As public libraries in Sweden receive the bulk of their budget from local government funding, which has stayed static or, at best, seen small increases, libraries have been faced with inadequate resources with which to satisfy increasing expectations from users. As few libraries are over-funded in the first place, ways may have to be found to combat this situation. The aim of this Masters thesis is to examine alternative sources of funding for Swedish public libraries, and my main focus of interest is that of sponsorship. The method used is a literature study combined with an empirical study, in which interviews were conducted with five persons each with long experience of working with public libraries. The literary study deals with the concept of sponsorship, and the motivations for companies to sponsor are also examined.

This study examines the closure of public libraries, and the nonprofit organizations takeover of them as a phenomenon. The aim is to understand why the nonprofit takeover is common and what the takeover symbolizes and if the discourse in media invokes the views on libraries and the profession.Interviews were made with librarians, politicians and representatives of a nonprofit organization to study different sides of the phenomenon. Other empirical data were found in local and national newspapers and media-channels. I discovered that public libraries are highly valued by both politicians and the community. The study also showed that a library in a community makes people feel valued.

The aim of this Master?s thesis is to survey what personal encounter at the library can signify, and to examine Swedish public libraries? policies for personal encounter. The posed questions are: What does personal encounter at the library signify? How are users and library staff represented in the collected policies? What do the policies say about digital encounter? 290 e-mail queries were sent to Swedish public libraries in May 2010. Of 140 responses, 107 stated that they did not have a written policy on personal encounter.

This thesis deals with questions about competences and qualities that librarians inpublic libraries find that they need to be qualified suppliers of literature (books andmagazines).Our aim is to problematize the competence of the profession in relation to promotingliterature, knowledge in literature and reading habits. We want to know what librariansthemselves think about their own competences when it comes to supplying andpromoting literature. Does it have to be a leisure interest or do they get the possibility toread during working hours?What do librarians think it means to be a qualified promotor of literature and how dothey acquire the right competence? Do they believe that their competence correspondswith the occupational requirements? How much of their knowledge about literature andpromoting literature comes from personal interest and commitment?We primarily used the theories about competence by Per-Erik Ellström. One of thetheories is the one of implicit and explicit knowledge.

The purpose of this thesis is to explore the situation for ebooksin Swedish public libraries. The background is anincreasing lending of e-books in public libraries, with anacquisition model formed when e-books were more of anexperiment in a few libraries. The debate has escalated in therecent years and in this thesis I aim to investigate thelibraries? experience with e-books and the current pricemodel. The empirical material comes from interviews witheight head of public libraries in the Västra Götaland region.As theoretical background, I have used Michael Buckland?sfour roles of collections and price models from Lee andBoyle.My results show ambivalence with the price model.

Det finns drygt 300 professionella förlag i Sverige med regelbunden utgivning. I Litteraturutredningen 2012 slås fast att både koncentrationen och integrationen har ökat på den svenska bokmarknaden under de senaste åren och den största aktören på bokmarknaden är Bonnierförlagen. Jättens monopolliknande ställning på bokmarknaden ger emellanåt upphov till en samhällsdebatt. Bonnierkritiker menar att Bonnierförlagens utgivning är begränsad till säkra storsäljare, vilket är ett hot mot mångfald och det fria ordet. Dessutom har Bonnier större möjlighet till marknadsföring jämfört med mindre förlag vilket i förlängningen gör att Bonnierböcker efterfrågas i större utsträckning.Ett intressant spörsmål är varför folkbiblioteken inte är involverade i denna debatt.

The aim of this Master's thesis was to examine the political and cultural reasons for making music materials compulsory at Danish public libraries by the new library act of 2000. The aim was also to examine how the public libraries have responded to this reform. To answer these questions a literature study was conducted as well as interviews. The results of the literature study indicated that the main reason for making music materials compulsory is to increase the influence of the library users. The study of the debate concerning the new library act showed that a majority of the Danish political parties as well as the Danish library organizations had a positive attitude towards the new obligation.

In writing this study, I wanted to examine which principles of organization that are possible for Swedish public libraries to use, and what these principles mean for the libraries customerorientation. This is done by examining a number of written sources, as well as studying the organization of six public libraries. I found several possible principles, but a number of principles have been more commonly used than others. Historically most public libraries were organized according to the functions needed to be carried out within the organization, but today it is much more common to use subject-based organizations, with some examples of organizing according to user-groups and needs. I have also encountered the possibility of organizing according to the sources that are to be handled, or the way in which these sources are used by the customers.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine which role public libraries play or could play within bibliotherapy. The study is based on qualitative interviews with five librarians who, in one way or another have experienced bibliotherapy activities. Further, we have interviewed two treatment assistants and one counsellor, who have cooperated with the librarians, to get their view. We have used the following research questions: Which bibliotherapeutic activities, if any, are pursued in public libraries in Sweden, and how do they look upon bibliotherapy? What role do public libraries play/could play within bibliotherapy? Ever since the term bibliotherapy was coined in the beginning of the twentieth century, the definition has been under debate. We have identified four main subjects of discussion.

The view on which kind of fiction that should be mediated to the public through the Swedish public library system has since the late 60´s been dominated by what in this Master?s thesis is called: ´the discourse on quality of literary fiction´. The aim of this thesis is to examine to which extent this discourse still plays an active role in the Swedish public library system or if that discourse has been replaced by a more market-led, demand responsive view, where the features of ´quality´ and ´culture´ have been downplayed and replaced by a ´customer?s service view´ on how and why fiction should be mediated to the public. The methodological and theoretical perspective in this thesis is led by the understanding of the discourse analysis in Michel Foucault?s ´The Archaeology of Knowledge´.

The aim of this study is to examine the fiction promoting role of public librarians through their fiction displays. The study covers three problems: What reasons do public librarians give for their selection of displayed fiction? How do public librarians view fiction displays in relation to other promotion strategies? How do public librarians think that promotion through fiction displays will evolve in the future?The results of the study have been analyzed using Jofrid Karner Smidt?s theory of how public librarians view their promotion of fiction. The concepts used are promotion due to public demand, actively recommending and informative promotion, and through dialogue. To account for the problems investigated in the study, eight librarians have been questioned through semi-structured interviews.

The aim of this bachelor thesis is to find out how young adults experience the library and the space that they have access to. I used semi-structured interviews to find out about this and interviewed eight youths between the ages of 15 and 18 in a medium sized city in the province of Västra Götaland in Sweden. I then analyzed the material with the help of Goffman?s theory about front stage and back stage. I also did a small comparison with results from previous studies.The result showed that the youths generally liked the library and the staff but they had opinions on some issues.

The purpose of this Master thesis is to examine what knowledge and competence employers at public libraries apprehend that recent graduates of library and information science (LIS) have. We want to illuminate what qualifications employers demand and expect from LIS graduates and to what degree employers find that LIS graduates correspond to these demands. Our aim is also to see how these qualifications can be categorized and understood. Finally, we try to picture the employers? apprehensions of the education received at LIS.As a method of gathering material for the analysis, we sent qualitative inquires with open questions to employers at public libraries in Sweden.

The aim of this study is to gain knowledge about the internalcommunication at a public library in Sweden, focusing on the flow of information and the library employee?s role as a source and receiver. This is an important subject because internal communication affects not only the internal work, but also the users. Despite this there are few studies about internal communication in libraries. The research questions used are: How do the employees perceive the role as source of information, and what choices do they make before they spread information? How do the employees perceive the role as receiver of information? How do the employees feel that the information flow works in the organization as a whole?The research is founded on five qualitative semi-structured interviews with the library employees.

The aim of this master?s thesis is to examine the roles ofthree different public libraries in three differentcommunities. In order to get some answers about the roles ofthe public libraries I have used the following questions: Howis the local cultural policy formulated? How is the locallibrary structured? What or which profiles has the publiclibraries in the three communities?I have made three qualitative case-studies in three differentcommunities. These three communities are somewhatlocated in the same area in order to identify any cooperationbetween them.