The aim of this master thesis is to study if the websites of the Swedish public libraries are accessible to all people. According to the library law all people must have access to the public libraries and their information services. Today, when the Internet is one of the largest sources of information, it is important that all people, including those with different kind of disabilities, children, elderly, immigrants and people with old technical equipment, have access to the public libraries websites.We have in this study considered the graphic user interface, the language, the structure and the navigation possibilities at ten public library websites. We have from a checklist of our own, based upon the opinion of different experts such as Jacob Nielsen and Tommy Sundström, investigated the websites.The main finding of our study is that the websites are generally accessible even thou we found a lack of accessible for immigrants. Most of the websites had some pages in English, but none hade all pages in this language.

This thesis describes the developmentof a device called "Oil Separator"which is used for washing vehicles andparticularly car washing. The devicedeveloped for Mr. Car Bilvård AB inUppsala, the company's work involvespassenger transport and courierservices. The company needs anexternal device that meets theenvironmental standards to wash theirown cars in the premises without theneed to modify or reconstruct on thepremises ground as the premises is ona leased contract.Work began with a preliminary study onthe literatures that describes boththe function and structure ofdesigning the device. A few interviewswith other car wash companies had beenimplemented, and some measurements.After collection of the necessaryinformation the specifications ofcustomer requirement was presented .With these requirements a fewconcepts was generated and weighedusing the Pugh matrix for conceptsselection for further development.The final concept was furtherdeveloped and a design has beenpresented.

This report covers the product development of a new type of extendable table for the company Karl Andersson och Söner. The company wants to expand their product collection with a new product. Karl Andersson och Söner is a well-known family company that has been located in Huskvarna since 1898, and they are producing furniture for private- and the public environment.The aim with this project is that the product should lead to increased sales, as well as expand their collection to appeal a wider audience. The work is permeated by two issues, to achieve as good results as possible. The issues will bring up how to make a table better, in terms of the competitor?s options, and how to apply a design process to develop a table that meets the markets needs and requirements.The design process of the work consists of strategically picked parts from three separate design processes.

The aim of this masters thesis is to examine to what extent series books for children and youth are included in the acquisitions of public libraries. It also examines which needs series books fulfil among a group of 13-15 year old children. The main question of this thesis was: To what extent do libraries provide series books for children and youth? An inquiry investigation showed that a majority of the libraries in Sweden provide these books. The main reason to provide the books was that the demand is large.

In this bachelor thesis the aim is to explore how university libraries and researchers function together. I will do this through interviews with phd students and examine how they reason on the use of libraries and other resources available in campus and witch other methods they use to gather information. The graduate students differ in where they are with their research process, but all of them work in the field of social sciences. To help me in my analysis I have adopted Wilsons model of information behaviour and modify this to better suit my purpose. My findings show that they mainly use the library to access materials and avoid use of the librarians, due to perception of low usefulness.

This master thesis is a study of a new electronic library reference service-project called Speak instantly to a librarian and the purpose of the thesis is to investigate a new electronic reference service and how the librarians who work with it experience it. This should be seen from an informational society point of view. The study is conducted from two questions: - What needs do the libraries have and how do they argue for the project and the chat-reference service Speak instantly to a librarian? - How do the librarians experience the personal work situation in the new reference service, and its use of chat technology? Together with interviews of a selected group of librarians from the public libraries of Göteborg, Malmö, Nacka and Stockholm, this thesis includes aspects such as the theory of the informational society by Manuel Castells, as well as literary studies of the history of library reference, the development of electronic reference service and the virtual library, and the background and the beginning of the studied project Speak instantly to a librarian. The thesis also contains an overlook of other similar library projects in the United States of America.

This thesis investigates gender equality at a few Swedish elementary school libraries, and how school librarians at these libraries work with gender equality issues. It is a semi-structured interview study conducted with staff at seven elementary school libraries. Several policy documents state that the school should be a gender-equal environment, but previous research shows that there is still a lack of gender equality, and that staff often treat boys and girls differently. It also shows that boys and girls are often portrayed in a gender-stereotypical way in children?s literature.

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 main purpose of this study was to examine how preschool teachers are working to promote each child's language development and whether they can ensure that they do that. Therefore I wanted to find out what a good language development implies for each teacher, how they work to promote each child's language development in daily practice, how they measure the actual language development and also what conditions the teachers have, to engage in a language development way to work. For the study, I chose a qualitative method, with structured interviews and all together I interviewed six preschool teachers, within the same organization in a suburb close to Stockholm.  The results showed that there is an ambiguity, among the preschool teachers, in what a good language development means, but it can be stated that they do have a language development way to work even if it needs to be developed. Further on, it has emerged that the teachers have the tools to measure children's language development, although they do not have the conditions yet to use the method to the fullest. About the preschool teachers own conditions in order to operate in a language development way to work, I concluded that they have a strong foundation to build on, but they still have much work ahead of them.

The market for management training programs is growing and the supply of the service is increasing and getting further diversified. A consequence is a market with a wide variety of definitions of the very concept of development, and subsequently a wide variety of practices and methods to achieve development. The individuals that are subject to these programs seldom know what they are purchasing, or what to expect. When assuming a transfer of the developers view on development to the subject, a need for a greater understanding of the concept arises. The purpose of this thesis is to understand what views on development do exist among management trainers and map underlying dimensions of the views to increase the understanding of the concept of development.

This masters thesis concerns three different types of cataloguing within three different memory institutions museums, archives and libraries. The focus lies on the cataloguing elements which are compared in order to illuminate similarities and differences. The Regional Archive and The National Museum of World Cultures - both in Gothenburg - were chosen and compared to KRS, the Swedish counterpart to the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules, AACR2, 2: nd ed. The purpose of this comparison is partly to display the elements in order to make students disciplines, but also the staff within archives, libraries and museums to become conscious of each others cataloguing methods in regard to future cooperations within the memory institutions and to see if it is possible to create common cataloguing rules for archives, libraries and museums. The questions asked in this thesis are: 1.

External shopping malls in the context of urban sprawl have, according too much of the previous research, had a negative connotation when it comes to urban planning and a sustainable society. In recent years, some of this research on the issue has changed course towards that it might be some positive opportunities and elements in this development, given that it follows certain patterns. This latter development is what we have chosen to look deeper into in our study, Sustainable urban sprawl.The shopping mall Allum in Partille center has been the subject of this case study, to explore how people's shopping habits and travels in connection with these purchases has been affected by the establishment of an external shopping mall from a sustainability perspective.The method we used was a questionnaire distributed at workplaces in Partille. The collected data were then analyzed by using some of the dominant urban planning theories, for thus underpin our analysis. We have supplemented the study with a collection of information on existing and planned shopping centers in Gothenburg region.Our study shows that external shopping centers located in already developed areas, with an existing social structure, can help to create a more compact city with fewer and shorter shopping trips, and more sustainable transport choices when purchasing goods and services..

The aim of this thesis is to investigate how libraries use thetools and ideas from library 2.0 in their reading promotionwork. We also want to include how librarians motivate thisuse and whatever merits and faults they encounter. We haveperformed document studies and interviews which we thenanalyzed with qualitative content analysis. Our theoreticframework in this study which we also used as a part of ourcoding scheme in the analysis was a model over the conceptlibrary 2.0 developed by Holmberg, Huvila, Kronquist-Bergand Widén-Wulff. This model describes seven aspects oflibrary 2.0 which is users, participation, library and libraryservice, web and web 2.0, social aspects, technology andinteractivity.

This masters thesis concerns the Public Library Service in Eastern Africa, Tanzania. Our subject was developed through a feasibility study that gave us comprehension that developing countries have individual problems concerning books and libraries. We understood that the main problems were the libraries financial situation and their dependence on aid. We also understood that the libraries do not have the resources to satisfy the society as a whole. The major questions raised in this study are: - How do the regional librarians describe their work situation? -Which role do the Regional Librarians have in society? Data was collected through interviews and observation, and the study is a qualitative case study.

In 2010 there will be a political resolution to ensure that the Swedish society is accessible to all citizens including people with disabilities. For this purpose a national action plan for disability policy "From patient to citizen" (Govt. Bill 1999/2000:79) has been set out with the aim of ensuring that the disability perspective will permeate every sector of society and that the approach and response to people with disabilities will be improved. The Swedish National Council for Cultural Affairs is responsible for implementing the disability policy in the cultural sector.Since public libraries in Sweden are a part of the public cultural sector, they will also be affected by the political resolution regarding accessibility. The concept underpinning library services for disabled people must be that of equality of access.