Background: Knowledge of customer needs is a key factor in companies? struggle to develop successful products. Several studies illustrate that the main reason for failure in product development is lack of customer understanding. Lately considerable changes have occurred. Large-scale mass production is continuously being replaced by customer orientation, especially in the high technological market.

The major aim of the thesis is to describe the networks, relations and marketing of some university libraries and their customers in the year 2000. I illustrate how these issues interact and whether they have changed due to the recent development of technology and if so, how. The thesis is based on interviews with two directors of libraries and two librarians at two different libraries. A small survey with 16 questionnaires has also been performed in order to get a more general view on librarians' opinions in these questions. The thesis mainly shows that the networks in which the respondents take part primarily exist in the library sphere and towards the universities.

The major aim of the thesis is to describe the networks, relations and marketing of some university libraries and their customers in the year 2000. I illustrate how these issues interact and whether they have changed due to the recent development of technology and if so, how. The thesis is based on interviews with two directors of libraries and two librarians at two different libraries. A small survey with 16 questionnaires has also been performed in order to get a more general view on librarians' opinions in these questions. The thesis mainly shows that the networks in which the respondents take part primarily exist in the library sphere and towards the universities.

The purpose of this paper is to determine the established law and make researches into non-institutional compulsory care (?mellantvång?) paragraph 22 The Care of Young Persons (Special Provisions) Act (from now on called LVU) and examine whether the administration of the law is in harmony with the best interests of the child.This paper combines two methods : traditional judicial method and a social science method. In the juridical part the sources of law have been studied and in the social sciences part semi-structured interviews have been conducted with five respondents. The theoretical framework consists of ideas and theories about the best interests of the child, a concept which is one of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child's core principles.This study shows that the legislator has identified a problem and an existing need and found a solution to this by introducing a non-institutional compulsory care, paragraph 22 LVU. The problem is that Social Services do not make use of the restraint.

The problem, which I want to highlight in this essay, is about my fear of losing face in conversationwith the parents of my text. I'm going through different approaches to find out what is happening inmy meetings with parents. I will also see if the knowledge that I get will help me to get deeperunderstanding of my reactions in different situations and if this opens up new possible ways ofhandling them.In my text there will be two stories where the conversation with parents has been difficult. Theyboth illustrate my uncertainty concerning the unpredictability of conversations with distressed orstressed parents. I can prepare the environment, by cleaning and making it look nice before meetingwith the parents.

This thesis is about the bookmobile service in Sweden of today. The purpose is to examine how the staff motivate the existence of the bookmobile. Other purposes are to study the goals of the service, to describe ?daily life? of the bookmobile, examine the changes of the service during the years and discuss possible changes in the future. The study is based on interviews with thirteen staff members from six Swedish communities, of both rural and urban character.

The purpose of this bachelor?s thesis is to examine video games, gamers and gaming from an information science perspective. The purpose of the study is partly to study video games as a type of information system and partly to study gamers information use, information seeking and also the experience of gaming. A selection of five games have been analysed using a topology for video game analysis created by Espen Aarseth. A quantitative investigation has also been made, in the form of a web survey distributed through four Swedish online forums, the result of which was analysed using Carol Collier Kuhlthaus model of the information seeking process.

The essay deals with questions concerning the reasons, difficulties and subjects for rejoicing which various people experience when visiting "voluntarily" old, lonely people in the congregation of Trollhättan. What knowledge is developed and which values are formed? How is aging and solitude experienced? The visits are co-ordinated by two lay workers employed by the Swedish Church. The study is built on oral interviews in April and May 2003 from a questionaire using open questions. The research group consists of six women between 65-80 of age with 1-30 years´ experience.Inner reasons, contact with other people in similar situations, positive responses to visits, and meetings in the visiting service group seem to be the principal driving forces.

We want in this paper, by using participant observation and qualitative interviews, comecloser to an understanding of what meaning a language café might have for the peoplewho go there. Many of the visitors are people who recently moved to Sweden and are inthe middle of a process of learning Swedish. We want to get a further insight into howthey feel about their situation and what the social encounters on the language café mightmean to them. The purpose is to examine how this can have significance for the identitydevelopment of the visitors.The result shows that the language café is an important place for the visitors because itis the only place they can go to in order to practice speaking Swedish, which isimportant for them to find their place in Sweden. The language café also fulfils animportant function of a place where the visitors can receive an understanding of theSwedish society and reflect about it, but also a place for self-reflection to see theopportunities in the situations they find themselves in.

The purpose of this essay was to examine young people's view of how intoxication influences the communication and responsibility in sexual situations between two heterosexual adolescents, and to explore how young people define rape.The main questions were to examine how young people describe the communication of "yes" and "no" in sexual meetings, and who is responsible for that communication. Other questions included examining how the interviewees viewed a situation where a girl shows and/or says "no" and a boy still ignores her sexual integrity.The study was based on six qualitative interviews.The interviewees considered non-verbal communication about both "yes" and "no" to sex in a sober condition superior to verbal communication. The study also showed that the sexual responsibilities for girls increase during intoxication, while the responsibilities for boys decrease. A majority of the interviewees considered that a girl who didn't want to participate in sex must be very explicit when expressing her "no", and if not, there was an understanding that a boy can misinterpret or ignore a "no". Rape was by some defined as an act done against one's will, while others claimed that several explicit "no"s had to be infringed to classify it as rape..

The purpose of this study was to investigate how social services workers describe, the risk of being exposed to threats and violence in their profession. Six social services workers were interviewed, four from the Welfare Office in a major city and two from the Child and Family Services in a minor city. Results showed that the majority of social services workers consider themselves exposed in their profession, meaning that they feel there's a risk of a violent or threatening situation occurring in their work situation. All interviewees had experiences from some sort of threat or violence in a work related context and they attested that non-personal assaults, such as threats made through telephone, email and answering machines are more common than verbal assaults made in personal meetings. Being prepared and listening to ones intuition is a way of dealing with exposure when meeting with a client.

The education curriculum states that one of the tasks for schools and preschools are to promote gender equality by discouraging traditional gender roles. Gender equality is therefore a part of the fundamental values of the education system. In order to be able to work with the issue of gender equality, the employees need help and further education. Therefore some schools and preeschools contact a teacher specialized in gender equality work.In this essay I have chosen to do a field study of such a teacher at work during different workshops with nurses and teachers. The aim is to examine how she discusses gender ideas and what discussions arises from the meetings with the attendents.

Adolescence is a turbulent time in life and gives rise to new information needs for young people. Information needs related to school subjects have been relatively well researched but few studies have focused on information needs and use related to life concerns. The purpose of this Master's thesis is to examine the information needs of a number of teenage girls in relation to their life concerns and how they meet these needs. The sample consists of twenty-one girls aged thirteen and fourteen. The research is based on literature studies and qualitative interviews combined with a questionnaire.

This study is an examination of how conditions for formal and informal music education look like in two townships in South Africa. The purpose of this examination based on different actors' experiences is to find out whether the children in South Africa receive some form of music education and if so, how they think it can help the children in the surveyed areas. The information was gathered both through qualitative, semi-structured interviews with a music teacher, music therapist, creative music facilitator, students, and people who have worked for Sida and partly through unstructured observations. The results show that children in the surveyed townships do not receive any formal music education through the school but they sometimes can get music education through a NGO project (Non Government Organization) which usually runs by an enthusiast and is funded by various aid agencies. My examination also showed that for the children in the surveyed areas music education can be an alternative from being on the streets, giving a positive group experience, the ability to express themselves, fend off young people from drugs and criminality and bring together various grouping.

The use of entertainment in various kinds of business events has recently increased in popularity among Swedish firms. Often, stand-up comedians are hired to entertain the employees or customers during these happenings. Generally, the firm invests a considerable amount of money in this service and is furthermore willing to pay a premium for a famous comedian. Although the market for this type of service is fairly large, the knowledge of the motives behind the investments is yet limited.A grounded theory study is carried out exploring the purpose of the entertainment as well as the rationales behind the preference for a famous comedian over an unknown. Two general types of contexts (internal and external) are identified and a number of objectives related to each type are distinguished.