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.

The purpose of this Master`s thesis is to examine if the pur-chase of media in public libraries reflects the library's role in society. Two questions have been posed: ? What view of public library's role in society is reflected in the purchase of media? ? What principles guide the selection of media in public li-braries in Sweden? In order to investigate these questions, we used a question-naire that we sent out to a sample of 120 public libraries in Sweden. The analysis is based on a theory of three ap-proaches to the role of the library developed by Douglas Raber. The three approaches are the conservative approach, the populist approach and the social approach.

Syftet är att genom ett Service Management-perspektiv studera huruvida implementeringar av Lean Thinking i serviceorganisationer skapar möjligheter för ökat värdeskapande för såväl kund som organisation. Huvudfrågeställningen ser ut som följande: Hur påverkas värdeskapandet i serviceorganisationer vid en implementering av Lean Thinking? Vi har betraktat två skilda serviceorganisationer som implementerat Lean Thinking - Fritidsresor och Universitetssjukhuset i Lund - genom en kvalitativ forskningsmetod. Semi-strukturerade intervjuer har genomförts med intervjupersoner från respektive studieobjekt. Genom en litteratusstudie av Service Management- och Lean Thinking-teorier har såväl likheter som skillnader i perspektivens syn på värde och värdeskapande illustrerats.

The purpose of zoos has changed over the decades. From being menageries where wealthy people showed their collections of exotic animals to today?s zoos where science, conservation and education has become a central part of their work. Education in zoos gives them the opportunity to spread the knowledge about ecology, biology and biodiversity to the general public. Their aim is to change the public?s attitudes towards our wildlife and raise awareness about the threats that exists against our planets biodiversity.

The use of history is the concept of people using and analyzing history in the society for various purposes. Study in this area has largely emerged because there are many different reasons for people and societies to be interested in history. To investigate the use of history, a historical material needs to be present in some form. With this study, I intend to show how older tourist guidebooks can provide such materials of study and therefore I use travel guidebooks about Tallinn released under the USSR (Estonian SSR) between the years 1960 to 1990. The analysis is based on Klas-Go?ran Karlsson's (Professor of History) typology of seven different uses of history: scientific, existential, moral, ideological, political, educational, non-use of history and a commercial use of history.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate in which aspects the public library is affected by its local community. This is re-searched by means of an exemplified case study of a Swedish public library in which we analyze governing documents and the library website with respect to environmental scanning and mar-keting of library services.The research questions are: How are the local community?s demands on the public li-brary being described in the governing document? How is the public library?s response to the demands of the local community being described in the operational plan? How are the demands of the local community, as shown in the governing document and the operational plan, re-flected in the marketing of library services on the library website?Our conclusions are that:The demands of the local community are described in a general fashion in the governing document, but there is a lack of concrete political guidelines.The public library's response to the demands of the local commu-nity is described to some length in the operational plan, but not with respect to economical factors.The demands of the local community are reflected to some length in the marketing of library services on the library website. Many of the overall themes that we identify in the governing document and the operational plan can be found in the marketing directed towards important target groups..

This study, which was conducted in Sweden, was based on four qualitative semi-structured interviews. The aim of this study was to create an understanding of how a municipality designs the sanction for youth offenders called ?youth service? based on the law that establishes the existence of such a sentence. We interviewed social workers that work at the department of youth service in the municipality of Gothenburg, who exclusively deal with youth offenders? sentenced to youth service as their job assignment.

Objective: From the patient?s perspective describe communication difficulties, which can arise, and how they are handled in their contact with public health care and illustrate their needs of communication.Method: A study of literature was carried out to receive a background and an insight in previous research concerning the subject area. Twelve women with hearing loss was asked to complete a questionnaire, with open questions, regarding communication difficulties in health care situations.Sample: For the literature review, scientific papers were selected via the database, PubMed using relevant keywords. Seven were selected for closer review. For the survey study twelve women were asked to participate which ten of those responded.Results: The study of literature shows that communication difficulties occur in public health care between patients with hearing loss and the nursing staff.

The purpose of this thesis is to explore what possibilities Swedish public library has to work with and promote integration. The possibilities are examined on the basis of internal requirements of integration, the role of public library in the civil society and its policy documents. Further, the thesis examines what Swedish National library politics could contribute to this particular field. The experience of integration politics shows that a genuine commitment from all parts of the society is required in order to build an integrated society. The part of a society that public libraries are closest to and have the greatest impact on is undoubtedly the civil society.

Strömsholmen är en världsledande tillverkare av gasfjädrar och gashydrauliska system. De tillverkar gasfjädrar under tre olika varumärken; Kaller, Hyson och Fibro. Strömsholmen erbjuder kunder att köpa serviceutrustning så att gasfjädrarna kan repareras eller underhållas. En del av serviceutrustningen är en serviceväska med serviceverktyg. I detta examensarbete har serviceväskan och verktygen i väskan utvecklats vidare och designats om för att vara mer användarvänliga, bättre representera varumärkena samt reducera kostnaden.

The goal of this thesis was to explore how real estate investment companies are affected by a weaker world economy. The reason to investigate this was that in the 90s in Sweden, the housing market crashed in conjunction with the bank collapse. Therefore I have looked at how the commercial real estate companies would be affected if we were to have a double dip recession, because it has been confirmed by Gyourko that commercial real estate market and the housing market tend to react in the same way on new fundamental information. This was examined through a sensitivity analysis, one investigated the effect of falling rent income and the second analysis looked at the effect of higher interest costs. I found that IAS 40 rule about unrealized profits of properties affected the results in a significant matter and therefore decided to include the regulation in my thesis.

We are daily using the public space to move throughout the city. The public space is an important part of our city and it?s where a lot of social activities occur and a lot of different events take place. The outdoor environment in the city should offer the residents nice and varying places for staying. In this essay I will try to understand how the physical environment works and how people moves and behave in the public space.

The purpose of this research aims investigate whether front line personell are brand carriers who can affect the customers brand experience. This present study focuses on commercial fitness centers in Kalmar. Like brands, training is taking part in people?s everyday lives; fitness centers are offering the customer a wider range of group training.This thesis is based on a qualitative approach whereby eight interviews have been carried out with two members of the board and six employees of the front line. Additionally, this thesis is also based on three focus groups with four customers, representing the majority of each fitness centers.The research findings highlight that the front line employees are very important as they are seen as the brand; therefore the front line employee?s personality and behaviour will influence the customer?s view of the brand.

Detta examensarbete har syftat till att utveckla ett verktyg för att utvärdera en IT-avdelnings möjligheter till effektivisering genom att implementera Lean på IT Service Management. Verktyget har utvecklats i samarbete med Tina Eriksson på uppdrag av management och IT-management konsultbolaget Connecta AB. Connecta AB har som syfte att använda verktyget för framtida affärer. För att verktyget ska vara användbart och uppfylla Connectas krav så har fyra mål satts upp. Verktyget ska vara trovärdigt, resurseffektivt, användarvänligt samt underlätta för fortsatt arbete och implementering av Lean på IT Service Management.

The aim of this study is to look at censorship and attempted censorship of books about gay, lesbian, bisexual and transsexual (GLBT) people in public libraries in the USA. People from the public can submit formal challenges to a book at the library when they find the material offensive which can lead to those books being taken away from the library shelves. The questions asked are why GLBT- literature is being challenged, and sometimes banned, and how do the libraries deal with the challenges to the books.It is nowadays the people from the public, rather than the government or the librarians that are behind many cases of removal of books with homosexual themes. The study presents some of the fictional GLBT- literature that has been cause for much controversy in the USA. All the five examples mentioned are children?s books concerning GLBT- themes and are among the most challenged books in American libraries in the past twenty years.