The following essay or thesis is a study over scientific endeavors in the fringe. It is a study of Riksorganisationen UFO-Sverige, whose proponents aim to make the UFO phenomenon (or phenomena) a subject of scientific scrutiny. To achieve this, the ufologists first have to redefine common concepts of ufology as pseudo science or religion, mainly by challenging definitions given by scientific sceptics on the one hand, and proponents of conspiracy theories or the new age environment on the other. Thus UFO-Sverige seeks to construct an alternative scientific identity in contrast to adversaries on both sides, each unwilling to give the UFO phenomenon any further examination. Following the work of Tomas Gieryn's sociological grip on questions of epistemology, especially concerning the social boundaries of science from other cultural categories through what has been labelled as epistemic boundary work, during which proponents of a particular field aim to achieve epistemic authority and thus the legitimate right to define what is and what is not science, I seek to analyze how questions of science and legitimacy are actualized in an intellectual environment or culture not broadly accepted as scientific.

This study examines a primary school teacher?s ambitions within science education and how those ambitions manifest in the classroom. This is being examined by interview with the mentioned teacher and by observations as a participant within four of the teacher?s science classes. The results of this study is categorized and analyzed with assistance of scientific literacy, vision I and vision II, fundamental scientific literacy and Roberts? curriculum emphases.

This Master Thesis aims to study and discuss the occurence of three concepts in some influential cultural policy documents which includes the UNESCO public library manifesto, the Swedish libraries act, the Swedish cultural policy objectives, and a study from the mid nineties which deals with the cultural policy. The questions asked are: -Do the documents mention democracy? In what way? -Do the documents mention the public sphere? In what way? -Do the documents mention information? In what way? -How can we understand the content of the documents through relevant theories about democracy, the public sphere and information? Theories about the information society are used, as well as theories from Jürgen Habermas, Herbert Schiller and Robert Dahl. The way of method is document studies and abduktion, with influences from hermeneutic theory. The analysis deals with the documents through these concepts: democracy, the public sphere and information and puts forward the content, or lack of content, about democracy in the analysed material.

The main issue of this master is to investigate what influence the phenomenon of postmodernity has on the Swedish public library. Is it possible to talk about the Swedish public library as postmodern, and if so, is it expressed by a postmodern discourse? The concept of postmodernity is defined as an open and inclusive value system where all kind of opinions and preferences take place. According to a postmodern point of view there is no such thing as an objective or general truth. A postmodern ideology does not talk about reality but about realities.

The bachelor thesis examines conceptions behind the Swedish public librarian?s opinions of the public library as a meeting place. The study uses the critical discourse analysis, developed by Ernest Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, to analyze a focus group interview. The discourse analysis identifies four themes in the empirical material: the imagined arena of the meeting place, the behaviour in the meeting place, the meeting place?s librarian and the polemic against the meeting place.

En sovjetisk rättskultur var delvis i teorin en del av en europeisk rättskultur men i praktisk tillämpning fanns det stora skillnader..

The aim of the thesis is to investigate to what extent the pedagogy process has been affected by the close collaboration between librarians and teachers when it comes to education on the information search process. The thesis shows that the librarian is seen as an acting intermediate for information, and is regarded as a part of the learning process. The issues covered comprise of how students, teachers and librarians perceive that the students becomes information literate, how they perceive that the subject fields are covered, and how information has been transmitted, and how all this has been affected by the fact that the librarian is actually less available in person. Also, the following questions are discussed; how do librarians, teachers and students interact through the homepages of the course and "the landscape of studying"? And in what respect have the old library halls changed into that, which is available 24 hours a day, with different kinds of meeting opportunities where the search of information has been integrated with group projects? The foundation of this study is built on an evaluation of a project comprising of virtual study environment at the University of Linköping.

A possible "discursive turn" is believed to have been observed within Swedish political science in later years. The purpose of this study is to examine whether or not such a turn has actually taken place, in order to further determine if a resulting theoretical homogeneity poses a risk to the ability of Swedish political science to identify and respond to its full width of possible research problems, and to determine its perspectives on both these problems and the results that are later communicated to the general society. To do so, the study poses the following primary research question:"Has a discursive turn occurred within Swedish political science?"This question is then broken down into two specified research questions."Has discourse analysis become a more common approach for doctoral dissertations in political science during the period of 2000-2013?""Have ideas corresponding with discourse theory become more common within doctoral dissertations in political science that are not pure discourse analyses during the period of 2000-2013?"These questions are then answered by examining all known 406 doctoral dissertations in political science published in Sweden during the 21st century up until (and including) the year of 2013, using two forms of content analysis, one manual and one computer-assisted. The study finds no clear evidence of a discursive turn in Swedish political science since the turn of the century.

Organising knowledge in a corporate environment : a case study at the development departments of Ecophon ABThe purpose of this master's thesis is to investigate how three development departments of a technical firm could organise their collection of documents and information resources to improve their management of information. Three sets of questions have been posed: 1) How does the target group of engineers deal with information, and what problems can be identified in this process? 2) What does their collection of resources consist of, how is it organised, and what problems are apparent? 3) How can principles of knowledge organisation be applied in a corporate environment?The investigation has been carried out as a case study. Three main methods of collecting empirical data have been used: surveys, unstructured interviews and collection observations. The results of the study have highlighted three major problem areas: the collection's lack of structure and searchability, the absence of policy regarding how employers should deal with information, and the inadequate knowledge among staff on how to search for, use and disseminate information.By looking at previous research on knowledge organisation, we have been able to draw conclusions regarding how the target group could organise and manage its information and knowledge in order to achieve greater efficiency in dealing with information and carrying out work tasks.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how teachers perceive that they work with science in preschool through aesthetic learning processes as tools both in the indoor and outdoor environment and make visible what the educators' underlying beliefs are that affect how they perceive aesthetic learning processes as tools used to deepen children's understanding of different scientific phenomena.This is an interview study using the phenomenographic approach as a means and method to make visible and report on teachers' views on how aesthetic learning processes can be used to extend preschool children's learning about science. The results are analyzed and discussed based on John Dewey's theoretical ideas about children's learning, aesthetics and science.The study clearly shows that teachers' views on aesthetic learning processes and how they can be used in the work whit science is very divided and in some cases unreflective. The most striking results are that teachers often are unaware that they make use of aesthetic learning processes because they have a more limited view of what it is than we have in the paper. All informants have science as a core subject. Their focus of the activity is located at the showing and visualizeing of scientific phenomena and some of them express that they submit the aesthetic learning processes to their colleagues or that they collaborate with someone who has training in some art form.

The aim of this essay is to examine three separate Swedish public libraries and their respective websites on the grounds of the usability sciences. I firstly had to summarize the main properties of the usability-field in order to gain an extended knowledge of its purposes and possible usage for today?s library systems. I was then able to apply the extended knowledge in the examination of the three library websites and the purpose of determining whether or not they were designed according to the standards set by the usability-sciences.Usability is a rather new science that deals with the dissection and examination of computer-based systems, in order to find the key components that make systems user-friendlier. With user needs being the main focus of its research, usability tries to meet all the different needs of the modern user and construct systems that are less system-centered and more user-centered.

Science center har visat sig vara en utmärkt plats för undervisning. Detta är en studie av på vilket sätt ett skolbesök på ett science center kan bidra till att målen för år 9 uppnås och om ett besök på ett science center kan utgöra ett komplement till den vanliga skolundervisningen. Särskilt studeras ämnesområdet astronomi och kosmologi (universum och vårt solsystem) i ämnet fysik. Undersökningen är gjord på Universeum i Göteborg. Metoden i undersökningen är intervjuer och observationer.

This paper deals with a partly new development in the Swedish law system, somewhere in the boundary between political science and jurisprudence. A new instrument -artbrott- has successively become more popular among lawyers and politicians. The new instrument -here translated to classified crimes- signifies that the perpetrator is sentenced to prison even though the seriousness of the crime committed is not in itself serious enough for such a consequence. The reason for this policy stance is to create a prevention against crime of that specific character among the public. The use of this instrument has grown considerably both concerning types of crimes as well as in application.

This study focuses on the encounter between the academic librarian and the academic library user with a specific need for information. The aim of the study is to examine the process of mediation of information and to uncover any inherent problems or systemic inertia that may occur within that process.Special attention has been given to information-seeking behaviour in the digital age and the possibility of viewing information literacy as a meta-literacy. The difference between the surface web and the academic invis- ible web is also investigated. Empirical data was collected by the use of ethnographic fieldwork at the Karolin- ska Institutet University Library over a period of five weeks. The data is analysed using actor-network theory as a point of departure.

The main purpose of this study is to investigate and understand how technology students handle information especially when they are working with their Masters thesis. A further purpose is to examine how technology students use library resources of the Linköping University. The research method used is grounded theory, where description of the method is an integral part of the study. Twelve qualitative interviews were made with newly qualified graduates from the engineering programs of Linköping Institute of Technology. The respondents were divided into two groups, A and B, with six in each group.