Our main reason for this master thesis is to find out how librarians get knowledge and understanding about people with disabilities in order to make the library more accessible. Our aim is to study the so-called 4 x 4 education which is an education about accessibility to and within cultural institutions and find out if a specific education is helpful to librarians in this matter. We also discuss what librarians themselves find desirable in an education of this type. Socio-cultural perspective is our choice as background theory. The socio-cultural perspective states that learning depends on social activity and social interaction.

The aim of this MA thesis is to examine how users regard and receive the services offered by a specific public library. We also examine what the conception of service means to the users and how they perceive this service being offered by the library. We look upon if and to what extent the service conception depends on contact with the library staff. The methods used are qualitative interviews and analyses of documents directing the library activities. The public library we have examined in this respect is the public library of Västerås.

Social media have become a bigger and bigger aspect of daily life for many ages and especially within the youth culture growing from digital interactions. At the same time libraries seems eager to use this medium to reach out to the youth to inform and to educate. But do we know enough about how these two groups? views each other to be effective at this work? And is it even something that is wanted? What?s the image of social media from their point of view?The goal of this study is to investigate the image of social media from the point of view of two groups, librarians and youth. The study is based on a qualitative approach with a random selection of candidates.

Denna rapport behandlar utvecklingen av en prototyp för en absolutläges-sensor, benämnd AOS. Arbetet är utfört på uppdrag av Electrum Automation AB som med hjälp av prototypen vill utvärdera om en skarp produkt kan tas fram genom att använda billiga sensorer främst avsedda för konsumentbruk. AOS ska kunna användas för att mäta absolut orientering, dvs. lutning och riktning i förhållande till jordens gravitation och magnetfält. Den ska kunna appliceras i tuffa och säkerhetskritiska miljöer, t.ex.

The web is a constantly growing medium that presumably plays an increasing role in public library reference services. In order to provide high quality reference service the librarians need to be able to master this medium. Therefore it is interesting to get an understanding of how librarians actually use the web. The aim of this Master s thesis is to investigate what web search tools are used by public librarians in reference service. Furthermore, the aim is to get an understanding of how the librarians think about those tools and what background factors influence their selection of tools.

The wide spread of the Internet and new information technologies in recent years has come to effect how libraries manage and disseminate information. Search engines like Google are widely used by people who often find the information retrieval systems of libraries to be too complicated. In 2004 Google announced plans to digitise five major library collections. Organisations representing the publishing industry and authors have since then filed lawsuits against Google claiming that Googles scanning of library books infringe the rights holders copyright. Due to Googles potential impact on libraries this thesis aims to examine how Googles digitisation project, Google Book Search, has been received in the library community.

The main aim of this master thesis was to see the process of an interactive online reference service from idea to final product. The reference service we have studied is developed and used by the Library of the National Institute for Working Life in Stockholm, Sweden and goes by the name phibi. Our goal was to review the whole realization process from the reasons why a service like this was created, how the service was introduced and implemented inside the organisation and finally what the result and consequences were for both the library staff and for the users of the service. Phibi is designed to be a tool that fosters communication between the library staff and the remote users where the users get the opportunity to be helped with their questions by the library staff although they are not physically present in the library. To understand the process we conducted a case study with 11 interviews of the library staff, the superior and the initiator to phibi.

Eskilskällan är ett samarbete mellan Arkiv, Bibliotek och Museer i Eskilstuna och namnet på deras gemensamma mötesplats. Eskilskällan informerar om sin verksam­het i bland annat fyra skyltfönster på Drottninggatan i Eskilstuna. Dagens texter är långa, relativt opersonliga och innehåller mycket information. Texterna är inte heller anpassade för sin kontext.Syftet med mitt examensarbete var att hitta kärnan i Eskilskällans verksamhet och använda den i utformningen av texter som är övertygande och lockande, och som får läsaren att besöka Eskilskällans forskarrum. Målet var att texterna med sin retorik och stil, kombinerat med den grafiska utformningen, skulle tränga igenom olika typer av brus så att de uppmärksammas och fyller sitt syfte.

Today every organization is committed to some kind of environmental scanning in order to get necessary knowledge of the world around them. The acquisition, organization and storage of information in combination with a strategic use, is today an important factor for a successful organisation in any sector of our society.In this Master thesis I have studied how an organisation such as The Confederation of Swedish Enterprise (Svenskt Näringsliv) handles its information resources. I have also looked at the flow of information within the organization. The Confederation of Swedish Enterprise is Sweden?s largest business federation representing 50 member organizations and 55 000 member companies.

Titel Ett utpräglat kulturtantsevenemang eller en inspirerande mässa för alla åldrar?, En studie av Bok & Biblioteks image bland ungaFörfattare Sofia Strinsjö och Kristine StrömerKurs Examensarbete i medie- och kommunikationsvetenskap, JMG, Göteborgs universitetTermin Höstterminen 2008Handledare Ingela WadbringSpråk SvenskaAntal sidor 63 sidor exklusive bilagorSyfte Att undersöka Bok & Biblioteks image bland ungaMetod Kvalitativ metod, fokusgrupperMaterial Fyra fokusgrupper, två med 18-åringar och två med 30- åringar från GöteborgsområdetHuvudresultat Våra respondenter associerar mässan främst med böcker och författare vilket kan kopplas till att kunskapen om mässans bredd är begränsad. De är relativt negativa tillinformations- och kommunikationsmaterialet då de bl.a. menar att loggan är svårbegriplig och tråkig och att seminarieprogrammet är tjockt och svårläst. Spridningen är stor i hur Bok & Bibliotek uppfattas.

The purpose of this Master thesis is to examine whether there is a connection between distance to the schoollibrary and the extent to which teachers are using it as an integral part of their teaching. The study aims to answerif the physical distance to the school library is affecting teachers' ways of working with the library, if it affects thecollaboration between teachers and librarians and finally if teachers that are using a school library outside theschool premises are doing so less as an integral part of their teaching compared to teachers that have access to aschool library within the schools premises.The study is based on qualitative interviews with six teachers in the intermediate stage of the nine-yearcompulsory school, of which three have access to a school library within the school premises and three haveaccess to a school library outside the school premises. The two groups of teachers are compared in order to findout if there is a connection between distance to the school library and the usage of it. Loertscher's school librarymedia program and teacher taxonomy have been used as a theoretical framework.The study shows that the teachers who use a school library within the school premises have a bettercollaboration with the librarians than the ones who use a school library outside the school premises. The studyalso show that theese libraries are an integral part of the teaching to a higher degree.

The aim of this thesis is to study what impact the USA Patriot act has had on American libraries. The authors intent has been to see what changes have occurred in the librarians work-routines and to study their attitudes toward the Patriot act. The authors have also intended to find out what the consequences would be for the libraries. The findings are related to Swedish circumstances. The material used in this thesis consists of six interviews conducted at three libraries in the Bay Area in California.

The aim of this master?s thesis is to examine how managers in some public libraries are using performance measurements and to what extent decision making is based on the results. The main questions posed are:??What performance measurements and indicators are used in the libraries examined???What is the attitude towards performance measurements among library managers???How and to what extent are performance measurements and indicators used in the process of decision making???What improvement would library managers wish regarding the development of performance measurements in public libraries?The theory is based on a model of evaluation of the public sector in addition to general steps of evaluation of quality and performance measurement results. The investigation is based on qualitative interviews with seven managers of public libraries in Sweden.

This master thesis deals with the differences in the design of the environmental scanning between different kinds of organisations, as well as the demands and regulations etc. in the respective environments that influence the environmental scanning. The content of the environmental scanning and the organisation of the function are outside the scope of this study. Two organisations that do not have an organised function but are scanning their environment were chosen for the investigation. A model for conducting the environmental scanning developed by Frankelius is used to analyse the practice of environmental scanning.

This master thesis aims to describe and examine Haninge cultural centre, inaugurated in 2002. We study the centre from an organization theory point of view, with focus on the buildings physical appearance. The question we want to answer is to what extent, and if, Haninge cultural centre fulfills the underlying vision, formulated by the municipality of Haninge. Is the centre the symbol of a new era of Haninge and a vivid democracy as it was meant to be? Is there a congruency between the image the building creates and the vision that was formulated by the municipality? We also seek out to see how the cultural centre relates to an older tradition of cultural centres.