The purpose of this master thesis is to investigate the differences between the traditional way of conducting a reference interview and the electronic way. The main questions of this thesis are: How does the electronic reference interview appear in comparison to the traditional one? How do the Librarians experience the differences? Is quality affected in the electronic reference interview? Examples from Fråga biblioteket Ask the Library have been used in this study. The method used in the investigation is based on qualitative interviews in combination with studies of relevant and recent literature. The Librarians interviewed all have experience from both traditional and electronic reference work.

The aim of the study has been to find out children?s Librarians? views on and management of media that contains topics with a controversial nature and also to find out how this affects the public library as a democratic institution. We have conducted the study by interviewing six children?s Librarians. By using Vestheim?s terms value rationality and instrumental rationality, we have been categorizing the answers from our informants and thus identified two different points of view.

Libraries exist around us and for most of us they are a part of our every day life. But how often do we stop and think about their meaning?Libraries in fiction are usually not the center of the narrative, they play a role quietly in the background and offer a backcloth to the story. Yet they are a vital part of the story. Without them a big part of the magic in the stories would be lost.And what is their role in our lives? What do the libraries mean to the books they harbor, the readers who seek them out and society in which they have their axiomatic role?This essay?s focus is my story ?Between the shelves?, which is about the young girl Julia and the mysterious passageway she discovers in her local library.

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.

The aim of this master´s thesis is to analyse what factors have an impact on the quality of school libraries. The research questions are: How do some school principals, school Librarians and school inspectors view quality in school libraries and what has an impact on quality?How do they view some existing quality criteria?How important do they think the integration of the school library into the curriculum is?The theoretical approach is derived from research about school libraries by David Loertscher and by Sharon Markless and David Streatfield. The empirical material has been collected through half structured qualitative interviews. The informants chosen are principals and school Librarians from three Swedish primary schools (6-15 years).

The public library is an institution that throughout history has been associated with anumber of social codes, that seem to be deeply rooted in the minds of the public. Thesecodes regulates how users act and interact in the library environment and as a library useryou have to obtain knowledge about these social codes.This master's thesis aims at studying how these codes are transferred to children in the earlyschool-age, how children react to the social codes and what effects they have on thechildren's development into library users.The empirical material used in this study consists of observations and interviews. Theobservations are conducted during two school classes visits to a public library and focuseson the interaction between Librarians, the children and their teachers, and the interviewswere conducted with the two Librarians responsible for the library visits.The theories used in this master's thesis consists of symbolic interactionism, in the form oftheories by George Herbert Mead and Erving Goffman, Peter L. Berger and ThomasLuckmanns theories regarding the concept of institutions. Another theory that's used in thismaster's thesis is the one concerning the social aspects of information literacy focusing onthe concept of epistemic communities as presented by Kimmo Tuominen, Reijo Savolainenand Sanna Talja.The result of this study is that the social codes are communicated to the children primarilyby the teachers rather than the Librarians.

Our thesis is an analysis of four Librarians view on LGBTQ and which implications these views have on the practical work with LGBTQ issues in the public library. The three ideal types we can identify are the excluding, the including, and the normcritical approach. We also want to know if the four Librarians? standpoints can be connected to the above mentioned ideal types. We can see that the area where the implementations of the three ideal types are most visible is the way LGBTQ material is displayed in the library space.

The aim of this study is to investigate methods of collection development, the users? influence on selection and quality aspects, focusing on non-fiction literature in Swedish public libraries. To find out opinions of collection development, I use the method comparative literature study. Antonio Gramsci?s concept hegemony forms the theoretical background, and hegemony as concept is related to a library context by using Maj Klasson?s text on the Librarians? different positions of authorities.

This thesis investigates the situation for comics in Swedish public libraries. The main questions is separated into two groups, the first dealing with the physical situation were we investigate placement, cataloguing and shelf arrangement. The second deals with the Librarians attitudes towards comics and how they may affect their work. The base for this thesis is the idea that the comic medium may sometimes be treated different than the rest of the libraries collections. Because of this, a theoretical basis is developed which focus on different views on comics.

The main purpose of this thesis is to examine the process of selecting films at Bibliotekstjänst and at Swedish public libraries. The tools that have been used for analysing and interpreting the results from the interviews and the questionnaire are theory-based models describing the selection process concerning film and Carl Gustav Johannsen?s quality definitions. The result of the investigation shows that Bibliotekstjänst doesn?t really work with any quality definitions in their selection process.

This bachelor's thesis is an investigation into the public libraries'actions following the debate of Stina Wirséns character LillaHjärtat, featured in picture books and films for young children.The character was accused of being racist, due to its similarity tostereotypes such as pickaninnies. Because of this, the books'existence in public libraries was questioned.The purpose of this study is to investigate how Librarians havedealt with these books, and what they have based their decisionson. To explore the background of these decisions we have usedPatrick Wilson's theory of cognitive authority (1983). We haveexamined which cognitive authorities have been used in thedecision-making process of how to handle the books containingLilla Hjärtat, and why these cognitive authorities have beenchosen. The method used in the study is qualitative interviewswith seven Librarians working in public libraries throughoutSweden.The results of the interviews show that the Librarians? mostprominent cognitive authorities have been authors and illustratorsof children's books.

This bachelor thesis is a study about the change of the classificationsystems in Swedish libraries. The empirical data was collected through four qualitative interviews with both research and public libraries. The data was analyzed by the use of organizational theory based upon Joacim Hanssons book Libraries and identity: the role of institutional self-image and identity in emergence of new types of libraries. The empirical result points to a major change in how libraries and Librarians look and work with their collections, it can also be said that the Librarians do not seem to think that the users will be affected at all.The analysis was based on these issues: What positive and negative effects introducing DDC will there be on research- reflective public libraries?What will be the effects on the librarysector introducing the new classification system DDC?What will be the effects on the users introducing the new classification system DDC? .

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how Librarians andteachers work together and with the help of other researchtry to understand what influences this cooperation. The studyis based on the following questions:1. These two professional groups have differentprofessional identities and work in two differentprofessional cultures. How does this affect theircooperation?2.

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 for this bachelor thesis was to form a deeper understanding of Librarians? occupation and professional identity and therefore we have examined library students? and educators? view on professional identity, competence and career possibilities. Our take on this was that there seems to be little interest in managerial positions and we asked ourselves why this is and if we could see a change in interest in the Librarians to become. As our theoretical framework, we chose Andrew Abbott?s, 'Theory of Profession'.