This master thesis is an attempt to study the interface in itself, where the human meets the machine and the problems that can arise. I study a particular interface, namely the OPAC of Libra III. In 1999 IFLA presented recommendations for what an OPAC shall contain, and in one part of my master thesis I compare Libra III with these recommendations from my opinion. In another part of my master thesis I make an investigation where I let five by me chosen persons answer some questions from me, both by doing and verbally. I draw the conclusion that Libra III follows most of the recommendations of IFLA in a sufficient way.

The aim of this essay is to investigate how patrons, librarians and indexers use subject headings to describe and index fiction literature. We wanted to know if the groups concentrated on different levels in the text from a semiotic viewpoint, where words either can describe the manifest/connotative meaning or the latent/denotative. To investigate this we had four fiction indexers, four librarians working with fiction for adults and eight library users read and index four short stories. After that we did interviews asking them about how they were thinking when describing the texts, how they use subject headings, about their opinions on indexing and, in the interviews with the librarians and indexers, about their usual work assignments. The subject headings they listed were analysed according to the level they described.

The purpose of this thesis was to explore how Swedish librarians working with educational matters In Swedish: studiebibliotekarier experience his/her pedagogic work in the context of a public library. My intention was thus to reach an understanding of how they experienced their educational work. The following questions were asked: 1 How do the librarians experience the physical environment created for their students? 2 How do the librarians experience the co-operation with others involved in their work? 3 How do the librarians experience the formal task that he/she now is given? 4 How do the librarians experience their own pedagogic qualifications regarding the demands that are made upon them by the students? I have interviewed six librarians and incorporated theories on pedagogic roles in an educational context. I reached the conclusion that these librarians believed the environment to be important for the outcome of the students success with their studies.

The purpose of this Masters thesis is to investigate how students at an upper secondary school for adults use school and public library when searching for information for school assignments. The focus in this investigation is on the feelings and experiences of the process of the information seeking and use. The focus is also on the students experiences of school and public libraries and the help they receive from them in learning. The method used is focus groups interviews. Two groups were interviewed.

The aim of this Masters thesis is to examine the accessibility in public libraries for persons with dyslexia and visually impaired persons. In order to do this, library services, information and attitudes have been studied. Data have been collected through interviews and studies of documents, in particular guidelines for library service to disabled persons. The theoretical starting point of the analysis is Professor Michael Bucklands different aspects of access to information. He discusses six types of barriers that must be overcome if access is to be achieved.

The purpose of this thesis is to construct a marketing model to be used both theoretically and practically when working with marketing in Swedish public libraries. This objective is achieved by first making a literature review of the written works on the marketing of libraries, and then studying the marketing activities at the public library in Bollebygd, Sweden. The theory is based on the marketing mix model the 7 ps, which serves as a framework for the presentation of the empirical result and the analysis. One of the questions posed in the beginning of the paper is how the library has worked with marketing over the past ten years. Through a combination of methods observation, textual studies and interviews the marketing activities employed at Bollebygds library are noted.

The aim of this masters thesis is to examine to what extent series books for children and youth are included in the acquisitions of public libraries. It also examines which needs series books fulfil among a group of 13-15 year old children. The main question of this thesis was: To what extent do libraries provide series books for children and youth? An inquiry investigation showed that a majority of the libraries in Sweden provide these books. The main reason to provide the books was that the demand is large.

The aim of this masters thesis is to, from a queertheoretical point of view, examine the possibilities to classify the subject homosexuality in three different classification systems. The three systems that have been analysed is the Swedish classification system SAB, the Universal Decimal Classification UDC and Dewey Decimal Classification DDC. The analysed editions are updates from the beginning of the 1970´s until today. The emphasis has been on how well the systems correspond to the changing society. We found several differences between the three systems, but also some resemblances.

The purpose of this study was to describe how journalists do research for their articles and whether there is a need to create a knowledge bank of the material that journalists use for writing these articles. I also looked at how knowledge management could be used at a daily newspaper to add value to the information used by the journalists. The thesis is based on four interviews with journalists, a literature review and a practical project. I helped a journalist with his information seeking and later tried to organize the material. This project gave me an understanding of how varying the material that journalists use is and how difficult it would be to try to organize it in order to create an organizational knowledge resource of the material.

Our intention with this work has been to examine if books in one particular subject share the same ideology, or if they contain several different ideologies. We have chosen to study and analyse books that deal with death and grief. We suggest that we will get an idea of how society looks upon death by examine how death is presented in books for young children. We have studied and adopted well-known writers on the topic to give sufficient background to our research. In the main public library of Gothenburg we found the latest bookindex of different themes recommended by Bibliotekstjänst.

The aim of this Master's thesis is to understand public library users' perceptions of librarians' attitudes to users and professional knowledge. The purpose was also to investigate the relative importance to the user of pleasant or a knowledgeable librarian. As a theoretical framework we use theory from business economy where the experience of the user is in focus. Answers were sought to the following questions: How do users perceive librarians attitudes to users? How do users perceive librarians professional knowledge? How do users want to be treated by public librarians? What kind of knowledge should public librarians have, according to users? We interviewed twelve students in university education that are users of public libraries.

The aim of this masters thesis is to study the reliability of the URL as the link between a bibliographic record and a web resource. The Swedish catalogue services LIBRIS and NetSök have been evaluated on three different occasions, to study how these services have succeeded in giving access to web resources by using URLs. Because URLs are changeable, we have tried to find out common characteristics of the URLs in broken links. To accomplish this study we have used a quantitative approach and evaluated five percent of the web resources in the catalogues using a random selection. We have also used documentation relevant for our study, among other things to illustrate previous studies of the nature of web resources and alternative solutions to URLs as access points to web resources.

The aim of this bachelor?s thesis is to develop knowledge about how librarians experience their professional identity, argue for their competence and describe their profession based on their professional skills, tasks, and status. The method that is used to answer the questions of the study is semi-structured interviews with five public librarians. The theory used in this essay is Ørom?s six librarian identities plus Schreiber?s experience intermediate identity.

This masters thesis concerns the Public Library Service in Eastern Africa, Tanzania. Our subject was developed through a feasibility study that gave us comprehension that developing countries have individual problems concerning books and libraries. We understood that the main problems were the libraries financial situation and their dependence on aid. We also understood that the libraries do not have the resources to satisfy the society as a whole. The major questions raised in this study are: - How do the regional librarians describe their work situation? -Which role do the Regional Librarians have in society? Data was collected through interviews and observation, and the study is a qualitative case study.

The purpose of this master thesis is to examine a proposal for basic class 4 in UDC, which has been empty since 1964, and to pick out a negotiable subject for that proposal. The proposal is analysed from a theoretical perspective based on principles created by S. R. Ranganathan. Three principles are used.