Ireland had, by the year of 1998, been an island of war and conflict to some extent for almost 1000 years. The northeast part of the island, called Northern Ireland, had been under British domination for over 25 years when ?the Troubles? ended by the year of 1998. This essay aims towards explaining how the first generation after ?the Troubles? has been shaped in terms of political and religious beliefs and attitudes in the society of Belfast.

This qualitative study examines how users of boardgamegeek.com chooses which analogue game to buy. The purpose of the study is to find out which factors constitutes the choice of games and how the information of these factors reach the consumer. The investigation is executed by users of boardgamegeek.com explaining their latest game purchase in a questionnaire survey online. The results show that many of the respondents research the games they are interrested in beforehand and based on this information make their choice. Despite of this we can see that many game developers and distributors does not make this information available for the consumers, but leaves this task to the public..

The mobile jukebox is an idea for a new kind of smartphone application that would allow users to dictate the music playing at various establishments. The mobile nature of the innovation allows for the possibility of a more ubiquitous service. Conducting a quantitative as well a qualitative study, the authors have found significant interest in this innovation service among potential users and potential distributors of the service. Furthermore, it is shown what aspects are important for decision makers to make a decision on whether to integrate the service into the operation of potential distributors of the service.  .

Working life is an arena that often reflects attitudes that already exist in our society. When alcohol- and drug abuse is detected among employees the employer has a statutory responsibility for rehabilitation. But the way how these employees gets to be treated is also influenced by attitudes. The purpose of this essay was to illustrate from a gender perspective how women's and men's alcohol- and drug abuse occur in working life and how the attitudes in our society towards their abuse reflect on trade life. Referring that, our intention was also to examine which consequences are given of how the individual is treated.

The purpose of this Bachelor thesis is to investigate which rolesthe mobile library has to its users in a small community in Sweden.To reach this purpose I have focused on the following two researchquestions:? Which are the different functions, social, cultural, educational orinformation-based, that the mobile library offers its users andwhich of these are used in reality?? What purposes are there for the mobile library and how it is usedby it?s visitors?To answer these questions I have interviewed four users of amobile library and I have held e-mail interviews with librarians incharge of a mobile library as well as the head of the department ofculture and peoples health in the community. As a base for myanalyse I have also used a pilot study which I performed earlier inthe spring of 2011.My theoretical framework is based on the model of the publiclibrary?s different roles made by Marianne Andersson and DorteSkot-Hansen.The result of this study show?s that a mobile library isn?t verydifferent from a permanently located public library. The fourdifferent functions all exist, wholly or partly, in the mobile library..

The purpose of this study was to investigate the levels of social distance used by the librarians and users in the virtual reference interview. With a conversational analysis and applied politeness theory 49 chat transcripts where analysed in order to answer the question of how the interlocutors positioned themselves regarding the social distance between them. By identifying what communicative strategies where used the following results were found. Generally the social distance between librarians and users is low in the Swedish virtual reference interview. Even though both parties used informal and casual language the results indicate that the librarians face wants were valued slightly higher than the users which were illustrated by a some what higher social distance in the stages of the conversations when the librarians face was under most threat.

This master thesis states the following questions: Is it easy or difficult to retrive information from a mobile phone manual? How can the search process be described among user for a mobile phone manual? What similarities and differeces can be identified between users? Arhe there any variables that affect search performance such as reading skills or technical domain knowledge? Eight mobile phone users participated in an empirical observation and the scope was to find information in a paper version of a mobile phone manual according to given tasks. The results shows that some users has problems to retrieve information due to that the correct page in the mobile phone manual could not be located. The results show that the user is using several search strategies, for example the table of contents and the index, when trying to locate information. The results also revel that the user initiates multiple search steps before the correct information can be located.

 This bachelor?s thesis purpose is to examine how library staff experiences the meeting with non-Swedish speaking users of public libraries, and how they solve different situations. Today there is not much research on this subject but we find these questions important to study because we think it is good to be aware of the situations that can arise and discuss how to solve any problems. To have a basis for this qualitative study we conducted group interviews with library staff, where they are asked about their experiences with non-Swedish speaking users. In the analysis the results of the interviews are compared to previous research and related to communication theory, which is the theoretical framework for this study.

For a long period of time there has been an extensive documentation of how things are presumed not to be at our workplace. However there is little knowledge on how it is supposed to be, what makes us feel good and what makes us retain our well-being. The aim of this study was to survey the attitudes towards factors of well-being at the workplace among personnel at four institutions at Kristianstad University. The work method used in this study is quantitative and a questionnaire survey was carried out to produce an overall picture. The majority considered praise from manager and the opportunity of development discussions of great importance.

Based on earlier experiences of mathematics and mathematical learning, both as a student and as a teacher, I became more and more interested in how well the publicly accepted opinions about mathematics as an uninteresting, difficult and ?geeky? subject corresponded to reality. What do Swedish pupils really think about mathematics and is it possible to identify any differences in their attitudes based on the pupils? age?From this point of view the following questions were formulated:·What are pupils? attitudes towards mathematics in grades 3, 6 and 9 and how do they conceive their learning conditions?·Is it possible to detect any differences in the attitudes and preferences depending on the pupils? age?The result of this study compares well with previous studies done in this and overlapping fields and indicates that:·Younger pupils tend to have a better liking of mathematics but with increasing age that interest fades out.·Most pupils, without regard to age, consider mathematics to be one of the most important subjects, despite the fact that many pupils also find mathematics difficult and boring.·For pupils of all ages, the teacher is the most important factor in the learning process. Older students have more specific demands on the teacher for knowledge and pedagogical skills.·A high noise level, talking and disturbances in the classroom are the most bothering elements when it comes to learning mathematics.

The aim of this master?s thesis is to examine how users at four public libraries experience the alternative shelf arrangement in their library. The purpose of introducing an alternative shelf arrangement in a public library is often to facilitate for its users. In each of our chosen libraries, the librarians have arranged the books in the non-fiction section in broad themes, with the Swedish Library Association Classification System as subsections. Using qualitative interviews, we examined a total of 26 users? experience of the shelf arrangement and its accessibility, their methods for seeking information and their opinion about the presentation of the books.

The aim of this thesis is to examine the Swedish public libraries acquisition processes when it comes to fiction for adults. The thesis focus on how the librarians responsible for acquiring view literary quality when they manage their collections and how their views coincide with that of the user?s explicit wishes. Furthermore this thesis looks at the librarians reading habits and how they coincide with that of their perceived users.The study uses literature pedagogic perspective theory to see how the librarians look at fiction and what they value in it. In order to get answers six librarians have been interviewed in this study that uses a qualitative approach to getting answers.

The aim of this thesis is to study how public libraries in Sweden use alternative shelf arrangements that differ from the library?s original classification system, which in Swedish public libraries usually is the SAB-system. I sent out a survey to 169 public libraries, where I received 114 replies. 77 of these stated that they had some kind of alternative shelf arrangement, therefore these are the ones that are included in my study. I wanted to investigate in what way the libraries had changed their shelf arrangement and why this decision was made.

The objective of this bachelor thesis is to examine how some larger Swedish public libraries reason about the use of social media as part of their activities and outreach. To attain the purpose three research-questions were established; why does the public library use social media? How does the public library utilize social media? What extra value do librarians believe that use of social media can add to the libraries? function? The methodology used in the thesis is qualitative interviews. Six interviews were conducted with librarians in charge of social media at their respective libraries. Five of the interviews were conducted by telephone and one by email.

Traditionally the content of fiction has not been described, analyzed, classified and/or indexed to the same extent as non-fiction. As a consequence, this lack of content analysis has resulted in unsatisfactory fiction retrieval in relation to users seeking and search behaviour. This fact is why this Master s thesis is written. The total of library users' seeking and search behaviour is investigated in order to suggest methods to improve user adapted fiction retrieval tools. Suggesting relevant fiction retrieval tools corresponding to users' seeking/search behaviour is another aim of the study.