The aim of this thesis is to study different aspects of the public libraries' investment in public access computers connected to the Internet. What level of accessibility can be found at the surveyed libraries concerning the number of computers open to the public, as well as chat and email services? What activities have been taking place with the computers in focus, and what have the goals of these activities been? Is there any control of content, and what aspects of the Internet are, if that is the case, subject to censorship. And how do the governmental policies relate to the surveyed libraries' intentions and activities regarding the Internet? In order to answer these questions, each main library in the 42 largest towns of Sweden was surveyed response rate: 100 %.

The focus of the thesis is to examine the regional branding ofpublic libraries in Norrbotten, with the main focus on Piteå public library, in order to find trends that indicate a successful branding based on Hariff & Rowley?s (2011) identified key factors.The empirical data has been collected through a triangulation of interviews and documents. The findings show that they have done a proficient preparatory work prior to the regional branding of the public libraries, and that the libraries have worked together with a communication bureau in their marketing strategies since the beginning of the public library cooperation. The results also show that Piteå public library, through branding efforts, received another relationship with the media where the media now occasionally contact the library.The conclusion of the thesis is that Piteå public library promoted the library through campaigns that provide the opportunity for activities and experiences, and that they want to convey the image of itself as a venue for social interaction. The marketing of the libraries fulfill the most of the criteria, but there are still areas of branding that needs to be further explored..

Bioinformatics is an interdisciplinary scientific subject which connects biology, biomedicine and information science. Bioinformatics generates new biological knowledge by using computer methods and biological databases and can thereby play an important role for the understanding of diseases and be used for development of new medicines. The appearance of bioinformatics has thereby had a big impact on biomedical research.In this study, I have examined bioscientists' use of bibliographical databases, bioinformatic databases/web sites and bioinformatic tools and their needs of support concerning these resources. I have also examined which support the scientific libraries offer their users concerning bibliographical databases, bioinformatic databases/web sites and bioinformatic tools and have compared it with the needs the libraries think that the users have and the needs the users state that they have.The results from the study show that there is a wish for library support concerning bibliographical databases, bioinformatic databases/web sites and bioinformatic tools. The wishes of the respondents are in contrast to the libraries' view about bioscientists interest concerning bioinformatic databases/web sites and bioinformatic tools.

The topic of this bachelor thesis is the promotion of easy-to-read fiction for 10-12 year old children in public libraries. The number of easy-to-read fiction books is increasing on the book market. This can be expected to affect the public library. The hypotheses for the study are: 1) Public libraries expose easy-to-read fiction and use it in their reading promotion activities and, 2) The acquisition of easy-to-read books and the use of easy-to-read books in reading promotion activities have increased over the last five years. A self-completion questionnaire was distributed to 44 public libraries in Sweden.

This study examines the cultural place and status of video and computer games in the Swedish public library. Using works on popular culture and the theories of Pierre Bourdieu, this study employs quantitative methods, as well as textual analysis, to analyze the results of an online questionnaire with 19 questions focusing on selection criteria, shelf placement, perceived competence, as well as reasoning for having or not having these games in the library. 286 out of the 440 libraries contacted is participating in the study, and the libraries consist exclusively of public libraries in Sweden that are found in the database of the Royal Library.The results of this study show that a larger number of libraries than previously indicated have started to provide electronic games to their patrons. At the same time, patterns in the data and comments suggests that these games in many cases still do not enjoy the same level of cultural recognition as other media. Indicative of this is the way most libraries seem to focus on the medium being exclusively for their young patrons, with seem-ingly very little in the way of investment for adults.

The aim of this master's degree dissertation is to compile examples of different ways of planning, implementing and following up the organisation of two integrated libraries, which serve both the general public and the school. In order to respond to this, we formulated the all-embracing question: How best can the integration of libraries for schools and the general public be planned, implemented and followed up? This formulation gave rise to four further questions. In order to answer these questions, the problem formulated and our basic aim, we have studied the relevant literature on school libraries, libraries for the general public, and integrated libraries. These sources comprise official reports on this theme, dissertations, and more topical articles.

The purpose of this thesis is to study to what extent the methodological theories are being reflected in the construction of user surveys at public libraries in Sweden. The study has been conducted as a qualitative literature study in two parts. The first part is an examination of literature concerning survey methodology; the second part is a study of three user surveys conducted at Swedish public libraries after 1995. Our main results indicate that the theories about methodology are followed in part, though it cannot be determined whether this is due to any actual methodological studies, common sense, or just copying other surveys. In our study we have found some areas of user survey construction that need further attention and that would benefit from more extensive methodology studies on the part of survey designers.

The aim of this masters thesis is to examine what intentions handbooks, laws and regulations have had about children and childrens literature, as we think that they can serve as guiding principles for childrens libraries in Sweden. The questions are: what signals have the childrens libraries got from the documents concerning the view of children and childrens literature during the 20th century? What has the social opinion about children been during the 20th century? How have children been seen during the 20th century? The method we used is a qualitative source analysis of mention above documents seen from a hermeneutical point of view. This analysis is woven together with the social opinion on children during the 20th century. Our results show that the aim of childrens literature before 1945 was a pedagogic and moral one.

The purpose of this bachelor thesis is to examine how public libraries use socialmedia for marketing purposes, and what librarians think about this. My focus of this thesislies on what librarians think about marketing of libraries through social media and if theythink that marketing through social media can create a better relationship between the libraryand its users. The questions I wanted to answer were:? Libraries using social media, for what purpose do they use them? ? Do the libraries choose to use social media to market their organization? Why? ? What attitudes exist among librarians about marketing through social media?The theoretical framework for this thesis is Evert Gummessons model off Relationshipmarketing and the process of Internet marketing, which both are based on relationalperspective. The methodology used for this study was structured interviews.

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 aim with this thesis is to examine how childrens librarians apprehend and use the nationally initiated reading project Bokjuryn as an instrument in their work. The main question is as follows: How does Bokjuryn work related to the way public libraries pass on literature? Two questions are asked: How does the childrens librarians use Bokjuryn as an instrument and how do they motivate their work with it? and How do the childrens librarians view the reading project Bokjuryn as a method of passing on literature? The study is based on qualitative interviews with five childrens librarians. As a theoretical starting-point Jofrid Karner Smidt´s work about mediation of literature has been used. A model has been created and used based on Louise Limbergs analyses of the differences between school libraries and public libraries to analyse the result of the interviews together with other literature.

The aim of this study is to describe and analyse the creation and the design of a new public library. In order to concretize this, the study sets out from two examples, the public libraries in Simrishamn and Landskrona. The material used to attain the purpose of the study consists partly of interviews, partly of literature on the subject. To be able to put these two libraries in their historical context, the essay also provides a short overview of the development of public library buildings in Sweden during the 20th century. Another aspect that is discussed is the actual procedure of planning a public library from scratch.

The aim of this Bachelor´s thesis is to describe the phenomenon ofmarketing. Four public libraries in the County of Kalmar have beenstudied in the aim to obtain information on their current marketingin the autumn of 2004, as well as their view of marketing and itssignification in connection to a vision that the Regional Library inKalmar has established. The vision is that the County of Kalmar isgoing to be the best Region of Libraries in Sweden in the year of2010. Target markets for the vision is the general public, studentsand entrepreneurs. The study has done a landing at an early stage ofthe vision, the starting point of which was in the year of 2001.

The aim of this Masters thesis is to examine the importance of public libraries for individuals in their everyday life and to study the differences in views between the individuals. Questions posed in this study are: What do public libraries mean to individuals? Which differences between individuals views of the public library are to be found? What is the reason for differences to occur? The analysis is based upon qualitative interviews with six persons, four women and two men between 31 and 55 years of age. The theoretical starting points are Anderson and Skot-Hansens theory of four different roles of public libraries and Bourdieus theory of lifestyle. The study acts on a hermeneutic attitude.

The wide spread of the Internet and new information technologies in recent years has come to effect how libraries manage and disseminate information. Search engines like Google are widely used by people who often find the information retrieval systems of libraries to be too complicated. In 2004 Google announced plans to digitise five major library collections. Organisations representing the publishing industry and authors have since then filed lawsuits against Google claiming that Googles scanning of library books infringe the rights holders copyright. Due to Googles potential impact on libraries this thesis aims to examine how Googles digitisation project, Google Book Search, has been received in the library community.