The topic of this essay is information seeking for children and young people in municipal libraries. This is based in the growing need for information seeking skills in the Information Society. Policy documents on the topic are scrutinized and related to a concrete praxis. Data has been collected through two case studies; one carried out in Ronneby and one in Trandared, Borås. These cases where chosen because of the existence of a local policy for library skills and information search for 6 to 12-year-olds.

The aim of this master thesis is to find out if young people and librarians think that reference groups can support public libraries to meet the needs of young people, and if the reference groups, which the librarians describe, differentiates from the young peoples requirements. I have made a qualitative study with a questionnaire to six librarians who have experience from reference groups and ten interviews with teenagers. The result showed that young people have many interests and needs which can be met from the library. The teenagers were positive to the library and many of them showed interest in having more influence on the library. Many would like to join a reference group, but on the condition that they would be offered real influence.

During the past decade, consumer health information-centers have been developed at the hospital libraries in Sweden in order to meet the increasing demand from patients and their relatives concerning consumer health information. In 1993, the hospital libraries in Falun, Västervik and Karlstad launched a consumer health information database called PION. The aim of this Master's thesis is two-fold. My first aim is to describe and discuss the principles of user-oriented evaluation. In my attempt to convey the theoretical discussion into the everyday life of librarianship, my second and most important aim is to conduct a user-oriented evaluation of the database PION.

The aim of this thesis was to study librarians approach upon reference questions and available resources and also to find out if there is any connection between the nature of the reference question and the choice of resource. The purpose was also to give a deeper understanding of the reference work. Nine librarians were given ten reference questions and their reference work was tape recorded. The study was completed with seven interviews sent by email. Some of the reflections were translated under the headlines of form, subject, time, language and availability.

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.

In this thesis, rare book collections in university libraries are studied. University libraries function primarily as service institutions for students and researchers. Rare book collections may to some extent be seen as a part of this service. Stockholm and Uppsala University Libraries are the focus in this thesis. They participate because of their difference regarding their rare book collections.

This essay is a survey of thirteen user studies performed in the field of image retrieval. The purpose is to try to distinguish principles that should be kept in mind when wanting to make image databases available for a wide and varied group of users. The essay tries to answer two questions, namely: Are there any results in accordance among the different studies? What in the user studies should be considered when it comes to how content description, interface and functions for searching can be designed when creating systems for image retrieval? Each study is first reviewed on its own, and then a comparative analysis of all the studies is carried out. Derived from the result of this analysis, the conclusion is presented in the form of a row of suggestions to which aspects are to be suitably included in the design of image databases.

The purpose of our thesis is to take a closer look at what lies behind the display of fiction in public libraries. Through interviewing ten librarians and analysing their statements, it examines the mechanisms behind the displaying of books. The analysis was conducted through the application of two different theories, one by Aant Elzinga and one by Douglas Raber. Elzingas theory concerns methods of working, while Rabers theory concerns the purpose of public libraries and attitudes towards power. The following conclusions were drawn from analysing the statements.

The aim of this thesis is to see if adult education have changed in educational association of the Swedish Labour Movement ABF, and the temperance movement IOGT/NBV. We have chosen to study five periods and analyse these after four ideal of education. These are the ideals of self-education, polytechnic education, neo-classic character-moulding education, and citizenship education. We have studied the reports of the activities of the organisations during the years and the writings of anniversary. The analysis shows that the two popular movements have gone from an adult education where the ideal of citizenship education to an ideal of neo-classic character-moulding education was dominating.

This master's thesis deals with the interest in comics among students at the social science programme in an upper secondary school. The history of comics and the reading habits of comics have also been examined. For the completion of this study 54 students, 19 boys and 35 girls, took part in a questionnaire. The results of this statistical survey shows that the department of comics at Malmö city public library plays an insignificant role concerning the interest and reading of comics for the students. The main readings of comics for the students are in the daily paper, which resembles reading habits of adults.

This study is about fourteen-year-old boys, who are not interested in reading. It deals with what thoughts and feelings some boys have around books, reading and libraries. Further the study investigates the boys' leisure activities and their making of identities. The study is built on interviews among twelve boys in a secondary school. The result is compared to earlier reports and research.

In the master thesis the focus of the study has been on the special library of the Goethe-institute in Stockholm. A survey was made among the visitors coming to the library, to find out how they used the library and how they would judge the quality of service. To find out how the needs and the opinions of the users were meet by the library I also made an interview with the staff one librarian and the chief librarian. In the analysis I used the theory about service quality of Christian Grönroos as a framework. The theory distinguishes the service quality into technical resp.

Bakgrund: I Sverige är kärnfamiljen än så länge den vanligaste familjeformen men det blir allt vanligare med separationer och därmed bildas nya familjekonstellationer. Familjer bryter upp och nya par flyttar samman. Hur påverkar de nya strukturerna barnen?I samtal med pedagoger i verksamheten har det kommit till vår kännedom att ämnet skilsmässa är ?tabubelagt?. Pedagogerna vet inte riktigt hur man ska närma sig problemet, personalen vill vara ett stöd men är rädd för att ?lägga sig i?.Syfte: Studiens syfte är att undersöka hur pedagoger anser att barn, vars föräldrar skilt sig, borde bemötas samt att se om det finns någon skillnad i synen på bemötandet, pedagogkategorier emellan.Metod: För att uppnå syftet har vi valt att göra en kvantitativ enkätundersökning med 13 påståenden med fasta svarsalternativ, varav sju stycken redovisas i uppsatsen, samt en öppen fråga.Resultat: Vi har kommit fram till att pedagogerna anser att det är viktigt att föräldrarna meddelar om att de ska separera för att enklare kunna anpassa elevens individuella planering.

Bakgrund: I Sverige är kärnfamiljen än så länge den vanligaste familjeformen men det blir allt vanligare med separationer och därmed bildas nya familjekonstellationer. Familjer bryter upp och nya par flyttar samman. Hur påverkar de nya strukturerna barnen?I samtal med pedagoger i verksamheten har det kommit till vår kännedom att ämnet skilsmässa är ?tabubelagt?. Pedagogerna vet inte riktigt hur man ska närma sig problemet, personalen vill vara ett stöd men är rädd för att ?lägga sig i?.Syfte: Studiens syfte är att undersöka hur pedagoger anser att barn, vars föräldrar skilt sig, borde bemötas samt att se om det finns någon skillnad i synen på bemötandet, pedagogkategorier emellan.Metod: För att uppnå syftet har vi valt att göra en kvantitativ enkätundersökning med 13 påståenden med fasta svarsalternativ, varav sju stycken redovisas i uppsatsen, samt en öppen fråga.Resultat: Vi har kommit fram till att pedagogerna anser att det är viktigt att föräldrarna meddelar om att de ska separera för att enklare kunna anpassa elevens individuella planering.

This thesis explores how public art is received by the general public in Borås, Sweden. As a point of departure it was assumed that a study of the local papers would offer an accurate insight in to the debate of public art. Hence, press clippings were chosen as primary source material together with the works of art. The questions addressed in the study are: what is written in the local daily press about public art? Who writes in or makes statements to the local dailies about public art? Textual analysis is the predominant method employed while hermeneutics is the underlying theory.