This Masters thesis is a study of the truck-driver profession and their use of libraries located in gas-stations and restaurants along the highways in Sweden. The reason for this interest is the positive trend that has occurred concerning men without any university education and their reading-habits, that is due to their increased interest in listening to audio books. This challenges the general opinion that this group is not particularly interested in reading literature. Questions posed in this study are: How do the truck-drivers relate to the activity of reading literature, what part does the road-libraries play, and how can the services that the road-libraries offer be improved according to the truck-drivers. The method used in the study is interviews made by telephone.

The aim of this study has been to investigate how the death of a close relative is described in pictures and texts through the eyes of a child character in three picture books. The analysis has also considered how the child character copes with the tragedy and how he or she finds support in the grief process. The books analysed here are Resan till Ugri-La-Brek (1987), Farväl, Rune (1986), and Jättebra Olga! (2010). Since these are works of fiction, this study does not assume that they are an accurate reflection of reality, but the way the child characters act and cope with their grief has been compared with the findings of empirical research on how children react in real situations.The material has been examined by means of a qualitative literary analysis comparing the books according to the research questions. The study finds that the child characters receive evasive explanations from people around them concerning what death means, for instance that the person is sleeping.

Sweden, being a multicultural society, has an increased need for transcultural care. The purpose of this literature review is to provide, through Madeleine Leinger's Culture Care-theory and her Sunrise model, a greater knowledge to nurses and to other professions within the health care units in meeting with circumcised or genitally mutilated girls or women. The result is based upon two scientific dissertations and nine scientific studies. It emerged mainly the etic (outsider) perspective. To underline the emic (insider) perspective, pure literature and fiction have been used.

The purpose of this paper is to do an analysis of the characters and the theater/masquerade motif in C.J.L. Almqvist?s Drottningens juvelsmycke (The Queen?s Diadem), based on queer theory, by using Judith Butlers?s Gender Trouble. As an alternative to the Swedish, gender determined, feminine pronoun ?hon?, which has been used by earlier critics concerning the main character of the book, ?hen? is proposed.

The purpose of this Masters thesis is to investigate librarians views on reading and reading promotion for young people. The main issue is if activities in reading promotion for people between the ages of 13-19 years can result in inspiring non-readers to actually become readers. To find the answers, qualitative interviews were held with eight librarians. The literature review covers research on the reasoning of young people on reading, a historical review of fiction and reading, a review of arguments on the benefits of reading and finally a chapter which concerns reading promotion activities. The result of this study showed that the conceptions of reading promotion and book talk are very complex and that they each can have different meanings.

The Functional Resonance Accident Model is a method developed to analyze complex systems for the purpose of accident prevention. In FRAM-analysis a visualization of the complex system is created as an aid for identifying points of interaction in the system where the risk of accidents is high, and to determine where preventive measures are to be placed. FRAM Visualizer is a computer program developed as a tool for creating such visualizations.Many usability problems have been identified in FRAM visualizations created both manually according to established method and by using the FRAM Visualizer software. The purpose of this paper is to give a basis for how FRAM visualizations can be improved in accordance with usability criteria for use in future qualitative studies.The author suggests alterations to the FRAM visualization to resolve usability issues identified in previous articles and to achieve usability goals derived from visual communication theory. The design process is guided by established design principles.

Den här rapporten behandlar det examensarbete som har utförts på avancerad nivå av Elin Engquist på utbildningen Innovation och produktdesign vid Mälardalens högtskola. Arbetet har utförts under våren 2009 i samarbete med Interactive Institute's avdelning Energy Design i Eskilstuna. Examensarbetet har avsett produktutveckling av en artefakt för visualisering av elförbrukning i hemmet med anledning av den ständigt ökande konsumtionen av hushållsel. Artefakten har under arbetets gång döpts till BOEL-lampan och framtagandet av denna har skett som en del av forskningsprojektet Visuale som utförts vid Interactive Institue. Forskningsprojektet syftade till att göra konsumeter mer medvetna om sin elförbrukning och som en del av projektet behövde en forskningsstudie genomföras.

The release of Maja Lundgrens Myggor och tigrar in 2007 caused a large debate that mostly focused on whether the book should be seen as a true reproduction of reality or a work of fiction and if the author had made the right choice in writing about friends, family and famous Swedish persons in her book. About one year later Lars Norén published En dramatikers dagbok in which he also shares details about other people´s lives and, by placing the book in the genre of a diary, claims that it represents reality. The critics were easier on him, and more positive over all in their judgment of En dramatikers dagbok, and many were upset about how different the two authors and their books were received. Tofind out why controversial works are apprehended as controversial I have chosen to analyze Maja Lundgrens Myggor och Tigrar and Lars Noréns En dramatikers dagbok, independent of, as well as compared to, each other. While leaning on reception theory andtheories about different ways of reading as well as the autobiography as a genre I have asked myself the following questions:Which factors have led critics as well as the public opinion to speak about Maja Lundgrens Myggor och tigrar and Lars Noréns En dramatikers dagbok as controversial?What do the two books have in common and what separates them?How does the debate differ regarding the two books and what is the cause for that difference in reception?My essay shows that when reading an autobiography or a diary most people cannot separate the book from the author and the life that the book is a reflection of.

The award-winning Norwegian novelist Karl Ove Knausgård achieved great success with his latest book, Min kamp. Both commercially and critically, the novel was praised for its seemingly successful attempt to transcend the boundary between fiction and real life. Focusing on the auto-fictional narrator?s struggle to balance his daily life with his ever so demanding aesthetic ambitions, the novel gives high-detail descriptions of the most basic day-to-day chores, intimately mixed with philosophical reflections on topics such as painting, literature and postmodern civilisation.This essay proposes an alternative perspective on the realism of the novel. Instead of relying on a correspondence theoretical view, which highlights the level of correspondence of a particular representation with reality, I seek, inspired by Martin Heidegger?s thoughts on works of art, to trace a poetics which sees the verity in a work of art as the ?unconcealment? of the world, or the coming-to-being of objects.

The aim of this master's thesis is to study what attitude public libraries in Sweden show towards video games. By using critical discourse analysis as both theory and method we analyse several texts emerging from a debate mainly discussed in blogs. Main topics in the debate are video games in the library, the purpose of the public library and Library 2.0. Our analysis focus on views expressed concerning the work and purpose of the public library, the librarian and the library user - and to identify the main visible discourses in the discussion.Our findings consist of two discourses representing two different views in the debate. We call these two discourses the general educational discourse and the interactive discourse.

Vårt syfte med det här examensarbetet har varit att studera matchning som fenomen och olika matchningsinsatsers effekter på en arbetsmarknad i snabb förändring. Studien tar som utgångspunkt att det som kallas den andra maskinåldern leder till att arbetsmarknaden förändras allt snabbare då allt fler jobb automatiseras, robotiseras och digitaliseras på ett sätt som tidigare förknippades med science-fiction. Vi har intervjuat sex personer som arbetar med vägledande arbetsuppgifter på lite olika sätt inom tre olika verksamhetstyper, arbetsförmedling, jobbcoachning och studie- och yrkesvägledning, om deras syn på matchning och matchningens roll. Studiens resultat visar att behovet av matchning förväntas öka i takt med att arbetsmarknaden förändras allt snabbare och gamla jobb försvinner. Ett av de tydligaste resultaten i studien är att respondenterna ser ett ökat behov av dimensionering, alltså en anpassning av verksamheten utifrån samhällsbehoven, inom skolsektorn för att minska den missmatchning mellan arbetskraft och arbetsmarknad som uppstått genom den allt större valfriheten som individualiseringsprocesser i västvärlden inneburit.

The aim of this Masters thesis is to analyse school librarians and teachers perspective of childrens reading and reading progress, the impact of informational texts on childrens reading and how school librarians and teachers work/teach to improve their students understanding of informational texts. We also intend to study what consequences school librarians and teachers believe that childrens reduced understanding of informational texts can have in the long run and how this could be improved. The theories applied encompass different literature-pedagogical strategies, theories about reading purpose and direction of the reading process together with a theory that shows the school librarys function in the education. The empirical material has been collected through interviews with one school librarian and one teacher at three different schools. The material has then been analysed and interpreted from theories and earlier research.

Problem: Den svenska bankmarknaden befinner sig under förändring. Och i takt med att världen med hjälp av tekniska innovationer blir mindre, blir det också lättare för globala storföretag att etablera sig på nya marknader. Konkurrensen tenderar att öka bland Sveriges banker och det kan leda till att det blir enklare för bankkunder att välja en annan bank. Nu är det upp till bankerna själva att erbjuda tjänster och produkter som motsvarar kundernas krav. Syfte: Uppsatsen ska undersöka attityder samt belysa vikten av relationer och förtroende till personliga rådgivare i banker.

Title: Nu är det dags för fotboll 2.0 I En studie om hur fotbollsklubbar i allsvenskanarbetar med relationsmarknadsföring med hjälp av sociala medier.Short explanation of the titleWe chose the title ?Nu är det dags for fotboll2.0?because it relates to the socialhabits that occurs between individuals within society today. People are moreinteractive online than before due to the development of Web 2,0 and social medias.Main purposeThe main purpose of this thesis is to describe how professional football clubs usesocial media tools to establish, maintain and develop relationships with costumerswithin the field of sports.MethodologyThe thesis is based on a qualitative research with an inductive approach to make itpossible to create a depth within the research. In addition, we have a hermeneuticperspective to build an understanding for the hard labour that is put in action byworkers in the football clubs only for the reasons of making relationships possibleand strengthening bonds by using social media tools. We have gathered theempirical information trough interviews with main leaders within chosenorganizations that use social media tools on an every day basis.

This paper aims to investigate the terms and conditions of a lesbian gaze and a lesbian spectatorship from a feminist and queer theoretical point of view. The empirical material consists of three paintings by the American artist Romaine Brooks (1874-1970).  Brooks was based in Paris in the early 20th century where she was surrounded by a group of intellectual and usually cross-dressing lesbians. The women within this context are the ones depicted in Brooks? paintings and this makes her one of the first artists in modernity to openly portray lesbian and cross-dressing women.