In this thesis, rare book collections in university libraries are studied. University libraries function primarily as service institutions for students and researchers. Rare book collections may to some extent be seen as a part of this service. Stockholm and Uppsala University Libraries are the focus in this thesis. They participate because of their difference regarding their rare book collections.

During the late 1990s a movement with the intention of forming independent libraries emerged on Cuba. They were seen as an alternative to the public libraries which were supposed to be suffering from censorship by the Cuban government. The purpose of this thesis is to compile and bring structure in a debate regarding public libraries on Cuba and what have become known as independent libraries. In this thesis a textual analysis has been approached for examining articles, websites and reports concerning what attitudes and position the library support organizations Friends of Cuban Libraries FCL, Cuban Libraries Solidarity Group CLSG and IFLA/FAIFE have regarding the two different library types. These positions is throughout the survey connected with the concept of intellectual freedom.

Detta kandidatarbete undersöker science fiction, en av de större och vanligast använda genrerna inom medier såsom spel, film och litteratur, genom att studera dess undergrupper, de så kallade subgenrerna. Dessa är specialiserade versioner av genren i fråga och använder den inom vissa förutsatta ramar, exempelvis hur samhället ser ut eller vilken typ av teknologi det huvudsakliga fokuset kretsar runt. Genom att studera hur subgenrer är beskrivna i The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction kan man avgöra att de består av sex punkter: plats, tidsperiod, karaktärer, teknologi, narrativ och visuell estetik. Dessa punkter har använts som ramverk för att utveckla en ny subgenre; Mystech, där scenarier utspelar sig i vad som kan ses som en typisk fantasyvärld med magi och monster, men där dessa egentligen bara är teknologi majoriteten av de påverkade inte förstår sig på. För att demonstrera Mystech har två olika miljöer utvecklats, både i bild och skriven form.

The purpose of this Master?s thesis is to examine the accessibility and barriers of public libraries to intellectual and mentally disabled children and young people. This we will do by examining whether the library staff acts according to policies of the libraries. Our method has been qualitative interviews with library staff and we have also observed the environment, media and marketing of these libraries. As a theoretical starting point of the analysis we use Michael Buckland?s different aspects of access to information.

The title of this Master´s thesis is Multicultural librarian competence - a literature study and interwievs with librarians and managers in Malmö Public Library.Every fifth Swede is born abroad or has at least one parent who are. The migration flows of today reach out longer, there are more efficent ways of communication and travel. This has made previously ethnic homogeneous populations as the swedish more and more hetergeneous. Library services to inmigrant users started out as a specially directed activities. The political view of migration has changed over the years and the current perspective is the one of mutual integration and cultural diversity.

This essay is about leadership in libraries within the academic world, i.e. leadership in research libraries. To place our survey in a context we begin the theoretical review with a chapter about organisation theory. We dont think its possible to separate the leader from the organisation so we wanted to describe the organisation and its effect on the leadership. The next theoretical section is about leadership research.

My essay is about the latter period of Anne Charlotte Leffler?s authorship. In Part I of my essay, I describe her path from the 1880s, where she described femininity as a shortcoming, as writes Ingeborg Nordin-Hennel, towards the 1890s and towards describing femininity as a possibility. This development took place on two levels ? on an outer level, where all the woman writers in the late 1880s were influenced and where they were pushed out by the male writers, and on an inner level with Leffler herself.Her late literary works depict new and more independent types of women, and eroticism is given a more prominent position.

Humanity has always dreamed about a better world. These dreams has manifested themselves in the vision of Utopia - the good place, but also the non-existing place. Up until World War II man still wrote optimistic descriptions of this ideal world, and spread the idea through literature. In the aftermath of the atomic bomb and under the influence of the cold war, these publications seized to surface in literary surroundings. Despite this utopia did not die - it has only changed.

I denna uppsats undersöks hur deltagarkulturen ser ut på gräsrotsnivå, hos de som skriver och läser fan fiction. Utifrån två fan fic-berättelser undersöks interaktionen mellan författare och läsare. Eftersom forskningen inom fan fiction och deltagarkulturer belyser möjligheten till lärande undersöks hur och om konsumenternas produktion på denna nivå främjar lärandet i skapandet av fan fiction. En intressant aspekt när det gäller deltagarkulturen är hur gränsen mellan producent och konsument blir diffus. Kan man, utifrån undersökningen utläsa om gränsen mellan dessa, producent och konsument ? författare och läsare ? upplöses? Frågeställningar för undersökningen är:Hur interagerar läsarna och författarna med varandra?På vilka sätt engagerar sig läsarna i berättelsen och dess utveckling? Hur förhåller de sig till författarens tolkning och hur ser de/använder de sin roll som läsare?På vilka/vilket sätt uppmanar och/eller uppmuntrar författarna kommentarer och respons från sina läsare? Hur hanterar de kommentarerna?I vilken utsträckning framträder en informell lärmiljö på communityt? Hur ser den ut och kännetecknas den av deltagarkulturen?.

Using a discourse analytical approach this thesis examines a selection of user reviews concerning Stephenie Meyer?s Young AdultNovel Twilight, published at LibraryThing 2009-07-01 ? 2010-12-31. The aim of the study is to identify and shed light upon the conceptions relating to target audiences distinguishable in the reviews and todiscuss the possible consequences of categorizing fiction by age of theintended reader. In order to accomplish this, the study examines the conveyed images of Young Adult fiction and grown ups? reading of Twilight.The thesis concludes that several discourses regarding Young Adult fiction are distinguishable in the material; some of which concern level, quality, and writing style, others thematic and contentbasedaspects, while one concerns fiction aimed specifically at girls.

Dagens film och spelkoncept inom genrerna science fiction och fantasy börjar likna varandra mer och mer och för oss känns inget längre annorlunda. Genom att basera dem på historiska samhällen och kulturer hoppas vi på att bryta normen. Vi hoppas att med detta som grund kunna skapa realistiska och trovärdiga folkslag som skiljer sig från det som funnits tidigare. Detta examensarbete handlar om konceptutveckling av en fiktiv värld och tre fiktiva folkslag. Konceptet skall kunna appliceras på både film och spel men även litteratur eller andra medietekniska områden.

Several public libraries are displaying media, such as literature, on the websites of their own. The purpose of this Master?s thesis is to make a survey of the display phenomenon at Swedish public libraries. Therefore the authors of this essay seek to understand why media is being displayed on the websites of public libraries, how it is being displayed and what kind of consequences the displaying will provide according to the respondents. The theoretical framework is based on different theories where marketing and availability defines the equal summary.

In public libraries there seems to be an unspoken consensus on what literary quality is. At the same time librarians are always eager to express the opinion that quality lies in the eye of the beholder. Quality is, it is said, something that you don t have to define. But at the same time it s up to everyone to decide what quality means to them. What I have been missing from the discussion in libraries about literary quality is a theoretical awareness about what it means to divide literature into higher and lower spheres.

The aim of this study is to illustrate conceptions held by librarians and library and information scientists about weeding practices of printed books in public libraries. The study has been carried out by performing a series of qualitative interviews with librarians and by study of earlier research relating to the subject of weeding. The results have been analysed by utilizing a textual analysis method called idea and ideology analysis using so called dimensions to analyse and structure the results. The results indicate that weeding at Swedish public libraries is carried out by a mixture of objective and subjective methods, with certain statistical elements. Weeding procedures mainly appears to be legitimized according to what one refers to as knowledge of the local community, although lack of lending are cited from time to time.

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.