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 problem presented in this masters thesis is: How can pedagogical theory be used to illuminate and analyse attitudes of librarians in reading promotion activities for children and young people? The aim is to investigate librarians pedagogical role and attitudes in reading promotion activities for children and young people. The following questions are asked: · How can the pedagogical role of librarians be understood on the basis of different pedagogical perspectives? · How do librarians describe their pedagogical role in reading promotion activities for children and young people? · Is there a relation between pedagogical perspectives and the ways in which reading promotion methods are developed by librarians? Reading promotion methods investigated are booktalk, discussions on reading and summer reading challenges for children and young people. The methods used in the study are literature studies, qualitative interviews and observations.

The purpose for this Masters thesis is to describe childrens librarians work in supplying literature to children with emphasis on easy-reader materials. Our main questions are: · What do librarians believe characterizes an easy-reader book, and what do they base their decision on when classifying a book as easy-to-read? · How have the libraries in our study solved the hands-on difficulties associated with easy readers childrens literature? · Which factors do librarians consider to be important when supplying literature to children that are not used to reading or are not good readers? The theories we have used are Aidan Chambers Reading Circle and Karner Smidts view on the librarians professional roles when supplying literature. We have used a case study method, which means that we have gathered information through observation, objective papers and interviews. This has been done at six libraries.

With an increased empowerment of the users, and a dependence on outside critics, one wonders what kind of role the librarians have in a context where qualitative literature is discussed. The aim of this study is to examine the relationship between librarians private and professional views on qualitative fiction, in order to be able to discuss their role as quality intermediaries in a user oriented context.The method used, is the qualitative, semistructured interview. This author interviewed seven librarians from three different libraries in Sweden. The theoretical emphasis partly relies on the ten words of qualitative value that Inger Elam and Bengt Brülde discusses in their respective texts, partly on David Garvins quality assessment theory, which defines several quality categories divided between an absolute and a relative quality view.Through the comparison between the private and the professional quality view, examined with the two theoretical approaches, the analysis of the interview material shows that there lies a complexity in the librarians professional role. On the one hand, they are dependent of both the users and the critics judgements about the qualitative aspect in the work with purchasing new literature to the library.

This master thesis deals with the problem of integrated libraries. The number of integrated public and school libraries has significantly increased over time. These libraries are integrated for different reasons, most often because of economic considerations. The goal of the thesis is to investigate librarians´ understanding and perceptions of the professional role in this type of integrated libraries. I have investigated how librarians see and interpret their own professional role, and what factors influence their perceptions in an integrated library.The three main questions are: How do the librarians explain their professional role in an integrated library? How does their professional role change because of the fact that they work in an integrated environment? What factors, according to the librarians, influence and/or change the professional role mostly? The data has been collected through interviews with eight librarians at integrated libraries.

The aim of this essay is to investigate how patrons, librarians and indexers use subject headings to describe and index fiction literature. We wanted to know if the groups concentrated on different levels in the text from a semiotic viewpoint, where words either can describe the manifest/connotative meaning or the latent/denotative. To investigate this we had four fiction indexers, four librarians working with fiction for adults and eight library users read and index four short stories. After that we did interviews asking them about how they were thinking when describing the texts, how they use subject headings, about their opinions on indexing and, in the interviews with the librarians and indexers, about their usual work assignments. The subject headings they listed were analysed according to the level they described.

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.

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.

This bachelor thesis explores how librarians are portrayed in fiction literature. The aim is to see how the librarian and their work tasks are described. Our material consists of 12 fiction novels from the years 2000 to 2012 (with an exception of a book from 1998). We have used discourse analysis in order to examine the picture of the librarian.We have used three major questions: How is the librarian portrayed in our selected fiction literature from year 2000 until today (the beginning of 2013)? How are the librarians profession portrayed in our selected fiction literature? Does our selection of the fiction literature give a positive or negative image of the librarianand how can that affect the view of the profession?Our analysis resulted in the discourses the librarian and literature and the librarian and the library.

This dissertation discusses head librarians in Swedish public libraries and the stress factors which affect them. The aim is to map out potential stress factors which head librarians come across in their day-to-day work. The purpose of the dissertation is to answer the following question: what stress factors affect library managers in Swedish public libraries? The dissertation was conducted through a literature study, informal interviews and a quantitative questionnaire. The results of the quantitative questionnaires show that the factor that produces the highest level of stress is having too many different tasks.

The aim of this master's thesis is to examine whether librarians working in public libraries see fiction as a source of knowledge, and what role this plays in the educational mission of the public library. This investigation, which consists of a literary study and an empirical section, shows that the concept of phronesis denotes practical wisdom and moral thinking, and that it can be applied to that form of knowledge to which reading can contribute. An important issue in this context is the reader's motivation to learn. The interviews show that librarians see literature as a source from which knowledge can be drawn. When they mediate literature, they believe that they are conveying something of value and they set great store in mediating literature which could have a not inconsiderable import to the borrowers.

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 web is a constantly growing medium that presumably plays an increasing role in public library reference services. In order to provide high quality reference service the librarians need to be able to master this medium. Therefore it is interesting to get an understanding of how librarians actually use the web. The aim of this Master s thesis is to investigate what web search tools are used by public librarians in reference service. Furthermore, the aim is to get an understanding of how the librarians think about those tools and what background factors influence their selection of tools.

There is an increasing demand for information literacy, which is mirrored in curriculum throughout the whole educational system. This, in turn, has brought forward a growing need for librarians who can teach. But do librarians possess pedagogical competence, and if they do, how is this ability used in everyday library practice? The aim of this study is to investigate librarians' conceptions of the pedagogical role, as it is expressed in their didactic interaction with the users. The research questions focus on librarians' experiences of teaching information seeking and use and their activities in this respect.

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.