This essay is about how the library can make a difference inintegrating the minority Roma people into the Swedish society.Roma people have been subjected to persecution anddiscrimination for a long time. In this essay, I examine theactivities, functions and capabilities of libraries that can have apositive effect for the integration of the Roma people. Myquestions are: How can libraries reach out to the Roma people andwhat function do the library have for the integration of the Romapeople? I have used Marianne Anderssons and Dorte Skot-Hansens theory the four functions of the library ? the culutralcenter, the knowledge center, the information center and the socialcenter. Based on this theory, I have interpreted and analyzed thematerial that I have gathered through interviews and literaturestudies such as thesis, dissertations, repors and parliamentdocuments.

Our purpose with this master thesis is to look at school libraries in two separate municipal contexts and with the help of case studies try to reach understanding of how the municipal organisation in general influences and co-operates with day to day reality. In order to achieve this objective we have posed the following questions: What importance are school libraries given in relation to questions of overall management and goals in the greater organisation? How are resources distributed and management allocated in the two cases? How are the various school libraries in the two municipalities organised when it comes to workload, employee role assumption and teamwork? In the section dealing with theory and previous research we present the theoretical viewpoint and the literature of importance for our subject. This includes a short history, reports and laws, and also some research and theory on school library organisation. Our method has been to study the circumstances in two separate municipalities, Varberg and Växjö.

We have ourselves met misunderstandings about the tasks of librarians. The general opinion is that librarians are positioned behind the charging desk or are putting books on shelves. Other tasks are invisible and unknown to the public. The aim for this study is to explore the tasks that a selection of Swedish librarians does. The questions we have answered are: what do the librarians themselves claim to work with, which competences are necessary for this job, what does our study show regarding the librarian as generalist or specialist and finally; can the tasks that we find in our study help to understand the conceptions profession and status in relation to librarians.

The aim of this Master?s thesis is to investigate the factors of children?s voluntarily reading in their spare time. We also want to know if the children choose non-fiction books for their voluntarily reading. The method as well as the empirical basis of this study is qualitative, with interviews of twenty-eight children in ages between 9 and 12 years. We conducted nine interviews with 3?4 children in each group.

The aim of this Master?s thesis is to investigate the factors of children?s voluntarily reading in their spare time. We also want to know if the children choose non-fiction books for their voluntarily reading. The method as well as the empirical basis of this study is qualitative, with interviews of twenty-eight children in ages between 9 and 12 years. We conducted nine interviews with 3?4 children in each group.

The aim of this Master?s thesis is to investigate the factors of children?s voluntarily reading in their spare time. We also want to know if the children choose non-fiction books for their voluntarily reading. The method as well as the empirical basis of this study is qualitative, with interviews of twenty-eight children in ages between 9 and 12 years. We conducted nine interviews with 3?4 children in each group.

The purpose of this master thesis is to examine different factors that may influence the librarian in the selection of popular music. The study is conducted through a qualitative method, influenced by grounded theory. The results are based on patterns drawn from both interviews with six libraries and from literature. The literature review concerns foremost cultural politics, music aesthetics, the sphere of popular music in Sweden today and the impact of commercialism. Also the purposes of popular music in a library, aspects of values of popular music and assortment policies are being discussed.

The aim of this study has been to investigate actors? methods for acquiring information that is necessary for their profession, with a focus on the more random methods they might possibly use. The study is based on the following questions: What information needs do actors have in relation to their profession? Which methods do actors use to procure information? Which information systems do actors use? What role does the library play in the actors? acquisition of information? Through an interview study with 10 informants a picture is formed of the actors? information behavior. With the help of theoretical ideas regarding random methods of acquisition, we describe which information needs actors have and how they acquire that information.

The purpose of this study is to find out, explore and see how children with neuropsychiatric problems like ADHD/DAMP are portrayed and treated in five fictional children?s books written by writers who all are related to ADHD issues, except for one writer.I have done a text analysis performed on five children?s books which can be found in libraries in most of the libraries in Sweden. The analysis shows varying results between the five books followed by a general conclusion about how children with concentration problems are being presented in these chosen children's literature. The main problematic of this study is to examine how these characters are being represented and treated within the scopes of school, family relations and how ADHD/DAMP symptoms are portrayed. This study focuses on analysing how the actual ADHD/DAMP behaviour is being reflected and better understanding for the reader to understand the symptoms of ADHD.Another fact is what kind of relations these children with neuropsychiatric dysfunctions are portrayed when facing with other persons, such as family and friends and how ADHD/DAMP is affecting them daily basis.

The aim of this study was about how librarians in Sweden work with their web page to reach young people between the ages of fifteen and nineteen. Most of the youths in Sweden today use Internet every day for several reasons, and the library should have an obvious place there as well. It shouldbe obvious because almost all youths uses Internet every day and therefore the library needs to be seen there as well to reach out to them. Earlier research has shown that librarians and youths think differently in this question. Youths think that the library web page is more important for the librarythan the librarians do.How do the librarians work with marketing for youths on the web page? Do their policy documents help them in their work?To study this area we have interviewed librarians from six quite large public libraries from different parts of thecountry.

Close to the city center of Reykjavik lies the combined national- and university library of Iceland. Usually, these two types of institutions are separated. The purpose of this essay is to investigate how the library in fact selects the new digital material to offer the users in Iceland, and if the combined mission creates any problems or conflicts.The investigation examines the planning and the content of the digital library, what user groups are addressed and how the organisation is held together despite the different missions. If cultural context in Iceland makes a difference for what is selected and offered to the users is also discussed.Six informants in strategic library positions dealing with the digital national- or university library, were interviewed. The answers have been analysed in light of the library&information literature on building and maintaining digital library collections and organizational and marketing theory.The main result of the study is that the informants do not see a conflict between the missions of the organisation, although traces of a struggle were found in some areas.

The purpose of this Master?s thesis is to examine the function of public libraries on the social web, focusing on reading promotion and reading stimulation. For an understanding of the larger context regarding public libraries on the social web, we conducted online interviews via email with people in the Swedish library profession, together with a content analysis of various texts on the subject found in library journals and on the Internet. Furthermore to identify the public library's practice on reading promotion and reading stimulation on the social web, we did interviews with librarians at a public library on their use of a blog for this purpose, together with a questionnaire handed out to the library's users on their use and conceptions of the blog.The conceptual framework of this study consists of four key aspects in the theoretical and empirical definition of Library 2.0 presented by Holmberg, Huvila and Widén-Wulff. The results showed that the public library can create a substantial value through its use of the social web, but it?s necessary to have a clear vision of the desired outcome.

In recent years there has been an upsurge in products and activities designed for infants, what is known as baby culture. The essay is a discourse analysis covering the part of baby culture which is concerned with infants and books. The essay studies texts from libraries and children?s bookclubs in order to understand what it is they communicate, to whom and the conceivable consequences of the communicated message. One of the main purposes of the study is to determine what view of infants as social and cultural beings it  is that arises from the texts.

The aim of this study is to illustrate conceptions held by librarians and library and information scientists about weeding practices of printed books in public libraries. The study has been carried out by performing a series of qualitative interviews with librarians and by study of earlier research relating to the subject of weeding. The results have been analysed by utilizing a textual analysis method called idea and ideology analysis using so called dimensions to analyse and structure the results. The results indicate that weeding at Swedish public libraries is carried out by a mixture of objective and subjective methods, with certain statistical elements. Weeding procedures mainly appears to be legitimized according to what one refers to as knowledge of the local community, although lack of lending are cited from time to time.

This master thesis deals with events, dynamics and problems of mediated information seeking within the context of a new information service called "Book a librarian". The study, based on a survey and interviews both in academic and public libraries and participant observations in academic libraries, has its theoretical base in the cognitive theory of information retrieval interaction. The cognitive view is used to throw light upon the need of an ongoing dialogue during the session in order to detect the information needs of the user and to conduct a successful retrieval of information. The communicative interaction is seen as threepart interaction between the intermediary, the user and the information system, where the current cognitive states of all three participants are involved. The study shows that the cognitive obstacles for a successful mediation and information retrieval are mostly connected to participants current knowledge of the subject and of the retrieval techniques.