The purpose of this master thesis is to examine how librarians/cultural workers act in projects in order to stimulate and promote reading among children and youth in sparsely populated regions in the county of Jämtland during a period of three years, and if/how these projects differ. The examination is based upon the progress of these projects in four of eight communities. Four librarians and two cultural workers have been interviewed in order to get their view of the proceedings of the projects. The results indicate that the four communities all made up plans for three years but in different ways. They mainly collaborated with the school but also with the board of children's health and the preparatory school.

This master?s thesis deals with the development of the Swedish library catalogue. The thesis primarily has two purposes. Firstly, it describes how the Swedish library catalogue has developed from its first appearance until today. As the Swedish library sector is very extensive the authors have chosen a few catalogues which they have studied more thoroughly.

The aim of this study is to gain knowledge about the internalcommunication at a public library in Sweden, focusing on the flow of information and the library employee?s role as a source and receiver. This is an important subject because internal communication affects not only the internal work, but also the users. Despite this there are few studies about internal communication in libraries. The research questions used are: How do the employees perceive the role as source of information, and what choices do they make before they spread information? How do the employees perceive the role as receiver of information? How do the employees feel that the information flow works in the organization as a whole?The research is founded on five qualitative semi-structured interviews with the library employees.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the benefit of information literacy instruction in two student groups at Kristianstad University, in relation to development of critical information literacy and within the boundaries of the educational goals. This study takes on a critical information literacy perspective that combines critical pedagogy and standards for information literacy in higher education. Two methods have been used for data collection: interviews and questionnaires. According to the results of the study the information literacy instruction provided by the Kristianstad University Library is important and useful for the students in their academic studies. It also becomes clear that the information literacy differs between the two groups as a consequence of the varying information literacy instruction received by the two groups.

The aim of this Master?s thesis is to study how public librarians? view mediation of fiction: the knowledge needed, the thoughts expressed about their own and other adults reading of fiction and how the informants define their roles as mediators of fiction. The method used was qualitative interviews with six librarians at main libraries in Swedish cities of different sizes. The theoretical starting points are Louise M. Rosenblatt?s reader-response theory, Michail Bachtin?s theory of speech genres and Åse Tveit?s and Jofrid Karner Smidt?s theories about mediation of fiction.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the role of bibliotherapy at hospitals and also what knowledge of and insights on bibliotherapy a few Swedish hospital librarians have. Questions investigated are: What role do the hospital librarians think literature has in the treatment of a patient? What is their view on their role as a hospital librarian and do they believe that they can have a part in the treatment of a patient? Is the concept bibliotherapy commonly used or is there another term in use? How important is the linkage between healing and literature? In this study, the view on bibliotherapy is limited to a hospital perspective. The purpose of the study is therefore to investigate bibliotherapy at the hospital. Six qualitative interviews with hospital librarians were performed at three general or combined general/medical hospital libraries.

The aim of this bachelor thesis is to describe how librarians inSwedish public libraries use Facebook and Twitter in themediation of literature. Our study focus on the librarians? role inthat process. The research questions are:? How do the librarians in this study regard mediation of literature through Facebook and/or Twitter in relation to othermediation strategies?? What goals and purposes do the librarians give in the selection of literature that they promote on Facebook and/or Twitter?? What do public librarians think about the future for mediation of literature through social media, how will it evolve?The methodology used was qualitative interviews.

The aim of this master thesis is to discuss the access to literature and reading by mentally retarded persons, and how this is affected by library and care taking staffs awareness of mentally retarded persons needs of literature and reading. The reason why we decided to choose this essay topic, is that there is a lack of research about mentally retarded persons relationship with libraries, literature and reading in the field of library- and information science. This groups needs must be brought to sight, so that they can take part in the literature just as anyone else, on their own conditions. Our study involves interviews with four librarians, three reading representatives and a co-ordinator at the Easy-to-Read Foundation. We can establish that all of our informants prove to have significant knowledge about mentally retarded persons and their needs of literature and reading.

The purpose of this paper is to explore branch librarians? ideals for mediating fiction and their view on the literature that are distributed by the Swedish Arts council. The study is based on the following questions: How do branch librarians reflect about mediating fiction? How do they express their view and their work with literature that are distributed by the Swedish Arts council? And which ideals of mediating can be distinguished from these expressions? To answer these questions a qualitative examination based on interviews with four branch librarians where used. The empiric material where then analysed by Jofrid Karner Smidt?s theory about different ideals for mediating fiction.

The story of the forest - A folded textile wall for flexible rooms in public spacesIn the story of the forest the dragonfly is spinning yarn shiny as the sun. In the story of the forest almost everything can happen and almost everything is also happen there.Inspiration from Lennart HellsingThe goal in this exam work was to create a calm, playful space for children in public spaces. A place where children can hide and relax without being disrupted by the surrounding, a place where their imagination can grow and take place. The goal was also to make a flexible space for public spaces that could be used in different ways. Today many libraries want to be more than a library, they will work as a meeting place and you can find several activities to join in.

The purpose of this Master?s thesis is to investigate how librarians solve difficult reference questions. The aim is to discuss the nature of reference work ? do librarians make conscious decisions regarding search strategies or do they rely principally on their instincts, or simply chance. The thesis is a qualitative study.

The purpose of this master?s thesis is to examine what needs and expectations the patrons have on the local public library services for adult students. With increased knowledge of these matters the library will be able to support and improve the service for users. The focus is on adult students with immigrant background who study Swedish as second language in a municipal adult education school. The main questions are: How do adult students use the library at present? What do they consider to be most important when using the public library for their studies? How do these expectations correspond to their experience of the library services? Two focusgroups and one in-depth interview were carried out.

The aim of this master?s thesis is to explore what learning potentials there are in Demoteket. Demoteket is an on-going project that preserves and exhibits young people?s artistic creations. The idea is that public libraries receives and lends out the young people?s artistic creations.

The purpose of this thesis is to determine how well a student is prepared as a future librarian at BHS in Borås, when it comes to serving individuals with hearing disabilities at the libraries. The theory and combined methods is that of discourse theory, interviews and Webb searches. The source material for this thesis comprises course material from 2002 and 2003, with the main focus on the spring term 2003 and on what is called the users perspective användarperspektivet. The study is divided into two parts: firstly, to determine the students expected knowledge and his/her future professional identity through this knowledge. The user groups that were mentioned to the students during the education were also linked to the students knowledge.

The purpose of this master's thesis is to examine how the public library communicates with young users through the library web sites. Four Swedish public library web pages for children are analysed. In the analysis the web pages are treated as a combination of semiotic resources that, communicating as a whole, hold a meaning potential. In order to identify the underlying meaning of the whole I have applied the tools of Kress' & van Leeuwen's visual social semiotics to the chosen web pages.The information value, the framing and the salience of each composition is examined and analysed, as is the size of frame, the perspective and the vertical angle of a selection of images from each web page. The results of the semiotic analysis are then discussed and related to Jochumsen et al:s four space-model and the notion of ?child perspective? and ?empowerment?.The results show that the child perspective is strongest on the web pages that represent the performative space as dominating and that empowerment is mainly represented as ?doing?, ?participating? and the ?free choice?.