucidate the relation between user education and subject education by examining what significance the academic libraries user education has for the development of information literacy within students. Some epistemological theories connected with learning is presented as well as aspects of the information search process and of information literacy. Universities and their libraries view of information literacy and the goal of their user education is being focused on in an empirical study.

This study investigates the individual usage of the Dublin Core metadata format in three Swedish Subject Based Information Gateways, SAFARI, Svenska miljönätet and Svesök. The authors also present the reader with an overview of the metadata concept and explains in particular the Dublin Core Element Set. The approach to the study is investigation of Dublin Core application from the viewpoint of three major issues, user friendliness, interoperability and quality control. The study includes an in-depth comparison of the three different metadata templates, as well as interviews with people in charge of the metadata production at the respective SBIGs and users of the respective SBIGs« templates. The study shows that the three SBIGs are more similar than they are different.

"Outstanding" or "They ought to know more about computers" : A study on computer support at university libraries.The main purpose of this study is to investigate the support computer users are given at university libraries. Further, the aim is to find out if the users thought they received the support that they needed. The study is carried out at two different university libraries. The data is obtained through interviews with the librarians, observations of the daily work at the information counters and questionnaires handled out to the users.The study indicates that variables such as knowledge, time and equipment play a central role in making the computer support successive. To a great extent the computer support is synonymous with information search, but it also deals with word processing and technical support connected with computer errors.

The aim of this Master's thesis is to investigate the importance of subject expertise for academic librarians in Skåne. Virtually all librarians in Sweden have studied other subjects besides library and information science (LIS) before becoming librarians, and in this thesis we ask what happens to this expertise. How many librarians can be said to have a good background in the subjects they are working with? Do academic librarians use their subject knowledge on the job? Does it make a difference what subject one has studied when it comes to job opportunities? What do librarians themselves think of the importance of subject expertise? We are also interested in finding out how subject expertise fits in with the growing professionalization of librarianship.A quantitative questionnaire was sent to 195 academic librarians at four different institutes of higher education in Skåne. A total of 107 librarians answered questions about their LIS education, subject background and current job as well questions on how important they perceived a subject background to be for themselves and for academic librarians in general.

This study investigates and evaluates a project called "Hisnande historier: från Bellman till Batman". "Hisnande historier" is composed to stimulate childrens literacy and it is directed towards pupils in the fourth class. The project is a co-operation between public librarians and compulsory school representatives in the municipality of Ystad. It contains visits by an author and exercises in reading and writing. We have been following the project during autumn 1998 at two schools in Ystad.

The subject of this thesis is to ascertain the task of the public library in Swedish society today according to the employer, that is the State and the municipalities, and according to the public library itself. The thesis also tries to establish as to what extent these different actors share the same view of the task. To this purpose I have studied the library law, the target reports of municipal authorities and public libraries, and made interviews with public library representatives during the autumn of 2001. The particular consideration of this paper is whether the task is being described in active, culture making terms or in passive, service functionary terms. Initially, I describe the task according to the library law.

The aim of this master thesis is to examine the identity of librarians. We have done this by conducting a text analysis where we have analysed texts produced by DIK, the major union of librarians, and by Library and Information Science departments in Sweden. The material we have analysed is texts produced in the aim of introducing and marketing the librarian occupation and education. The aim of this study is to find out how the identity of the librarian is expressed in this material. We have conducted the text analysis by adopting the critical discourse analyst Norman Fairclough´s theories.

Fountain of Knowledge? The Changing Role of the Library at the Upper Secondary School Level. There have been many changes in the Swedish society in general, and in the school system and hence the school library in particular during the last decade. The aim of this master thesis is then to study what students at the upper secondary school level consider to be the optimal school library to meet their specific information needs at school. In addition to and in comparison with this, the aim is also to study the present conditions of the upper secondary school library as described in documents, reports and other studies in this field.

The aim of this master's thesis is to study how the design of the music library space affects how it is used and its role as an arena for culture. This is done in form of a case study of Library 10 in Helsinki, a public library branch that specializes in music and information technology. The backdrop to the study is the changing context for cultural activity in the information society and the role of public libraries as public space and meeting place. By analyzing the distribution of space in the library, the distribution of functions and artefacts and the spatial use of the room, I interpret the ways in which this distributional logic produces a unique place for music and culture. I discuss the music library design in a space and place perspective, utilizing theoretical tools from cultural geography and the space theories of Henri Lefebvre.

The purpose of this master´s thesis is to examine how the cultural exchange function of Swedish libraries may be perceived on their websites. A further intention is to examine how the library websites are used at the present. Two quantitative web-based surveys have been sent out to a great number of Swedish public libraries. The first survey was directed to the webmasters of the libraries, in order to review the different services offered by the Swedish library websites of today. The second survey was conducted with library directors, in order to visualise what services they consider ought to be present on their own library website.

A company library can only exist if it contributes to a positive result for the company. As endusers are beginning to perform searches on the Internet and have access to databases and electronic documents via their desktops it becomes important for company librarians to thoroughly think through what services should be offered to the users so that the library still contributes to the company s profit. The aim of this dissertation was to try to define the services that the company library offers its users having in mind the changes that have taken place concerning the availability of information. I also wanted to explore whether the librarians had the necessary competence to perform the services offered. Six information specialists were interviewed to give their view on the services their libraries offered.

This Master's thesis aims at pinpointing the political arguments that appear in the recent debate on scientific publication. There is a widely spread opinion that prices on digital resources are far too high, thus taking up a major part of the University libraries budget, while publishing companies make high profits. It is also a common opinion that the current publishing method does not take full advantage of the possibilities of electronic publishing. Lately a number of alternative ways of publishing have been initiated and discussed, generally referred to as open access. Open access published material is available free of charge and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions on the public internet.In this thesis the minutes from four hearings held by the UK House of Commons in the spring of 2004 are examined.

The technical evolution has a great influence on the public libraries. Electronic media becomes more and more common. This Master´s thesis is based upon the Swedish Library law 9§ (SFS 1996:1596) which says: Public- and school libraries should pay special attention to children and teenagers by offering books, information technology and other media, adapted to their needs, to encourage development of language and stimulate reading. From this point of view we have examined why the children´s departments in public libraries offer CD-ROM games which are based upon characters from the literature, how they are used in the daily activity and how they can contribute to the development of the children´s department.We have made literary studies and empirical investigations including interviews, observation studies etc. The results from this studies shows that both young and adults appreciate the CD-ROM games.

The main purpose of this Master's thesis is to investigate the new librarians' experiences and skills in the context of their present work situation and the ongoing debate about the librarian's professional identity and status. Further, the authors wanted to find out whether the new librarians' experiences and knowledge developed throughout their education correspond to the requirements of the employers. Finally, they try to assess theimpact of the "academization" of the library schools on the status of the profession. The data consist of an opinion poll. The investigation is based on questionnaires distributed as a web survey.

The information market is constantly changing. With new and improved information technology more people get access to more information faster. However, the number of people educated to handle information also increases. Business intelligence has for a long time been a well-known tool for companies to be competitive. Because of the increased access to information the competition between companies has intensified and more people have become aware of the advantages of business intelligence and how it can help them compete.