The aim of this study is to study the construction of literary values. I have been looking at how literature awarded with sponsored literary prizes has been reviewed in four major English and American newspapers. I have been studying the reception of literature by Ian McEwan, Hilary Mantel, Colm Tóibín and Zadie Smith between 2000 and 2012. The prizes in focus are the Man Booker Prize, the Orange prize for fiction and the Costa Awards. There seems to be an increasing number of articles related to each author after they have been awarded a prize, however with little change in the content of the reviews.

The aim of this master's thesis is to examine whether librarians working in public libraries see fiction as a source of knowledge, and what role this plays in the educational mission of the public library. This investigation, which consists of a literary study and an empirical section, shows that the concept of phronesis denotes practical wisdom and moral thinking, and that it can be applied to that form of knowledge to which reading can contribute. An important issue in this context is the reader's motivation to learn. The interviews show that librarians see literature as a source from which knowledge can be drawn. When they mediate literature, they believe that they are conveying something of value and they set great store in mediating literature which could have a not inconsiderable import to the borrowers.

This thesis has been written with the intention of investigating a commercial lending library to be found in Stockholm in the first decades of the nineteenth century. We chose this subject because it is a relatively unexplored area. Furthermore, we were curious to know what books could be found in the library. The lending library was run as a business thus giving a good indication of the contemporary reader's taste in literature. The lending library that we chose had a total of three thousand titles in those of its catalogues that have survived to the present day and was run by a woman called Eva Unander.

With an increased empowerment of the users, and a dependence on outside critics, one wonders what kind of role the librarians have in a context where qualitative literature is discussed. The aim of this study is to examine the relationship between librarians private and professional views on qualitative fiction, in order to be able to discuss their role as quality intermediaries in a user oriented context.The method used, is the qualitative, semistructured interview. This author interviewed seven librarians from three different libraries in Sweden. The theoretical emphasis partly relies on the ten words of qualitative value that Inger Elam and Bengt Brülde discusses in their respective texts, partly on David Garvins quality assessment theory, which defines several quality categories divided between an absolute and a relative quality view.Through the comparison between the private and the professional quality view, examined with the two theoretical approaches, the analysis of the interview material shows that there lies a complexity in the librarians professional role. On the one hand, they are dependent of both the users and the critics judgements about the qualitative aspect in the work with purchasing new literature to the library.

Syftet med denna uppsats är att analysera filmen Waking Life (Richard Linklater, 2001) utifrån David Bordwells narratologiska perceptionsteorier för att tydliggöra filmens narrativa konstruktion på ett kognitivt plan.På senare år har det kommit allt fler filmer som utmanar åskådaren med ett experimentellt berättelseformat. Waking Life tillhör den gruppen men lämnar också extra rum för åskådarens egna tolkningar.Genom ett fokus på filmens protagonist och dennes öde så riktar uppsatsens näranalys in sig på filmens underliggande berättelse, som i filmen döljer sig och samtidigt blandas med filmens filosofiskt inriktade innehåll.Näranalysen anknyter ständigt till Bordwells teorier som också visar sig vara väl användbara för en grundläggande linjär analys, men uppmärksammar samtidigt vissa av teorins brister. Sammanfattningsvis förtydligar uppsatsen detta genom att peka på vikten av åskådarens medvetenhet om vem eller vilka det är som egentligen berättar en film. Här är Waking Life med sitt experimentella narrativa upplägg och känslan av ett högst personligt berättande ett passande exempel..

The purpose of this Master?s thesis is to examine the relationship between fiction and resistance from a postcolonial and feminist perspective. More specifically, the study is an examination of this relationship in ten novels by the Nigerian writer Buchi Emecheta. The resistance is studied by examining the way it is depicted in the texts, as well as whether the texts can be seen as a form of opposition. Both the resistance and its context are studied.

This two years master?s thesis in Library and Information Science examines book reviews and articles aboutbooks and authorship in media directed to children between the ages of 8 and 14. The aim is to increase knowledgeof children?s reading choices and view of reading. This is motivated by the decrease in literacy and sparetime reading among Swedish children and adolescents.

Should libraries first and foremost be a source of free informationwhere the citizens can find whatever information they want, or dothe librarians have a responsibility for what kind of works theypresent to people on their shelves? A wild debate broke out inSwedish media in September 2012, after the artistic leader ofKulturhuset in Stockholm; Behrang Miri decided to weed out allthe Tintin albums from the children´s library Tiotretton. Hewanted to start a debate on stereotypes in children´s fiction, andwhat damage they do to children who face them. The purpose ofthe thesis is to carry out a discourse analysis of this media debate,and to identify the different views that are expressed on thedemocratic mission of the libraries, what media they shouldpresent. The method and theory is based on the discourse theory ofErnesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe and their concepts are used toarrange the analysis around certain themes that build up twodifferent discourses; ?Freedom of information discourse? and the?Weeding out discourse?.The two main questions are: What views of the public librariesselection of works are expressed in the Tintin debate in Tiotretton,and how do the views relate to each other? What concepts arespecific for the debate, and what meanings do they get in thesedifferent views?In the concluding chapter I discuss which consequences theseopposing opinions can have for the future selection processes ofthe library..

The purpose of this bachelor thesis is to examine reviewswritten by users in library online catalogs, online bookstoresand on the web community LibraryThing, in order todetermine whether there are any differences in the way usersreview books, and whether these differences might explainwhy libraries experience difficulties in getting their users toreview books. At the core of web 2.0 and library 2.0concepts lies the thought of user participation, and largerlibraries have sought to implement systems for reviewingand tagging items in the catalog in ways similar to onlinebookstores and other websites.By analyzing the contents of user reviews, however, thisthesis shows that users express themselves differentlydepending on what kinds of literature they review, and inwhat context. Most notably, user reviews of ?the Classics? orcanonized literature recognizes the high status of suchliterature, while users reviewing popular fiction expressthemselves in a way that admits that the reviewed titles areconsidered less valuable. There are also signs that booksreviewed at online bookstores are seen as products ormerchandise, while the reviews at the library to a greaterdegree treat the books as works of literature.The conclusion reached in this thesis suggests that there maybe a relation between the image of the library as a defenderof high culture and the perceived status of literary works,causing users to become hesitant to review books, feelingthat they do not have the knowledge to describe or reviewthem ?correctly?..

The aim of this thesis is to investigate how purchasingmanagers in bookshops and public librarians reason withregards to their selection of fiction literature. Nineinterviews have been conducted in this qualitative studymade in the spring of 2013; four librarians, four bookmerchants, as well as a market director of a major chain ofbookstores. Our focus has been particularly directed toascertaining what influence the cultural-political mission oflibraries have had on the process of selection, as well as theextent to which factors such as demand and quality play apart in both organizations. We have been interested inseeing how libraries and bookstores compare with regards tothese factors, because of obvious differences in their goalsand purposes. Librarians see both the benefits and flaws intheir way of working, as well as in the way in whichbookstores conduct their business, and vice versa, that theyare often successful in cooperating, like when arrangingvisits from authors etc.

The main purpose of our thesis is to discuss the subject e-books from a Swedish public library perspective. The aim of the thesis is to locate and analyse statistics in regards to lending electronic books in public libraries. With this background a text analyse have been done, which views different arguments about e-books. We have studied the current statistics about lending e-books to the public users, the statistic material was gathered from the two main providers of e-books, eLib and E-biblioteket. With this statistic report as a background, arguments from scientists, journalists and users of e-books have been studied.

The purpose of this essay is to examine at how to portray characters in the stories and narratives which depicts one of these children's books and if they really have something to ethnicity and its identification to be done.The Research questions is: What are the different identification markers given, to the reading child in the books, which might indicate that the story depicts people of different ethnicities? How are the characters portrayed in the story and which role is assigned to the main character? What story is portrayed and is it relevant to an identifier can occur?The conclusions of the five children's books shows that it is important with identifications markers, to show that there are different ethnicities. For example the analysis revealed the specific features of the illustrations and how the books portrayes someone with a different ethnicity and cultural background as something exotic.In the texts, the analysis showed how it occurred ethnic differences, by explicitly demonstrating differences between the characters. It was found that the characters were produced mostly as good, happy, curious, suspicious and unsympathetic. Common to all the main characters was that they had been placed, in one for them unusual context and that they were trying to assimilate to the new situations.Depictions consisted of realism and fiction.

Syftet med denna undersökning har varit att genom ett fältarbete i två sjundeklasser få kunskap om undervisning med skönlitteratur har gett elever i den ena klassen andra förutsättningar att skriva en essä än i den andra klassen. Essäuppgiftens uppgift var att fungera som avslutning på arbetsområdet ?Egypten för 5000 år? sedan för eleverna. Jag har valt att genom en enkät undersöka skillnaderna i elevernas upplevelse av arbete med skönlitteratur i historieundervisningen. När det gäller enkäten och essäuppgiften i de båda klasserna skilde sig resultatet av dessa inte nämnvärt från varandra vilket jag hade förväntat mig.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how childrens librarians at public libraries motivate their selection and their purchases of fiction for children and youth. The aim is also to find out what is felt like a problem at the selection process and what is not. Six childrens librarians have been interviewed in this qualitative study. On a basis of a theory of literature pedagogic perspectives the librarians were asked how they look upon purchase of fairy-tales, classics, pulpliterature and literature that contributes to the debate about man and society. They were also asked about their opinions of Bibliotekstjänst, of criticism of childrens books and how they reason about their purchases in general.

Huruvida det ska finnas en västerländsk kanon i skolan eller ej är ett omdiskuterat ämne. Från att ha varit en självklarhet i svenskundervisning och sedd som någonting berikande har den kommit att bli uppfattad som elitisk och uteslutande i vissa hänseenden. I den här uppsatsen diskuteras detta vidare genom att undersöka frågor som vad som egentligen är västerländsk kanon och vilken litteratur som ingår i den, varför man ska läsa denna litteratur, samt ta reda på verksamma lärares och elevers åsikter om kanons legitimitet i skolan.Undersökningen är baserad på kvalitativa intervjuer med två verksamma svensklärare på gymnasiet, samt fyra elever varav hälften läser studieförberedande gymnasieprogram, och den andra hälften yrkesförberedande dito. Undersökningen visade att lärarna hade både skilda åsikter men även kunskaper om kanons legitimitet i skolan; den ena var emot den, men använde sig av litteratur ur den, medan den andra förespråkade den. Elevernas kännedom om kanon var mindre, likväl stämde deras kunskaper om varför den är berättigad i skolan väl överens med rådande forskning som menar att den är allmänbildande, för vidare kulturarvet, och mer språkutvecklande än exempelvis populärlitteratur.