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 purpose of this Masters thesis is to study how librarians experience reference work. We wanted to get a better understanding about librarians assignments through the study. We chose to limit the study to public libraries, and to the south of Sweden. The questions used in our study are: How do librarians interpret the conception of reference work? What values do librarians have concerning reference work? How do librarians experience reference work? How do librarians look at different roles in reference work? We chose to use a fenomenographically inspired method.

The aim of this thesis is to study through discourse analysis how users talk about librarians and the librarian profession and what perceptions they have regarding it. I have tried to do this by asking the questions: How do the users describe librarians and the librarian profession? Are there any patterns in what they say? The method and theory I have used is Laclau and Mouffes? discourse theory and partially structured interviews. The material consists of interviews with eight users that are both women and men, both students and members of the public and they were between 25 and 50 years old. In the material I found two discourses: the discourse about librarians and the discourse about the librarian profession.

This master's thesis in Library and Information Science examines how the genre division of the horror fictionis constructed at the children and youth department of a library by studying subject headings of the titles.The aim is to examine what is included in the genre, in the two labelings called vampire and nail-biter/spine-chiller, what separates them, and what difference there is between children and youth thrillers/horror fiction. Also the cover designs and how readers portray these books are studied. The study is made in order to develop the knowledge of the genre to help librarians and borrowers. The great popularity of the genre among borrowers and people in general, and the importance of having knowledge of things that borrowers are interested in, are the motivation of performing the study. The method is a case study and conducted with and based on genre theory which shows how a genre is defined, how it can be divided and what conventions there are for the horror fiction in particular.

The aim of this Master?s thesis is to investigate different ways of illustrating the information literacy of librarians and with a pragmatic view survey what has been written about marketing the librarians. The thesis is based on a marketing theory introduced by Philip Kotler. He believes that marketing is a social process and that everything can be marketed. I have reviewed three marketing strategies and their significance in marketing the information literacy of librarians.

The aim of this Master's thesis is to investigate the importance of subject expertise for academic librarians in Skåne. Virtually all librarians in Sweden have studied other subjects besides library and information science (LIS) before becoming librarians, and in this thesis we ask what happens to this expertise. How many librarians can be said to have a good background in the subjects they are working with? Do academic librarians use their subject knowledge on the job? Does it make a difference what subject one has studied when it comes to job opportunities? What do librarians themselves think of the importance of subject expertise? We are also interested in finding out how subject expertise fits in with the growing professionalization of librarianship.A quantitative questionnaire was sent to 195 academic librarians at four different institutes of higher education in Skåne. A total of 107 librarians answered questions about their LIS education, subject background and current job as well questions on how important they perceived a subject background to be for themselves and for academic librarians in general.

The purpose of this Master's Thesis is to explore the influence of fiction on the identity and self-esteem of young women. The purpose is also to investigate if there are any books that they consider to be of importance for their identity. Furthermore, I investigate what appeals to young women generally in fiction and if it is difficult for them to find books that appeal to them. The primary question posed in this thesis is: How does fiction influence the identity development of young women? The data collection is based on literature on the subject and on interviews with eight young women between 15 and 20 years old.

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.

I denna studie undersöker vi tre musiklärares syn på interpretation i en pop/rock-orienterad ensemblemiljö. Studien genomfördes med hjälp av tre kvalitativa forskningsintervjuer där informanterna bestod av verksamma ensemblelärare i gymnasieskola samt högskola.Resultatet av studien visar att de intervjuade lärarna är eniga om att interpretation är viktigt, oavsett vilket instrument lärarna spelar eller vilken genrepraxis de följer. Däremot skiljer sig metoderna åt när lärarna interpreterar beroende på instrument och sammanhang. I resultatet reflekterar de intervjuade lärarna över vad interpretation innebär och beskriver olika tillvägagångssätt för att implementera detta i undervisningen..

The aim of this study is to examine a number of Swedish working public librarians and compare them with some popular standard images of librarians. In this project we have been working in line with these three questions: How do the librarians describe themselves and how can the descriptions be interpreted? What images are the most common and repetitive, according to earlier research? What differences and similarities are there between the images of the librarians and the working librarians? To answer the questions we have performed seven qualitative interviews with working librarians and collected relevant literature that presents various portrayals of librarians. To interpret the interviews we have used Pierre Bourdieus theories of social space, social fields, habitus and the cultural, academic, social and the economic capitals, as well as the connection between individual taste, class and social power. The conclusions of the collected material of earlier research and the interpreted material from the interviews have been compared and discussed.

The aim of this Masters thesis is to examine how the images of librarians are conceived and held by the public. It has often been claimed that librarians are subject to widely spread negative stereotyping. My purpose is to study the nature and origin of these stereotypes. Since popular media is one source of these stereotypes and images I have chosen to look into how librarians are characterized in 20 Swedish novels written between 1982-2002. The questions this thesis aims to answer are: What images of librarians occur in the novels? How are the tasks of the librarians respectively described in the novels? How are female and male librarians respectively described? The analysis of the novels is then compared with interviews with three professional librarians about their view of their professional role and their perceptions of its status and image.

The aim of this Masters thesis is to examine how five childrens librarians in Ireland and five in Sweden interpret and implement the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in public libraries. This study is hermeneutic. Using a qualitative method consisting of ten interviews with childrens librarians and structural factors such as; library policies and laws; together with an insight into Irelands political, social and economical history and the historical development of childrens public libraries in Sweden and Ireland, has enabled us to create an understanding for the interviewees statements. Anthony Giddens structuration theory has been used for the analysis, helping us to determine how the duality between the structure, the actors and their action effect the interpretation and implementation of the Convention in librarian work. The result of the analysis clearly shows that in comparison to Irish librarians, the Swedish interviewees are more aware and have a better understanding of the Convention and how to put it into practice.

The aim of this Bachelor?s thesis is to find out what librarians think about the public libraries? collections. How do they want to develop their collection and what do they want the collection to offer society?Sanna Talja has developed a theory about different attitudes regarding collection development. These are named ?the general education repertoire?, ?the alternative repertoire? and ?the demand repertoire?.

The aim of this thesis is to investigate how purchasingmanagers in bookshops and public librarians reason withregards to their selection of fiction literature. Nineinterviews have been conducted in this qualitative studymade in the spring of 2013; four librarians, four bookmerchants, as well as a market director of a major chain ofbookstores. Our focus has been particularly directed toascertaining what influence the cultural-political mission oflibraries have had on the process of selection, as well as theextent to which factors such as demand and quality play apart in both organizations. We have been interested inseeing how libraries and bookstores compare with regards tothese factors, because of obvious differences in their goalsand purposes. Librarians see both the benefits and flaws intheir way of working, as well as in the way in whichbookstores conduct their business, and vice versa, that theyare often successful in cooperating, like when arrangingvisits from authors etc.

The aim of this Master?s thesis is to examine how public librarians, including school librarians, express themselves about librarians in library journals. Questions asked in the study are: How is the knowledge, tasks and roles of librarians described? How do the librarians describe their own and others perceptions of librarians? Are there any contradictions in how the librarian profession is described and if so, what are they? 56 articles from three Swedish library journals, Biblioteksbladet, bis and DIK-forum in the period from 1990 to 2007, are analysed. The theory and method used is discourse analysis.