The purpose of this study is to examine how teachers and pupils experience the use of fictional literature as a tool for language development in the teaching of English as a foreign language. Through surveys and interviews and with Vygotsky?s theory on development in a social environment as a theoretical base, I examine which methods are used to promote language development and also which functions pupils and teachers consider fictional literature to have in the teaching of English. Results show that teachers consider fiction to be among the top methods to get pupils to learn English. Teachers and pupils both favour the use of fun and stimulating reading activities as well as group activities where learning is social to go along with the reading of fiction.

The purpose of this essay is to investigate modern influence in the painting Strömkarlen, by Ernst Josephson. Strömkarlen was painted 1884 in Norway. First the essay performed an investigation of earlier researchers statements to establish a ?common truth? that puts the painting in a realistic/naturalistic-romantic context. With the help of Yve-Alain Bois? model, where he sees art from the painters point of wiew, it was possible to use two articles, written by Ernst Josephson in the fall of 1884, where he debates the conditions for art and artists in Sweden.

Vocal technique and interpretation are the key elements of voice training. Thepurpose of this article is to investigate what vocal technique and interpretation meanto teachers and students and how they would describe the relationship between thetwo. The questions at issue, intended to be answered in this article, are the following:What is the relationship between vocal technique and interpretation? How should theteaching be structured for the students to experience progress on the musical plane?What role does the teacher have in the musical development of the student?This is a qualitative survey and the methods of investigation are semi-structuredinterviews and classroom observations. Presented in the article are a number ofresearchers and writers whose thoughts on the subjects have gained great importanceto vocal teachers and students, as well as leading the research on the voice and itsfunctions forward to higher grounds.

The aim of this thesis is to examine how five works of fiction about anorexia and bulimia have been received in Swedish daily press reviews. The investigation is based on 60 reviews, which are analysed with a qualitative method consisting of close-reading and where a feministic perspective is used. The main question concerns how and to which extent the basis of valuation in the reviews is effected by the fact that the books describe a primary female world of experiences. The investigation shows, among other things, that many reviewers consider the books about eating disorders to be too many. They categorize the books about anorexia and bulimia as a genre of its own and place the books into the literary system principally by referring to other books about anorexia and bulimia.

This qualitative study is based upon interviews with librarians. It investigates the librarians? opinions on material adapted for disabled people and examines strategies used to market user friendly services for the disabled. The study explores librarians? views about streaming directly on the internet.

The main purpose of this Master thesis is to illuminate the understanding of local politicians regarding the public libraries and the librarians. We argue that the local politicians´ opinions regarding public libraries and librarians influence the way they act and react in their roles as politicians.In order to achieve the aim of this thesis we focused on following questions:What are the opinions of the politicians:- regarding themselves in relation to the public library?- concerning public libraries in general and its functions especially in the municipalities of their own?- concerning the librarians and their work in a public function?What are the conclusions to be drawn regarding the politicians´ interest and commitment to public libraries in the politic daily-life of the municipalities? Our empiric material consists of qualitative interviews with six politicians elected in two municipalities in the interior of Västerbotten, a northern sparsely populated district. In order to distinguish the various opinions that emerge from the material, we apply a phenomenographic approach. The analysis result we present in three conceivable categories in order to express the different opinions.In general our study points at a positive and favourable attitude to the public library, and all the respondents assume that the municipality ought to offer this service.

Traditionally, the majority of Swedish public libraries have carried out most of their acquisitions through Bibliotekstjänst's binding booklets. In recent years, however, many libraries have complemented the binding booklets and other services from Bibliotekstjänst by other ways of acquiring books, such as Internet bookshops, while other libraries have stopped using the binding booklets altogether. There are various reasons for this development, such as Information Technology making it possible for librarians to compare prizes and services from different retailers. Another important reason is the need for public libraries to meet new needs from their patrons, while remaining on a restrained budget, which often causes a need for reorganization of staff and resources.As a way of meeting the new needs for libraries, Bibliotekstjänst has created Profile Services (profiltjänster), a service in which a library outsources its acquisitions to Bibliotekstjänst. The staff of the library, in dialogue with Bibliotekstjänst, design a profile for the acquisitions for the library in question, in order to determinate which types and genres of literature the library and its patrons are requesting.

Serial killers are present in most Media today: TV-shows, books, magazines, news shows and music. Research about them has been made in many fields, such as criminology, psychology and psychiatry. There is also research about the serial killer as a cultural being. In my paper I have looked into the serial killer in fiction. I have chosen to compare two novels that deal with the serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer.

In a web environment the library and the librarian continue to function in their role as information provider even when the physical library is closed. Research question is to describe how and in what extent the public libraries websites are integrated in their daily activity and what the causes are for that. The empirical material consists of a survey of number of public libraries websites and qualitative interviews with responsible librarians. I have delimited the study by only investigating the websites of Gothenburg public libraries. In my survey of the websites I have studied four spheres; Services, Contact, Structure and General viewpoints.

Internet has made information more easy to get, but also more difficult to retrieve. There is a need for information retrieval systems that assure accurate, reliable and up to date information. Quite a number of both commercial and non commercial search services has been developed on the Internet. We have made a qualitative study of one for-pay product in particular, NetS k, produced by BTJ (Bibliotekstj nst), Lund. It is a database that contains collected, evaluated and classified links, and is especially developed to suit public librarians in Sweden.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine which role public libraries play or could play within bibliotherapy. The study is based on qualitative interviews with five librarians who, in one way or another have experienced bibliotherapy activities. Further, we have interviewed two treatment assistants and one counsellor, who have cooperated with the librarians, to get their view. We have used the following research questions: Which bibliotherapeutic activities, if any, are pursued in public libraries in Sweden, and how do they look upon bibliotherapy? What role do public libraries play/could play within bibliotherapy? Ever since the term bibliotherapy was coined in the beginning of the twentieth century, the definition has been under debate. We have identified four main subjects of discussion.

This paper investigates the relationship between the two modernist writers Katherine Mansfield and Virginia Woolf. The two authors had a frail and complicated friendship that influenced their fiction and fictional characters more than the general public knows. My paper investigates how Woolf can have found her fictional story ideas direct from their friendship. With a comparative theory I?m finding and giving examples of how their friendship is reflected in their fictional stories, and I?m backing up my examples with citations from their own diaries, letters and notebooks.

While almost 23 percent of the students in the Swedish upper secondary school are foreigners, only a fraction of the school libraries? collections consists of literature written in other languages than Swedish or English. This study examines how five school librarians experience the task of working with literature composed in foreign languages in the multicultural and multilingual school of today. The results of the qualitative interviews are analyzed in relation to the legislation and policy documents that the school libraries are working by, and also in relation to the theoretical framework of sociocultural theory and the theories on second language acquisition developed by linguist Jim Cummins.The study shows that while multilingualism is discussed as an important matter in the legislation and policy documents that the school libraries work by, the librarians in this study largely view the question of foreign literature as peripheral. Most part of the librarians connects first language reading to leisure-time activities rather than curricular activities, and stresses that the Swedish language should be prioritized in Swedish schools.

The poor results of 15 year old Swedish students in the 2012 PISA-investigation serve as the main inspiration for this essay. Though aware that PISA measures a range of skills, including math-, science- and reading abilities, a deliberate focus has been placed on the latter. Unsatisfactory math- and science results are sure to bare consequences ahead, but poor reading skills affect the comprehension of all other subjects combined and is therefore of utmost importance.This essay explores the roles of teachers and school librarians in the promotion of reading, as well as their ways of cooperating in strengthening students' reading abilities. Questions of particular interest are:? In what ways do teachers' and school librarians' views of ongoing reading promoting activities differ?? How does the school and school library contribute to reading promotion and reading comprehension among students?? What factors unite teachers and school librarians in their attempts to promote reading, as far as pedagogical roles are concerned?Working on this essay, a total of seven qualitative interviews were conducted.

The thesis examines ?intermediality? in Svenska Bios (Swedish Biograph) first fiction films. Värmlänningarne (1910), Fänrik Ståls Sägner (1910), Bröllopet på Ulfåsa (1910), Regina von Emmeritz och Konung Gustaf II Adolf (1910), Amuletten (1910), Emigranten (1910) and Järnbäraren (1911) are analysed in relation to theatre, literature, music and ?reality?. A detailed discussion of intermediality is combined with specific theories relating to pictorialism and literary presentation in film.