The aim of this two years master's thesis is to examine public librarians? views of their pedagogical role towards school children, and to illustrate the relationship between public libraries and schools as a background for the role of the public librarians. The theoretical framework is Carol Cullier Kuhlthau?s theory of the roles of librarians as mediators in reference work (Levels of Mediation) and in education (Levels of Education). The main question of the study is: How do public librarians view their pedagogical role towards elementary school pupils and high school students? Related questions regarding the use of the public library for school purposes, the communication and cooperation between the public library and the schools, the difference between public libraries and school libraries and the librarians? view of pedagogical work are also made.The method used is qualitative interviews.

The purpose of this Master's thesis is to elucidate the phenomenon of storytelling and its methodology in the context of public library story-time for pre-school children. It also strives to give an insight into the functions of story-time both with regard to the storyteller and the participating children. The study is based on qualitative methods in the form of a literature analysis, observations and interviews. The interviews were undertaken with two storytellers from the same library who work with children up to three years old and children aged between four and six years. The result of the study suggests that storytelling is more appropriate than reading aloud in situations when large groups of children are involved.

This two years master?s thesis takes interest in the concept of marketing related to the Children?s Library. The purposes have been to investigate the perception of marketing among a few librarians working at the Children?s Library in the Swedish region of Halland and further to analyse their perception of marketing in the daily work at the library. Eventually to analyse the consequences of these librarians approach to marketing related to their perception of the library?s mission.

The main purpose of this thesis is to investigate how the societysystem in Austria has influenced the library system. The aim is toanalyse in what way these influences have changed during thegrowth and development of the public library system and how it isdisplayed in each separate library branch. The focus of myinvestigation has been the municipality public libraries in Vienna,and mainly the three libraries in the third district of the city. Themethod I have used is literature studies, examining and analysingsource material from the internal archive of the public libraries inVienna. I have also used the qualitative interview method in orderto examine the situation in the selected libraries Rabengasse,Erdbergstraße and Fasangasse.As there is no common library law, there are significantdifferences in the library structure in different parts of Austria andeach municipality decides how they want to prioritize the libraries.Since the public libraries of Vienna are well organized together inBüchereien Wien, the library structure in the separate librarybranches is coordinated.

The aim of this Masters thesis is, with an exploratory stand, to examine the thoughts regarding gender perspective at childrens library service that are expressed from childrens librarians as well as the staff in administrative management. The purpose of the study is to generate ideas for further research and discussion regarding a gender perspective on the childrens library service. A total of eight interviews have been carried out. Three persons at the administrative level and five childrens librarians were interviewed. We also have examined if a gender perspective is expressed in the control documents, from international level to a local level, which the libraries could use when developing and planning their work.

This study aims to examine preschool teachers' thoughts about the child libraries functions. The purpose is to highlight preschool children's early read and writing skills, before they even can read and write, which is a theory called emergent literacy.This is made by conducting five qualitative interviews, with the intention to investigate how the preschool teachers think about the cooperation and the function of the child library, partly for their own work with the children and partly for their organization. By using a tablechart which shows each preschool teachers mostly common thoughts in the interview and by using a model based upon Harrysson and Joelsson (2006) model, which shows the functions of the public library in the society. The results of the study are presented in the four categories of the model which are; to borrow, to learn, to ask and to find, to reside. These are functions that the preschool teachers see with the library, for their work with the childrens' early literacy.

This work addresses how the book boxes that are shipped to different schools, that don?t havelibraries themselves, from the city library are composed in Karlstad municipality and whatbooks they may contain. A case study is made to find out which books can be included in theboxes. An interview with staff from Karlstad City Library is made and two different kinds ofbook boxes are analyzed. There is one book box with children books that have a genderperspective and one with fiction children books.The books are analyzed and the conclusion of this work is that it is important to know whatthe children are reading and how books can influence them.

This study is an attempt to examine a hospital library's difficulties in reaching customers with consumer health information. The method was a case study of the consumer health service in the hospital library in Västerås, a town in Sweden. Qualitative interviews, observations and written material were used. The approach was from the actor's point of view with the intention to look upon the problem with the eyes of those who work at the hospital with information to patients, that is librarians and medical staff. Theories about marketing in service organizations and how to develop new services were used in the study, as well as theories about communication and different cultures within organizations of different kinds like the library and the hospital.

The present thesis is about how preschool children develop their language skills. The purpose is also to discuss how library and preschool can collaborate and in different ways together help the children to achieve different skills and to use their first and second language in a more appropriate way. The main problem identified from literature and own observations is why library and preschool dont collaborate to help young children to develop their language skills? Which reasons are behind a lacking collaboration? What can be done to increase collaboration between the library and the preschool? How can librarians and preschool teachers use their different professional skills in the best manner to be able to help the children to develop their skills in language acquisition? Is it possible to measure childrens language skills and how can one decide what characterizes a good collaboration? We started with a literature review and continued with collecting qualitative data by means of interviews with people who worked as librarians and preschool teachers, who were supposed to collaborate in a language oriented project. We have chosen different language theories by well-known scientists and we have only picked a few of them, which we considered relevant for the chosen topic.

The purpose of this master thesis is to create, test and evaluate an analytical instrument for children?s library environment based on a theoretical framework consisting of Howard Gardner?s theory of multiple intelligences and Thomas Armstrong?s pedagogical application of the original seven intelligences. We wanted to investigate whether the environment in Rum för barn stimulated all of children?s different intelligences. We also wanted to identify possibilities and liabilities within the analytical instrument.

The aim of this Master's thesis is to examine and analyze what discourses about children that can be found in three Swedish culture publications, and also to identify the different social roles that are attributed to children in these publications. The theoretical and methodological background is discourse theory, as described by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe. Additional theory used is social constructionism and Norman Fairclough?s critical discourse theory. Three questions are asked: What discourse/s can be found in these publications? What do these discourses tell us about the view on children within the library domain? What social roles are attributed to the children in the texts and what consequences do these have for the power configuration between children and adults? Furthermore there is a discussion concerning what effects these discourses might have on the direct and indirect reception of children in the library.

The aim of this Masters thesis is to examine the accessibility in public libraries for persons with dyslexia and visually impaired persons. In order to do this, library services, information and attitudes have been studied. Data have been collected through interviews and studies of documents, in particular guidelines for library service to disabled persons. The theoretical starting point of the analysis is Professor Michael Bucklands different aspects of access to information. He discusses six types of barriers that must be overcome if access is to be achieved.

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.

This thesis is about the bookmobile service in Sweden of today. The purpose is to examine how the staff motivate the existence of the bookmobile. Other purposes are to study the goals of the service, to describe ?daily life? of the bookmobile, examine the changes of the service during the years and discuss possible changes in the future. The study is based on interviews with thirteen staff members from six Swedish communities, of both rural and urban character.

Studies have shown that library employees often choose not to use readers? advisory tools but to instead rely entirely on their own experience, often doing the library user a disservice. However, very few have looked at why this is so. This thesis looks at to what extent thirty individual employees in thirty Swedish public libraries use readers advisory tools when helping a patron find a good book, with the major focus on what motivates them to use these tools and why some choose not to use them. It was found that readers? advisory tools where not used with any consistency and that many things influence the library employees? use of these tools.