The main purpose of this Masters thesis is to examine how Braille users needs are satisfied by The Library of Talking Books and Braille TPB. The other issues are: How do some of the library workers at TPB experience that the needs of Braille users are satisfied? Is it possible to make the service better in the future for Braille users and in that case, how? The study is based upon interviews with five persons, who have defective vision and read Braille. I have also interviewed two employees at TPB who have defective vision. To build up a complete background presentation of the subject I have chosen a book about hermeneutic interpretation to understand how historic facts influence the function of the subject today and in the future.

The thesis examines the view of reality as expressed in the subject structure of the web directory Open Directory Project. This is analyzed in comparison with library classification systems, regarded as products of the modern library movement. The question is raised whether the world view of the directory, in contrast to the modern classification systems, can be seen as an expression of postmodernity. Postmodernity is then understood as a radical critique of the modern belief in neutral science and technology as ways of objectively describing the universe of knowledge. The theoretical and methodological approach adopted is borrowed from a poststructuralist reading of Michel Foucault's archaeology and sociologically coloured classification research.

In this thesis I examine the events that followed the death of August Strindberg and resulted in his private belongings becoming an important part of Swedens cultural heritage. My purpose has been twofold: firstly, to identify which aims were sought to be achieved when dealing with Strindberg's archives and his home and to relate these to a nationalistic interpretation of history, secondly, to relate this work to the then newly introduced archival principle, the Principle of provenance. I identified three different aims: firstly the economic aim must be seen in the light of an increasingly expanding publishing market. I argue that the author gained a new and important role in the general social debate a nationalistic one, an important point with regard to my following conclusions. Secondly, the aim to store and display the material in a museum is discussed in relation to different views of cultural history and the interpretation of history.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how the metadata format Dublin Core is applied within five Swedish search engines. The objects of the investigation are Rättskällan, studera.nu, Svenska miljönätet, Svesök and the web catalogue of Uppsala University. Dublin Core is a flexible and adjustable format, which can be used in many different ways and in various projects depending on the target groups and objectives of the activity. We compare the differences and similarities between the five search engines concerning their usage of metadata in general and Dublin Core in particular. The material of the investigation consists of metadata records, which are collected by a robot and examined manually.

The aim of this study is to describe how Swedish research librarians feel that their work has been affected by electronic journals. The study focuses on medical electronic journals accessed through consortia agreements via Bibsam, the Royal Librarys Department for National Co-ordination and Development. This thesis includes two main parts: a literature survey and an empirical study. The literature survey shows that since the 1990´s most research libraries are hybrid libraries including both printed and electronic information sources and that librarians tasks to seek and organize information have remained but the tools have changed. Qualitative interviews were performed with four librarians at two university libraries and one university college library on how their work with electronic journals differed from their work with printed journals, which new tasks the electronic journals have brought and which have disappeared and how the librarians professional role has been affected.

The purpose of this masters thesis is to examine outlines of literary history for students at upper secondary school from a gender studies perspective. Earlier theoretical work concerning outlines of literary history is sparse. There are three dissertations, but none with an explicit gender perspective. The theoretical approach comes mainly from theories in literary historiography and gender research. Also discussed are the following concepts: canon, literary field and literary valuation.

The Swedish government has made the decision to transform the talking book system from an analogue system to a digital system called DAISY by the end of 2004. The purpose of this Masters thesis is to examine how public libraries are affected by this system change. This is carried out by studying the current situation in public libraries concerning the transition to DAISY. This qualitative oriented study is primarily based on interviews with four librarians and three library managers at six public libraries. Management by objectives is here seen as a suitably theoretical framework since public municipal libraries are partly regulated by the governments goals and laws.

In the years 1996-2001 the European Union`s copyright-directive was drawn up. This directive led to much lobbying activities from both copyright holders and library organisations like EBLIDA and IFLA. The Internet and filesharing networks like Napster had led to strong reactions among some copyright holders. Internet gave people an easy opportunity of accessing copyright protected material. Some researchers of copyright have written books where they state that the copyright holders utilize authors fear of illegal copying to strengthen the copyright laws, and by that benefit economical.

The purpose of this Masters thesis is to study how three public libraries in the west of Sweden have arranged their fiction for adults on shelves and what the possibilities for fiction retrieval are in their Online Public Access Catalogues OPAC. The theoretical framework includes a practical part consisting of Jarmo Saartis ideas about shelf arrangement and a theoretical part consisting of Annelise Mark Pejtersens different dimensions. The methods used in the case study are three interviews with librarians, visits in the libraries and searching in the libraries OPACs. Furthermore, we have summarized relevant literature about this subject in a summary of research. The analysis shows that our three libraries have arranged their fiction in a traditional way according to Saartis ideas about shelf arrangement.

The purpose of this master's thesis is to discuss how young people view their possibilities of exercising power and influence in Swedish society and politics. To accomplish this we have used several different sorts of relevant material. As an introduction, we review the development of the Swedish research concerning youths, with focus on the development in the last two decades of the twentieth century. We continue with a study of important Swedish youth-political documents, especially of the Government Bill På ungdomars villkor: Ungdomspolitik för demokrati, rättvisa och framtidstro On the terms of the youth: Youth-policy promoting democracy, justice and hopes for the future. The Bill is the foundation of a new youth-policy in Sweden.

The transition from paper to electronic journals in induces a major change in academic libraries. The library must focus on customising the service to meet user needs in order to compete with other actors on the market. This situation entails the need for a marketing and management approach in library organisations. Linda Ashcroft has in previous research focused on marketing of electronic journals. She has stated the importance of simplifying the user environment of electronic journals and the importance of regaining control over electronic journals from publishers and vendors.

This essay focuses on tourists' information seeking. The main focus was to examine whether there is a connection between how the informants in different tourist styles the different tourist styles are presented by Eva Wolf as the tourist of recreation, action, culture, compromise, and individualism seek information to their forthcoming vacation. The result was reached through a qualitative method, where ten informants with various tourist roles were interviewed separately. The informants were chosen by personal contacts. In addition to these interviews, three representatives from the tourist industry were contacted and interviewed by e-mail.

Libraries all over the world struggle against the threat of decreased funding and a lack of governmental interest. In countries with an under-developed library sector the interest from the government is often minimal or non-existent. Since the 80´s Sida, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency has contributed to the library development in Central America through the Royal Library of Sweden. Nicaragua was the first country to be counterpart in the project. For a period of eight weeks I have completed a field study in Nicaragua and visited the National Library Rubén Darío and public libraries in the country.

In this Masters thesis we investigate query expansion using an electronic thesaurus. We formed 30 topics from the library and information science field. For each topic three searches were made in the bibliographic database LISA Library and Information Science Abstracts via CSA Cambridge Scientific Abstracts. LISA has an electronic thesaurus attached. We used this thesaurus to form baseline queries, baseline queries expanded with synonyms, and baseline queries expanded with both synonyms and related terms.

The aim of this Master's thesis is to examine difficulties concerning information acquisition, use, and management experienced by graduate students in physics during their first years of research work. Semi-structured, qualitative interviews were carried out with nine doctoral students. The theoretical background for analysis of the material is based on the work of Patrick Wilson, with particular focus on the concept of cognitive authority, and on that of Lars Seldén, who has proposed the idea of an information seeking career running parallel to the academic career of the researcher. Results from the interviews indicate that most of the students, in the early stages of their information seeking careers, rely to a great extent on supervisors and more experienced colleagues when identifying material needed for the research project. In a situation where information of potential relevance is abundant and where experience and focus are not yet fully developed, senior researchers function as cognitive authorities and as guides to other cognitive authorities.