Families with limited financial resources risk social exclusion in today?s consumption-based society, where status and identity are tied to items like clothing, gifts and activities. Limited financial resources can therefore often lead to social isolation because consumption is central to social participation, something that can rarely be prioritized in poor families. In preschool, unclear policies on extra costs can negatively affect families. The purpose of the study was to investigate how socioeconomically vulnerable families experience and are affected by the preschool and its requirements, as well as how preschool teachers work to reduce the economic gap among families in the preschool context.

The purpose of this master thesis was to study the librarians?assignment at the public accesses computers, especially howthe librarians perceive what their task is and what their taskshould be.In order to answer these questions a series of ten qualitativeinterviews ?inspired by the phenomenographic approach ?was conducted with librarians who were employed at smallpublic libraries in municipalities with 5 000 - 25 000residents in Sweden.The conclusions in the master thesis were that librarianshave both similarities and differences in how they perceivetheir tasks at the public computers. The most essential taskwas helping the user with information seeking. Thelibrarians also perceived that it should be included in theirduties to help users with the technical/practical issues at thepublic computers. Competence, time and assets were finallythree outlying factors which affected in what extent thelibrarians were able to help the users..

The purpose of this thesis is to gain a better understanding of how elderly people seek and use information in everyday situations. A further aim is to suggest ways for the library to offer more services specifically tailored for pensioners. This is an important topic as pensioners are a rapidly growing group of library users. We conducted qualitative interviews with four elderly people concerning their information needs in everyday life, and discovered that they rarely use the library, preferring instead to get their information from various internet sites and their pensioners? organisation.

Voluntary organisations provided the first consumer guidance in Sweden. The government'sinterest in the question started during the second world war and has ever since increased.Since the 1970's the local authorities, with support from the community, have played animportant roll in consumer policy work. Due to the economic recession of recent years theappropriation to consumer guidance work has been cut down. The work has been rationalisedand libraries have more frequently been used to spread consumer information.In Stockholm the municipal has been responsible for local consumer information since the1940's. Co-operation with the library of Stockholm has occurred in different forms.

The purpose of this Masters thesis is to investigate if gender stereotypes are mediated to children between 0-3 years through books suitable for their age. This thesis concerns books that are available in public libraries. The content will be analysed by using a combination of methods, both content analysis of all the books in our study and a qualitative analysis of a smaller number of these books. With inspiration from both Robert Connell and Yvonne Hirdman and their theories of gender and gender stereotypes, this material was read and we wanted to examine if books for very young children might establish stereotypes. Our analysis showed that many known stereotypes are common in these books.

The aim of this masters thesis is to explore a mediators practical procedure during booktalks. The main question is: Why do librarians have booktalks and what does it mean to have booktalks for children? In order to answer our main question, we have used these three questions: - Why do our interviewed librarians have booktalks? - How do our informants prepare their booktalks and what do their presentations look like? - Do our informants have any follow-ups of their booktalks and if so, how do they do that? To limit the thesis, we have concentrated our study to Swedish public libraries and to children in the elementary school. We have conducted qualitative interviews with three librarians who do booktalks for children as a part of their job. The thesis theoretical basis is Aidan Chambers theory about the Reading Circle and especially the parts enabling adult and selection.

During the spring of 2014, I have investigated the visual culture of Lolita as practiced in Sweden and Japan. My focus has been on the performative aspect of Lolita. By looking and participating in this colorful subculture, I have met people who are living the Lolita lifestyle on a daily basis as well as former Lolita practitioners. My main concern has been how does one use Lolita.I?ve tried to investigate if it is possible to look at Lolita as being more than just a clothing style.

Mitt syfte med uppsatsen är att se hur bibliotekarier som arbetar dagligen med invandrargrupper, ser på sitt uppdrag med att främja integration samt hur arbetet med programaktiviteter kan ligga till grund för integrering. I undersökningen intervjuas 4 bibliotekarier på 3 biblioteket som arbetar mycket med integrering och invandrare som användargrupp. I resultatet framkommer det att arbetet med programaktiviteter kan främja integrering eftersom det bjuder in till både dialog och deltagande.  Dock anser bibliotekarierna att det är möjligt att göra integrering till en del utav varje arbetsmoment som sker på biblioteket..

The purpose of this two years master´s thesis in Archive, Library and Information Museum science is to examine the ideas about children and childhood which have an influence on the storytime at public libraries. The material on which this thesis is based, is a methodbook which is aimed to develop the storytimes and those picture books that are recommend in the methodbook. The theoretical points of departure are discourse analysis and childhood sociology. The concepts of being and becoming are frequently used when analyzing the methodbook. Other theoretical points of departure are the combination of narratologi, semiotics and hermeneutics, which are also used when analyzing the picture books.The result indicates that the storytime, recommended in the methodbook, is based on the idea of a timeless culture of childhood - where the "modern child" including the media used today - is left out. Concepts as nostalgia and pedagogy are tightly connected.

The purpose of this Master?s thesis is to examine what role the new city library in Halmstad has for its users. The questions posed in this study are: What do the users actually do at the library? What roles are the most significant according to the users? Have the politicians succeeded in their intention of realizing a modern library according to the users? The theoretical starting point is Andersson?s and Skot-Hansen?s theory of four different roles of public libraries. In order to extend the model we added a fifth function; the one of aesthetical experience.

This study has a focus on brand building and brand identity. The overall idea of the study is to examine the Swedish clothing company WeAretheSuperlativeConspiracys brand building tactics and activities. WeAretheSuperlativeConspiracys, or WeSC, is a company that produces and sells streetfashion in over 20 countries and has over 1600 distributors. The company has in the recent years grown to become one of the largest in its segment. The interesting factor in WeSC´s brand building activities is the use of Weactivists.

Responsible production is a subject of increasing importance for companies toadopt and communicate to their environment and many companies choose to implementenvironmental ? and ethic considerations into their brand strategy. There is, however, adividing line between companies according to what extent they choose to implementresponsible production into their brand strategy and to which extent they choose tocommunicate it to their stakeholders and surroundings. It is the hypothesis about a dividingline that is the foundation for this essay and something we believed could be interesting forfurther analysis.The purpose of our essay is to find out how the brand strategy of a company is affected by theresponsible production and in what extent they communicate it to their environment. Byanswering those questions we hope to find out why some companies communicateresponsible production more actively than others.We have conducted in-depth interviews with the Swedish clothing companies; MariaWesterlind, Zion and Dem Collective and we have through our analysis reached interestingconclusions.

Enligt IFLA:s mångkulturella biblioteksmanifest och Unescos folkbiblioteks- och skolbiblioteksmanifest har folkbibliotek ett ansvar att främja kulturell mångfald. Samtidigt påvisar forskning att folkbibliotek kan fungera som en förlängd arm i den så kallade integrationsprocessen. Med detta som bakgrund har uppsatsen som syfte att studera bibliotekarier vid ett stadsdelsbibliotek i Uppsala och analysera de villkor som präglar deras verksamhet riktad mot invandrare. Uppsatsens teoretiska ramverk är inspirerat av ett sociokulturellt perspektiv så som det beskrivs av pedagogikprofessorn Roger Säljö i Lärande i praktiken ? Ett sociokulturellt perspektiv och Lärande och kulturella redskap: om lärprocesser och det kollektiva minnet.

I dagens samhälle väljer många företag inom klädbranschen att presentera en hållbarhetsredovisning, angående företagets arbete för hållbar utveckling. Hållbarhetsredovisningen kan beskrivas som en viktig del av den strategi som används i syfte att profilera organisationen som socialt ansvarstagande. Däremot blir informationen som redovisas mer och mer omfattande för varje år, samtidigt som en färsk granskningsrapport visar att klädbranschens hållbarhetsarbete inte motsvarar den önskvärda utvecklingen. Den senaste tidens omfattande redovisningen kan därför diskuteras, om det är en form av fasadbygge, eller om redovisningen ändå kan uppfattas som legitim och trovärdig?Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka den interna kommunikationens betydelse för hållbarhetsredovisningens trovärdighet.

This master thesis concerns the relationship the librarianhas to the libraries classification system. The system itselfis made by librarians for librarians and is only used bylibrarians. This raises the question of how the librariansrelate to their own system to create order. The empiricalmaterial consists of five in-depth interviews with librarians.Two theoretical approaches were used in the analysis of thematerial with one focus on the librarian?s professional rolland the other on the postmodern theories about humansneed for order.