The aim of this thesis is to study the views of public librarians on the subject of controversial video games and how they work with them at the library. The purpose of the study is to answer these questions: What content is controversial in video games according to the librarians? How do the librarians handle the controversial games at the library? Does it exist a conflict between the users and the librarians about the controversial video games? Is it possible to see any underlying reasons or tendencies in the librarians answers? Five qualitative interviews were performed to answer these questions and the collected data was analyzed using the terms, value rationality and instrumental rationality which were collected from a theory by Geir Vestheim. The results showed that the librarians see violence, sexism and racism as controversial content in video games. They handle the games at the library by limiting the access for children with age limits and by not buying the most controversial games in some cases.

The purpose of my Masters thesis is to investigate how childrens librarians in public libraries perceive and meet imposed queries during the reference interview with children and young people. What do childrens librarians think about imposed queries from children and young people? What problems can arise during a reference interview with children and young people, and what strategies can be used to solve them? How can childrens librarians prepare for imposed queries from children and young people that have arisen in school related situations? The study was carried out at public libraries in Sweden. In the review of the literature results from prior research and other relevant material are presented. The theoretical framework includes a communication model on imposed queries developed by Gross, and two other models Levels of Mediation and Zone of Intervention, developed by Kuhlthau.

The aim of this study is to explore if and how library managers market their competence in communication with local politicians. It is also our aim to find a definition of the competence of librarians. The report identifies and describes problems and possibilitieswith marketing of competence to politicians on the basis of one Swedish municipality's library managers. In order to fulfil this aim we have used a literature study on marketing, competence, the political process and the librarian profession. We have alsocarried out an empirical study where we interviewed ten library managers in onemunicipality, seven politicians in the same municipality and ten representatives for central professional organisations mainly in Sweden.The results are that most library managers don't market their competence because they don?t believe in marketing competence.

Local history collections are fairly common among the Swedish public libraries and these collections often contain older or rare material. There are no national policies concerning the preservation of rare books at the public libraries, and the librarians of public libraries may lack that knowledge. The aim of this study is to examine librarians? attitudes toward their libraries? local history collections. We interviewed five librarians in the county of Västra Götaland and also made a small observation study of their local history collections.

The purpose of this thesis was to explore how Swedish librarians working with educational matters In Swedish: studiebibliotekarier experience his/her pedagogic work in the context of a public library. My intention was thus to reach an understanding of how they experienced their educational work. The following questions were asked: 1 How do the librarians experience the physical environment created for their students? 2 How do the librarians experience the co-operation with others involved in their work? 3 How do the librarians experience the formal task that he/she now is given? 4 How do the librarians experience their own pedagogic qualifications regarding the demands that are made upon them by the students? I have interviewed six librarians and incorporated theories on pedagogic roles in an educational context. I reached the conclusion that these librarians believed the environment to be important for the outcome of the students success with their studies.

The purpose of this Master?s thesis is to investigate issues concerning librarians? view on three genres, (a) popular literature for women, (b) popular literature for men and (c) erotic literature, when choosing what to buy for their libraries. A qualitative method has been used and the empery consists of seven qualitative interviews with altogether eight librarians involved in choosing and buying literature. The theoretical framework is built on theories regarding concepts of hegemony and cultural hegemony; the male sex as norm; taste culture and quality. The results show that three of the libraries in the study have a written purchase policy and that the policies that exist are very general.

The main purpose of this Masters thesis was to examine how the Internet and other electronic sources have affected public librarians use of printed reference sources. During the last couple of years the use of the electronic sources - in particular the Internet has become more established in the Swedish public libraries. Our aim was to examine if and how this has affected the use of the printed reference sources. This has been examined on the basis of the following factors: the gender and age of the librarians and how long they have served in the library. We also examined if the size of the library affects the use of the printed and the electronic reference sources and also which factors that are most important when librarians acquire reference sources.

Swedish university libraries traditionally collect recreational readingmaterial only to support the teaching and research interests of theirinstitutions. However many university libraries hold a substantial yetunspecified collection of popular fiction. This thesis investigates theextent of these collections and examines academic librarians' viewsabout students' recreational reading in the academic context and theirattitudes towards the role of fiction and of readers' advisory inacademic libraries. The theoretical framework includes literature andresearch about the benefits of reading for pleasure, collections' rolesand readers' advisory strategies. The empirical material was gatheredthrough quantitative surveys sent to academic librarians in Sweden.The results show that academic librarians are positive about thebenefits of recreational reading for university students.

We have ourselves met misunderstandings about the tasks of librarians. The general opinion is that librarians are positioned behind the charging desk or are putting books on shelves. Other tasks are invisible and unknown to the public. The aim for this study is to explore the tasks that a selection of Swedish librarians does. The questions we have answered are: what do the librarians themselves claim to work with, which competences are necessary for this job, what does our study show regarding the librarian as generalist or specialist and finally; can the tasks that we find in our study help to understand the conceptions profession and status in relation to librarians.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the view on reading and reading promotion in the Culture of Reading (SOU 2012:65), based on three different approaches to reading and reading promotion; the pragmatic, the emancipatory and the traditionalistic. The thesis is based on the following questions; which view on reading can be seen in the Culture of Reading and which view on librarians? reading promotion can be seen in the Culture of Reading. To answer these questions, I am going to apply the aforementioned approaches on the Culture of Reading. The Culture of Reading is an official report from the Swedish government and parts of it will be subject to a qualitative content analysis.

The purpose of this master?s thesis is to examine how librarians perceive the importance of staff reading groups in helping to make fiction more accessible to adult users of public libraries. The study also examines how librarians perceive the learning processes in such groups, and what these learning processes involve and how they appear. The empirical data was acquired via observations of four staff reading groups and interviews with seven public librarians who took part in the groups. In part, the empirical data is interpreted by means of Lena Wilhelmsson?s analytical tool, which deals with changes of perspective within an organised group.

The aim of this thesis is to examine how librarians are workingwith the selection and purchase of feature films in Swedish publiclibraries. I was interested in examining the underlying reasonsbehind the selections. I chose to focus on how librarians areworking and reason about the library´s film collection.The purpose of my study is to answer the following questions:? How are librarians working with selection and purchase offeature films in the public library?? What factors motivate librarians´ selection of featurefilms?? What do librarians reason about the public library filmcollection?To answer these questions I performed interviews with sevenlibrarians in five different public libraries. The results of theinterviews have been analyzed on the basis of the theories andtheoretical model of Sanna Talja.

The aim of this thesis is to investigate how librarians view marketing of the library using social media and how this can be used in a marketing strategy. The theoretical framework for this thesis is based on the 7 Ps of the marketing mix, SWOT-analysis and SWOT/TOWS Matrix. The theory is based on planned elements that make up a product or service offered the market. We have used our own interpretation of the theories to analyse our material. Our main method has been a web-based questionnaire, the questionnaire was sent to 523 librarians active at ten large public libraries and its related branches.

The purpose of this study was to investigate young teenagers 13-16 reading habits and attitudes concerning todays modern teenage literature especially written for the young teenagers. The study also includes the readers apprehension of the literature and how the target group is reached. The study is based on results from questionnaires, interviews and by compiling summaries of literature relevant to this study. Earlier research has been compared with results from this study. Reflections made by teachers and librarians concerning the youths reading habits are an integral part of the study.

The purpose of this thesis is to contribute to the understanding of the work of school librarians with pupils with dyslexia. In addition, the study investigates the cooperation between school librarians and pedagogues concerning the pupils with dyslexia. The two theoretical points of departure are: theory of profession and a model of cooperation built upon Louise Limberg?s and Lena Folkesson?s three categories of librarians? experiences of cooperation with teachers. Qualitative semi- structured interviews with eight qualified librarians constitute the empirical material.