This thesis emanates from the understanding that it is of importance that transgender-themed literature is indexed in accordance with how people who identify as trans name themselves and interpret the concept of trans. Based on interviews with representatives from controlled vocabularies and LibraryThing users who tag transgender-themed material, existing attitudes towards user influence in controlled vocabularies are described and the significance of tagging for transgender-themed material is looked into. With queer theory and postcolonial theory as its main framework the analysis looks at what possibilities there are for users to influence controlled vocabularies and explores possible strategies for a future library catalog that includes the voice of the Other. The study lands in the understanding that many of the resisting attitudes towards user influence within the systems for subject headings in fact lie in the systems? limitations.

Beyond the binary borders of sex -A LITTERATURE STUDY ABOUT TRANSGENDER THEORY AND ITS POSSIBLE CONTRIBUTION TO A SOCIAL WORK CONTEXT. GERGANA TOSEVA KARIN SELIN A thesis in Social work studies (15 credits) at Malmö University, Hälsa och Samhälle 2012. The discussion about sex and gender is always prominent in a social work context. Our purpose and questions are hence based on the discussion on transgender theory and the way of thinking about the non-binary, and how it relates to the nearby theories. The method of the essay consists of a semi systematic literature overview with the focus on discussing transgender theory in relation to other theories and perspectives, such as modernism, post modernism, feminism and queer theory. We answer the following questions: 1. Is it possible to go beyond or exceed the binary of sex and if so, how do we see it in the material we examined? 2. In what way are the existing theories of sex / gender in the binary? 3. Can one featuring a female embodied subject be of assistance to transgender people's search for an embodied subject? We consider it possible to move beyond the binary by using ?fuzzy logic?(Nagoshi & Brzuzy 2010, Tauchert 2002) which is a way of staying in the binary but expanding the term and work in the grey areas instead.

The aim of this thesis is to explore how librarians approach to and knowledge of young people can be seen in their work methods and in activities arranged for young people. I also want to investigate other factors that librarians think can affect how they work. Five interviews were carried out with five librarians who worked with young people at public libraries. The literature review covers; young peoples needs and leisure activities, young peoples attitudes to libraries, activities arranged for them and towards departments for young people at public libraries. Literature dealing with librarians` attitudes and knowledge of young people was also included.

The purpose of this Master?s thesis is to examine the accessibility and barriers of public libraries to intellectual and mentally disabled children and young people. This we will do by examining whether the library staff acts according to policies of the libraries. Our method has been qualitative interviews with library staff and we have also observed the environment, media and marketing of these libraries. As a theoretical starting point of the analysis we use Michael Buckland?s different aspects of access to information.

The purpose of this study is to examine young people?s opinions about libraries using social media for communicative and marketing purposes. There are three research questions: What do young people think about libraries using social media for communicative and marketing purposes? Do they want to interact with libraries in social media and, if so, in what way? Are their opinions and their will to interact influenced by what kind of relationship they have with libraries, their reading habits, and whether or not they use libraries? digital services? Prior research is divided into three themes: library development, marketing, and young people. The theoretical framework is made up of a combination of relationship marketing, using Evert Gummesson?s three catchwords relationships, networks, and interaction, and the engagement pyramid, as depicted by Brit Stakston.

This thesis examines art exhibitions, literature events and music events in public libraries in Sweden. The aim is to study which event occurs most in the libraries in Sweden. I also examine who takes responsibility for the events, who the libraries engage, how much the events cost, and how often the libraries have the events. I also study Swedish cultural politics in purpose to see if the libraries follow the aims and directions decided by the Swedish government. One aim of the Swedish culture politic is to give every citizen in Sweden the same possibility to experience culture, no matter where they live.

The purpose of this Masters thesis is to examine the attitudes of deaf and hear-impaired people towards libraries, information, and culture. The issues are: What are the attitudes of the informants towards libraries and culture? What do reference group theory and the theory of information access-/avoidance implicate concerning the information behaviour of the informants? In-depth interviews with five deaf and hear-impaired university students have been carried out in this qualitative study. The world of deaf and hear-impaired people is presented as well as a survey of political guidelines to make, for example, libraries and theatres more available to disabled people. The research overview analyses scholarly studies on deaf and hear-impaired people.

The aim of this study is to look at censorship and attempted censorship of books about gay, lesbian, bisexual and transsexual (GLBT) people in public libraries in the USA. People from the public can submit formal challenges to a book at the library when they find the material offensive which can lead to those books being taken away from the library shelves. The questions asked are why GLBT- literature is being challenged, and sometimes banned, and how do the libraries deal with the challenges to the books.It is nowadays the people from the public, rather than the government or the librarians that are behind many cases of removal of books with homosexual themes. The study presents some of the fictional GLBT- literature that has been cause for much controversy in the USA. All the five examples mentioned are children?s books concerning GLBT- themes and are among the most challenged books in American libraries in the past twenty years.

The public libraries in Sweden has an obligation to serve all of its citizens, but despite of this they often fail to include their LGBTQ-patrons. Since the year of 2008 RFSL (the Swedish Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights) have arranged a specially designed certification-process based on normcritical criterias that a chosen institution should fulfill to make their work more inclusive for LGBTQ-people. Sollentuna is the first municipal in Sweden to certificate all of their libraries. This study aims to examine what the certification have meant for the public library in Sollentuna and how a normcritical view can contribute to include LGBTQ-patrons at the library. As a method we used a qualitative interview-study to get a full picture of the certification-process and its influence on the public library of Sollentuna.

The aim of the thesis is to study young peoples, defined as boys and girls between 14 and 16 years old, attitudes to library in two municipalities. Notwithstanding the fact that young people, and children, often is given priority in library work, the reality often seems to be another. Attitudes are founded primarily in childhood and therefore it is of great importance to examine how young people regard libraries. Besides studying former research about young people and libraries that has been performed on library and information science, we also have been using concepts and theories from social science. We give a brief outline of youth research and its development and look at official records and legislation to see if and in what context young people are mentioned.

This essay discusses the students? thoughts about the teacher's response to their gender identity. The students discuss their right to have an intergender identity which means that they don?t identify themselves in the traditional sexes, man and woman, and the gender role each category has. They want to be called with a neutral pronoun and not be seen like boys or girls.

The aim of this master thesis is to study if the websites of the Swedish public libraries are accessible to all people. According to the library law all people must have access to the public libraries and their information services. Today, when the Internet is one of the largest sources of information, it is important that all people, including those with different kind of disabilities, children, elderly, immigrants and people with old technical equipment, have access to the public libraries websites.We have in this study considered the graphic user interface, the language, the structure and the navigation possibilities at ten public library websites. We have from a checklist of our own, based upon the opinion of different experts such as Jacob Nielsen and Tommy Sundström, investigated the websites.The main finding of our study is that the websites are generally accessible even thou we found a lack of accessible for immigrants. Most of the websites had some pages in English, but none hade all pages in this language.

We believed that knowledge organisation of manga and manhwa with homosexual (including lesbian) themes might be a challenge for Swedish public libraries. One of the reasons for this is that these themes in manga and manhwa usually occur in genres not directed towards an LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer) audience. To see how Swedish public libraries treat such titles and why they treat them as they do, we examined a selection of public libraries, their collections, acquisitions, cataloguing and shelving of relevant titles. The theory used is mainly Grant Campbell?s binarisms, subject access to LGBTQ literature and critical analysis of knowledge organisation.

The aim of this master thesis is to find out if young people and librarians think that reference groups can support public libraries to meet the needs of young people, and if the reference groups, which the librarians describe, differentiates from the young peoples requirements. I have made a qualitative study with a questionnaire to six librarians who have experience from reference groups and ten interviews with teenagers. The result showed that young people have many interests and needs which can be met from the library. The teenagers were positive to the library and many of them showed interest in having more influence on the library. Many would like to join a reference group, but on the condition that they would be offered real influence.

The aim of this two years master thesis is to explore the relationship between public libraries and deaf adults. I want to know if deaf adults are a prioritized group in Swedish public libraries. Deaf adults use Swedish sign language witch is a visual language and differs from Swedish. I discuss the difference in Swedish Sign Language and Swedish and the importance of Sign Language literature. I also explore what methods can be used for mak-ing the library service towards the deaf group more customer centered and service oriented.The lack of sign language knowledge among the library personnel can lead to communication barriers.