The purpose of this Master's thesis is to investigate the role of the public library when the local government in the municipality arranges distance education at university level. The thesis has two main areas of questioning and these are goals and resources. In the study it is examined if the local goals have changed during the period 2000 until 2005, due to the development of distance education. It is investigated if change actually has occurred and if it has, in what way the goals have changed. It is also examined if and how the goals correspond with the work that is being performed in the public library.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine if and how bibliotherapy can be part of ordinary work in Swedish libraries. Questions: what is bibliotherapy and who can work with it? What are the conditions required? What does it mean to people taking part and to libraries? In this study bibliotherapy is delimited to fiction and activities including discussions, excluded are self-help books and the individuals private reading. The study is based on four qualitative interviews with Librarian and bibliotherapists in Kirklees, England, partaking in nine bibliotherapeutic sessions and a literary survey, together forming a case-study. Conclusions: There is not a single answer to the question what bibliotherapy is, but if one puts stress on the biblio- part of the word, seeing reading as a normal activity it can be part of library work, whereas the therapy- part should be dealt with by professionals outside libraries.

The purpose of this Master?s thesis studies is to examine how information seeking is taught from a pedagogical and didactic perspective. The questions at issue are:? What is the content in information seeking education?? What aims are focused in information seeking education?? What methods are used in information seeking education? The methods being used are empirical studies and studies of literature, within the subject area. The study is inspired by phenomenographical learning theories.

This bachelor?s thesis describes a qualitative case study of a public library as ?third place?, a place besides from home and workplace visited frequently for conversation. The subject is chosen because of the many roles of public libraries. The main query of the study is ?What view does the public library have of its role as third space and how does that relate to the way utilization of the public library as third place is seen??.

The aim of this Master?s thesis is to examine Librarian images and stereotypes in Swedish and American fiction, and to discover if there are any differences between these. The images and stereotypes are also compared to those revealed in previous research. The study is based on ten novels. Five of these are written by Swedish authors and portrays Swedish Librarians.

The aim of this Master's thesis is to examine what effect two different models of acquisition have on user satisfaction with information resources at academic libraries. The two models examined are the traditional model where a subject specialist Librarian makes the selection, and the user-governed model where the larger part of the selection is based on user requests. The scope is the libraries of Roskilde University, which employs the traditional acquisition model and Malmö University, which employs the user-governed. Both libraries have a user-oriented approach to acquisition. The study encompasses a close examination of the acquisition policy through document analysis and interviews with the Librarians in charge of acquisitions at each university, as well as a user-satisfaction survey among the professors and senior teachers on two faculties at each university respectively.

The purpose of this paper has been to study the relationships and attitudes of a few teachers and Librarians as to their co-operation in a combined public and upper secondary school library and to find out what circumstances there may be to exert an influence on their work. The paper has been based upon qualitative interviews with upper secondary school teachers and Librarians as well as on studies of literature relating to our issue. We believe there may be different approaches to the learning process, as these are the relations and attitudes of two professions from different trades. That is why our point of departure has been Roger Säljö's theory about learning and, in our analysis, a few of Jean Donham van Deusen's ideas of joint planning and flexible timetabling. All respondents agreed that co-operation could be better, but the teachers were of the opinion that it must not interfere with their time.

The intention of this essay is to describe the problems with loss of books at three Swedish University libraries. It?s based on interviews with Librarians. The library codes of ethics, the library law and the terms of reference of the libraries are central for my understanding. Interview results: Little was being done to stop theft.

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 thesis is to shed light on how evidence-based Librarian and information practice (EBLIP) is understood and practised at some Swedish hospital libraries, and also to analyze how EBLIP functions as a strategy to bridge the gap between research and practice as described by Haddow & Klobas. The theoretical framework for the study is partly based on Haddow & Klobas description of the gap between research and practice in the field of LIS and partly a description of the EBP-process which plays a key role in the use of EBLIP. Interviews have been done with four people, three Librarians, all with management experience, and an academic development officer, active at three different hospital libraries where EBLIP is practiced. All informants believed that it is important to make use of research results in order to improve services and practice. In their efforts to apply the research findings the informants face a number of hindrances, which indicates a gap between research and practice.

The object of this thesis is to direct attention onto female inmates who is a disregarded user group within the discipline of library and information sciences. This study has been performed on location at the Hinseberg correctional institution where nine female criminal offenders constitute the empirical foundation of our inquiry. The question proposed for solution is as follows: Is there a correlation between socio-cultural prerequisites and the reading habits of the female inmates - and if so how can it be described? Among the conclusions that we have drawn from our study is that the socio-cultural environment has an influence on the well-being of the inmates which in its turn has an impact on their reading. However, the effects on their mental state vary and consequently so does also their reading.

There can be a gap between the author and the reader. This gap is especially remarkable when the author is an adult and the reader is a young person. The Librarian has an important role as an intermediary of literature when it comes to selecting literature for young people. From this perspective the purpose of this paper has been to investigate how young people comprehend the problems and the stories of youth novels, first published in 2001, and to investigate to what extent descriptions of problems occur in this literature and what kind of problems that are described. The investigation consists of three parts: an examination of reviews of youth novels written by editors from Bibliotekstjänst and an examination of a number of youth to examine a number of youth novels that have been read, and sixteen interviews with college students in the first and third grade have also been done.

The theme of this thesis is the professional ethics of public Librarians. Qualitative interviews have been conducted with fourteen public Librarians, with the aim to investigate their thoughts·and opinions concerning professional ethics and their experiences of ethical dilemmas in professional situations.The result shows that the majority of the Librarians often discuss problems concerning what's right or wrong but that the discussions are conducted on the basis of practical situations and not in terms of professional ethics. The majority have vague ideas of how the term professional ethics should be applied on the work of public Librarians, though all the interviewees consider the professional ethical discussion to be important.We examine the Librarians opinions and experiences of ethical dilemmas conceming four subject areas: the principle of the Librarian as a neutral and nonrestricting information intermediary, the principle of equal treatment of all the library visitors, difficulties. concerning media selection and the problems based upon the Librarians flexibility towards the intemal rules of the library. The Librarians experienced the behaviour towards the visitors as the greatest problem.

This Master?s thesis examines library courses, a relatively new form of user education. Our focus is on the pedagogical point-of-views reflected in the text in these library courses. The primary purpose of the study is to analyze the pedagogical discourse displayed in the library courses to determine if the perspective is behavioural, cognitive, constructive or socio cultural. We are investigating if the pedagogical discourse differs from course to course, and if so, how are they different? In addition we aim to find out how the pedagogical discourse in the library courses relates to university websites and governmental and legal texts, at the discursive and social practice level.

The aim of this master thesis is to investigate and illustrate the measures that parents, teachers and school Librarians can take in order to influence childrens reading, and, more importantly, how these attempts performed by the adults in the childs environment affect the reading habits of the child. The methods used include qualitative interviews, undertaken with eight students/children, their teacher and a school Librarian, and an observation of a book talk in the studied class. Considering that no interviews have been executed with the parents, the results presented regarding the parents prospects of encouraging childrens reading, are therefore to be seen from the perspective of the children, and analysed as such. Three different theories have been employed in order to elucidate the results of the study; Bourdieus theory about the cultural capital transmitted from parent to child; Aidan Chambers theory on the book talk as promoting reading; and Louise Limbergs theory on the levels of the school library and its consequent prognosis of working to promote reading. The results of the study concur with Bourdieus theory, in that the childrens reading habits in most cases seem to have been affected by the amount of involvement that the parents have given to promote their reading.