The aim of this study is to examine the services offered by the public libraries in the context of distance learning students. I wanted to examine if there has been any discussion among the public libraries on how the new needs and demands affect them. To get a premonition on the development in Sweden I have focused on the public libraries in the province of Blekinge, which in many ways can be looked upon as precursors. Interviews have taken place with the distance learning students contacts at the local public libraries, the responsible Librarian and a distance learning organiser at the local university college, the county library consultant and one of the chief Librarians. I have reached the conclusion that no thorough discussion on the far-reaching aspects has taken place.

The aim of this thesis is to describe and analyse the development of libraries on Tjörn, an island on the Swedish west coast. I have divided the thesis in two parts, one in which I will describe the libraries development between the years 1873 to 1952 in the municipality of Stenkyrka and one in which I will describe the libraries development between the years 1976 and 1985 in the municipality of Tjörn. The study is mainly based on written materials and a theoretic model will also be used in which I apply three factors, society, the libraries economy and individual actors on the library activity. The libraries in Stenkyrka during the early period were dependent of public grant from the state for their survival and the libraries were undeveloped. The society around them was poor and hardly any money or assistants came from the municipality.

The purpose of this Masters thesis is to investigate how actors involved in a municipal's adult education view students access to information- and library resources. The adult education in the municipal is on contract which means that there are several different actors involved in the realization of the adult education. The raised questions in this study deals with; libraries role within adult education, students needs for becoming information literate and where responsibilities for students access to libraries lies. We used a qualitative method which includes interviews with two principles, a controller, three pedagogues and a Librarian. The empirical data is analysed against taxonomies and categories which originates from the theories of David Loertscher and Christine Bruce.

The aim of this essay is to investigate how national and international guidelines relate to library services to prisoners in Sweden and to further illuminate this through a comparison with some examples from a few European countries. The essay examines what rights to library services Swedish prisoners are given in law, what national and international guidelines say, what demands are placed on the Librarian in the form of education and suitability, what economical resources exist to realise library services to prisoners, what measures are taken to provide for language minorities, and how the security aspect is handled when it comes to computers and information technologies. The information has been obtained through interviews as well as through studies of books, articles and conference proceedings. The essay includes a small case study of how library services are provided for prisoners in Haparanda. Findings point to a gap between the goals that are presented in national and international guidelines and how the library services to prisoners function in reality..

The aim of this thesis is to investigate how libraries market themselves in social media and why they do it. I have studied a certain public library?s process of introducing social media into its marketing mix, the preparations for this process and the effects of these marketing methods.The theoretical framework for this thesis is based on relationship marketing, a theory which focuses on relationships, networks and interaction. My main method has been semi-structured interviews with a Librarian at the relevant library, with the manager of the library and with the head of the municipality?s department of communication.The results of my studies show that marketing on social media is a positive and important thing for libraries.

The aim of this thesis is to examine the Swedish public libraries acquisition processes when it comes to fiction for adults. The thesis focus on how the Librarians responsible for acquiring view literary quality when they manage their collections and how their views coincide with that of the user?s explicit wishes. Furthermore this thesis looks at the Librarians reading habits and how they coincide with that of their perceived users.The study uses literature pedagogic perspective theory to see how the Librarians look at fiction and what they value in it. In order to get answers six Librarians have been interviewed in this study that uses a qualitative approach to getting answers.

The purpose of this master?s thesis is to investigate children?s Librarian?s perspectives on children?s literature and reading of fiction books. This is a comparative study of Swedish and Lithuanian Librarians. The main questions to be answered are how children?s librararians at public libraries motivate their selection and purchase of fiction for children and what kind of considerations there are behind the purchases.

The aim of this bachelor?s thesis is to develop knowledge about how Librarians experience their professional identity, argue for their competence and describe their profession based on their professional skills, tasks, and status. The method that is used to answer the questions of the study is semi-structured interviews with five public Librarians. The theory used in this essay is Ørom?s six Librarian identities plus Schreiber?s experience intermediate identity.

The aim of this thesis is to examine how high school students use their school library for their information-seeking. The theoretical framework is based on Louise Limbergs three categories of students views on information-seeking and Andrew Large and Jamshid Beheshtis three categories of students choice of information systems. Qualitative interviews were used and seven high school students were interviewed. The empirical material was compared and divided into 9 categories. The results show that the students see the school library as a place where they can search for information, but its also considered to be a good place to hang out between lessons to study or to meet friends.

The aim of this Master thesis is, from a sociocultural perspective, to investigate the views the teaching Librarians at Södertörn University Library (SHB) have on learning, information literacy, and their own pedagogical role, and how their views affect user education and their ideas about the future of user education.The research questions used were: How do the teaching Librarians view learning? How is this view reflected in their work with user education? How do the teaching Librarians envisage user education in the future, and how do they work to reach that goal?Five semi-structured interviews were conducted with the teaching Librarians at SHB. The interviews were then analysed using qualitative content analysis.The results of the study show that the teaching Librarians at SHB share a sociocultural view on learning, and take a communicative oriented approach to user education. They believe that communication and interaction support learning, and in the classroom they stimulate discussions both between Librarian and student, and between the students themselves. In the future, they hope for improved collaboration between Librarians and academic staff, and that user education will become a natural element of the curriculum..

The purpose of this bachelor thesis is to gain insight into the attitudes of children´sLibrarian towards the position of the printed Children?s book in today?s medialandscape. The reason for our interest is our belief that Librarian?s attitudes to newmedia and their work practice have an effect on how children perceive books andreading. The study is built on qualitative interviews among four children?s Librarians.Our theoretical framework stems from a variety of researchers within the fields ofpedagogy and media studies such as David Buckingham, Sonia Livingstone, NeilPostman, Ylva Ellneby and Margaret Mackey.

The purpose of the master thesis was to reflect and analyze music library activities and policies in the public libraries in the area around the city of Borås, in the south-western part of Sweden. With this thesis I also wanted to look at the interaction between the public libraries, the music school and the music associations in the same area. To investigate these matters, qualitative method was used in the form of interviews with seven Librarians from seven different libraries and five representatives of different local music organizations. Other methods used were observations and source studies. The literature used discusses the role of the music department of public libraries as well as that of a music Librarian working in a public library.

This thesis examines the subject of reference interviews and the ways Librarians form an opinion of users information needs. Using literature and interviews with three Librarians I look at the questions below: - Why and when are reference interviews needed? - What significance do they have? - What ideas exist about the performance of reference interviews? - Are there any differences in Librarians views of the questions above compared to views in the literature? Results from literature studies and interviews show that reference interviews can be important when Librarians try to find out more about users information needs. However its neither necessary nor possible to analyse all reference questions. Librarians therefore need to determine if a reference interview is needed or not.

This thesis investigates collaboration between teachers and Librarians concerning reading support activities in senior high schools in Sweden. The following questions were posed: 1. How do the teachers and school Librarians cooperate when it comes to promoting reading? 2. To what degree of cooperation is that? And how is the level of cooperation perceived? 3.

The aim of this Master?s thesis is to examine the professional discourses that can be identified in the public library field. My main focus is to look at the professional views on the added value of public library. Questions posed in this study are: how does the professional language look when it comes of speaking and reasoning about the public librarys added value and function, which discourses can be identified in the professional language about the public library, what could the discourses entail for the future of public library? The empirical data consist of four interviews where the respondents have been constituted by public Librarians.