This thesis presents a new way of providing library users with reference services, namely chat (text based digital reference service in real time). Our research questions focus on the role of reference service, a comparison of chat reference to other reference forms, and the interest for real-time, digital reference. Our literature review covered the areas of digital reference and reference theory, the results of which showed that an ongoing debate hardly exists among Swedish librarians on the topic of reference work. We interviewed librarians from the three different Swedish chat reference projects existing at the time of our study. Most interviewees were very positive about chat reference.

10 years ago the School Library Forum´s core activity started; the development of model libraries. Since then, no comprehensive study of the School Library Forum has been made. How does the organization actually work and how do professionals perceive the changes of the organization? Against this background, the purpose of my essay is to examine the activity of the organization School Library Forum with a focus on organization and learning from the viewpoint of the learning organization. The following issues have been helpful to meet the purpose of the study:? How do the business developer, the principals and the school librarians experience the collaboration on the school-libraries model-library activity?? How does the collaboration contribute to learning within the organization according to the business developer, the principals and the school librarians?? How do the business developer, the principals and the school librarians perceive the changes in the School Library Forum´s organization, seen from the perspective of the learning organization?By conducting five interviews with stakeholders in various positions within the organization, such as business developer, principals and school librarians, a deeper insight into how respondents perceive the business from the perspective of the learning organization is obtained.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the view on reading and reading promotion in the Culture of Reading (SOU 2012:65), based on three different approaches to reading and reading promotion; the pragmatic, the emancipatory and the traditionalistic. The thesis is based on the following questions; which view on reading can be seen in the Culture of Reading and which view on librarians? reading promotion can be seen in the Culture of Reading. To answer these questions, I am going to apply the aforementioned approaches on the Culture of Reading. The Culture of Reading is an official report from the Swedish government and parts of it will be subject to a qualitative content analysis.

This master?s thesis looks at discourses that use the pronoun ?hen?. The media debate in Sweden over this pronoun in 2012 started in connection with the publishing of a children?s picture book: Kivi och monsterhund, by Jesper Lundqvist and Bettina Jansson. The essay investigates how eight librarians, who take an interest in and work with gender issues, talk about the pronoun hen and about this picture book and other books that have characters which are not named as a sex/gender.The essay takes a discursive perspective on reality and on the construction of knowledge and carries out a discourse analysis of the librarians? talk in the qualitative interviews that were made for this study.

The aim of this thesis has been to achieve a deeper understanding of how librarians provide adult readers with individually adapted readers´ advisory in public libraries. The focus within this context, has been to find an answer to how the librarians understand what appeal factors the readers are attracted to and what kind of reading experience the readers are looking for to be able to match book and reader.To be able to find answers to our research question we conducted eight interviews with librarians working with readers´ advisory in eight different public libraries in Skåne. Our theoretical standing point for the thesis has been that of Marie L. Radford and Cathrine Sheldrick Ross. Sheldrick Ross provided theories concerning the appeal factors of books.

The aim of this study is to look closer at collection development and the use of collection development policies in Swedish public libraries, with the help of a few examples. Through interviews with three librarians in three different public libraries and an analysis of these libraries? collection development policies, the authors try to find out how the creation of collection development policies takes place in these libraries, how these librarians use the policy, how these policies have been followed up and revised, and also to see what the policies of these libraries include. The material of the study suggests that a lot of work is required to write the policies, and that the written policy itself is seldom used by the librarians. The interviewed librarians still find the policies useful because the writing of them gave a detailed understanding of what the collection of the library contains.

The purpose of this bachelor thesis is to describe how Swedish public libraries use the online social network Facebook and its functions. Our focus of this study lies on how the librarians use the network and what experiences they?ve made. The questions we wanted to answer were:? How do the libraries in this study work with Facebook and its services? ? What do the interviewed librarians think about working with Facebook as an instrument?? What pros and cons can be identified from working with Facebook?The methodology used for this study was qualitative interviews.

The main purpose with this Master's thesis has been to through a case study investigate and analyze the music library activity at the Public Library in Lund, in order to find out according to which ideas and principals this activity is run by. It also discusses how you at the music department handle your task as intermediary of music and how well this coincides with the users expectations. To give the research more depth a special analysis has been made, assuming the perspective of the B&I-researcher Sanna Taljas' three perspectives regarding the music department. She identifies three perspectives in maintaining a music library, which she calls the general education, alternative and demand repertoire.The examination is based on an empirical research, where five librarians were interviewed and fifty users have responded to a survey, but the essay also includes a literary study carried out to explore which ideas there are regarding the music department's missions and roles in the existing literature.Librarians and the user's opinions coincide quite well. What distinguish the most are the opinions surrounding the competency of the music library.

The object of this essay is the Swedish author Agnes von Krusenstjerna's novels Ninas dagbok (The diary of Nina) and Helenas första kärlek (Helena's first love) as well as the cycle novel Fröknarna von Pahlen (The misses von Pahlen). The purpose is to explore her use of the discourse of girls' fiction, which I analyse by the depiciton of women's sexual awakening, and her depiction of sadomasochism. The theories of Elaine Showalter, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault and Judith Butler are used.Women's sexual awakening is depicted similarly in the novels but more explicitly in Fröknarna von Pahlen. In Ninas dagbok and Helenas första kärlek there is an eroticization of dominance and submission, which is not explicitly sadomasochistic. In Fröknarna von Pahlen, sadomasochism is explicitly described as a "perverted" sexuality and reveals the inequality in the violent sexuality, which is described as "normal".

The object of this bachelor thesis is to examine how publiclibraries are working to reach out to boys in their early teens,and from a relationship marketing perspective see howlibraries are using marketing as a tool in creating long-termrelationships with this user group. The following questionsare asked: How do public libraries market themselves toboys in their early teens? How are children?s and youthlibrarians working to create long-term relationships with thisuser group? How do children?s and youth librarians viewmarketing as a way to create long-term relationships with theuser group? The theoretical framework of the study is EvertGummesson?s model of relationship marketing. Interviewswith five children?s and youth librarians make up theempirical data.

The purpose of this Master?s thesis is to study howuniversity librarians in a South African context relate to theconcept of information literacy. We investigated differencesand similarities in approaches to user education andinformation literacy. We have based our study on thefollowing research questions: What are the prerequisites foruser education at the University of the Western Cape? Howdo these prerequisites influence librarians' approaches toinformation literacy and user education at the University ofthe Western Cape? We have used a sociocultural theoreticalperspective and Hofstede's cultural dimensions in orderto pay particular attention to the cultural and social contextof user education.

The main purpose of this Bachelor´s thesis is to investigate the visions chief librarians have for their public libraries. The world around us and our way of living is changing as the society is changing ever more rapidly. This evolvement also influences the public library, its role for society and individuals, its activities and its design. The question is how the public library can face these changes and what function and role it can get and make for itself in the future. Through qualitative interviews with five chief librarians our aim is to answer the main question of this thesis: What are the visions that chief librarians on public libraries have for the public library´s future? This study also contain the role the chief librarians give the public library of today and what they mean is necessary for their visions to be achieved.

The aim of this thesis is to investigate how children experience librarians, their knowledge, assignments and appearance. The children?s thoughts about libraries and librarians in general are also studied. Empirical data has been collected by interviewing children aged 8-12 years old. The method used is qualitative interviews performed individually, in pairs and groups.

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.

The purpose of this essay is to analyze three works that are regarded as fictional biographies. In all three selected works the protagonists are historical Swedish women who are known for being a part of the cultural sphere of their time. Two of them are also recognized as important and somewhat pivotal characters in the struggle for women?s rights at the turn of the 19th century. The analyzed works, however, accentuate the women?s private life.