The purpose of this study is to examine the experiences and perceptions of children`s librarians regarding floating collections in public libraries in Gothenburg. In focus for the study are the experiences and perceptions that exist among children`s librarians when it comes to children as library users, the librarian`s working tasks and the professional role as a librarian. The empirical material has been collected through semistructured interviews with six children`s librarians. The material has been analyzed twice. The first analysis has been conducted through qualitative content analysis.

The purpose of this bachelor thesis is to examine reviewswritten by users in library online catalogs, online bookstoresand on the web community LibraryThing, in order todetermine whether there are any differences in the way usersreview books, and whether these differences might explainwhy libraries experience difficulties in getting their users toreview books. At the core of web 2.0 and library 2.0concepts lies the thought of user participation, and largerlibraries have sought to implement systems for reviewingand tagging items in the catalog in ways similar to onlinebookstores and other websites.By analyzing the contents of user reviews, however, thisthesis shows that users express themselves differentlydepending on what kinds of literature they review, and inwhat context. Most notably, user reviews of ?the Classics? orcanonized literature recognizes the high status of suchliterature, while users reviewing popular fiction expressthemselves in a way that admits that the reviewed titles areconsidered less valuable. There are also signs that booksreviewed at online bookstores are seen as products ormerchandise, while the reviews at the library to a greaterdegree treat the books as works of literature.The conclusion reached in this thesis suggests that there maybe a relation between the image of the library as a defenderof high culture and the perceived status of literary works,causing users to become hesitant to review books, feelingthat they do not have the knowledge to describe or reviewthem ?correctly?..

Already in the late 1970´s it became clear that the traditional catalogs in libraries were not suited for children, neither their interests nor their way expressing themselves were accounted for. The goal of this thesis is to investigate if and how children?s OPACs (Open public access catalogs) interface design is at present adapted to the presumed audience of children. My method consists of literature studies and an investigation on the graphical interfaces in OPACs for children, according to the five criteria formulated by childrens library consultant Lena Lundgren and IT-consultant Kia Gumbel. The aims are to find out: a) what requirements for children?s OPAC interfaces and their usability are defined in literature and b) what the actual (real) features of the children?s OPAC interfaces are.

This thesis deals with classification of the subject field history of medicine. The two classification systems SAB and NLM are compared in order to find out which one is the most adequate to organize a small collection of history of medicine. SAB and NLM are the two most commonly used classification systems in medical libraries in Sweden today. NLM classification system specializes in medicine and SAB is a universal classification system. Our purpose with this study is to find out the pros and cons of each system, whether the systems treat the subject history of medicine in a satisfactory way and what kind of classification system that is better for this assignment, a specific one or a general one.

The purpose of this Master thesis is to increase the knowledge about how public libraries can contribute to fulfil political programmes aimed towards integration. To achieve this we have conducted an evaluative case study about a public library in Sweden and the activities they carried out within the framework of the metropolitan policy programme Storstadssatsningen?. The questions raised consider which the political aims for integration within this programme were, which activities the library did accomplish, what the result in comparison with the politically decided aims was, and what conclusions can possibly be drawn from this? The theoretical framework consists of theories regarding evaluation, political programmes, integration and segregation, and public library-activities.

The purpose of this study is to examine sex/gender relations amongst staff in public libraries who have taken part in projects related to information technology. This is done through e-mail surveys and telephone interviews with staff who have participated in the development of the two library websites Mina bibliotek and Biblioteket.se regarding their experiences. The theoretical basis for the analysis is two gender theoretical perspectives with reference to technology. The first perspective is represented by Yvonne Hirdman?s theory concerning the gender system, in which women and men are kept apart and in which there is always a hierarchy where men are higher up, and Hanna Westberg-Wohlgemuth?s theory concerning sex marking of job-tasks.

The purpose of this Master Thesis is to investigate whether the technical service available in the "Reading and Writing Corner" has an influence on the total quality of service in a public library. This service is intended to give sensory/print-handicapped persons access to information. The title KOM LOSS is a Swedish expression for "come on" and LOSS is short for reading and writing support. I have chosen to study three libraries in the region of Västra Götaland, Sweden. The thesis examines total quality from the aspects of goal steering, accessibility, education and marketing.

This essay focuses on strategies for acquisitions in Swedish publiclibraries. The topic has been occuring in the public debate off andon since the70s. The dominant view has been that librarians haveallowed demand direct the purchases of media and thus haveignored quality literature.This debate has caused me to reflect on the librarians constantdilemma when purchasing media. Are they supposed to chooseliterature that are in demand, or should an evaluation made bylibrarians be the decisive?The previous research has shown that the library profession istraditionally characterized by a non-judgmental approach.

This master thesis in library- and information science is about the intermediary function of the library room from an environment-psychological point of view. Young people are a group in society who often reduce their visits to the library when growing up. There are lots of reasons for this maybe more attractive activities occur outside the library doors, making the young choose not to use the library. But if the library interior is attractive in itself, and has a welcoming atmosphere, there might be a change and the young people may well choose to pay the library a visit. What is important to young people how do they want their library room to look? Our purpose is to see how the physical environment affects young people in libraries.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine how two separate museums have realised the task of digitizing their collections, as well as to learn what options, possibilities and resources have been available to them during this process. Additionally, the aim here is to find how the two museums have dealt with problems in connection to the digitization projects, since there are as-of-yet no established regulations or standards to guide them in their digitization efforts. However, national and international working groups seeking to establish better collaboration between archives, libraries and museums ALM institutions have recently begun to formulate recommendations and suggested standards. Some of these recommendations have been used here as a theoretical framework in the examination of the two museums. The research questions posed are: What options, possibilities and resources have been available to the museums in their digitization projects, in terms of economy, staff, technical equipment and time?; For what purpose are the museums digitizing their collections?; and How does their purpose influence the process and chosen procedures? Also discussed here is how the museums relate to some of the existing recommendations.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how the relationship between the socially constructed genders is manifested in American library science. To visualize gender, bibliometric analyses of peer reviewed articles published in three core journals of library science between 1980 and 2000 inclusive, are performed. The three journals are: College and Research Libraries, Journal of Academic Librarianship and Library Quarterly. Questions: 1. Does gender affect the publishing process regarding the distribution of female and male authors? 2.

Fountain of Knowledge? The Changing Role of the Library at the Upper Secondary School Level. There have been many changes in the Swedish society in general, and in the school system and hence the school library in particular during the last decade. The aim of this master thesis is then to study what students at the upper secondary school level consider to be the optimal school library to meet their specific information needs at school. In addition to and in comparison with this, the aim is also to study the present conditions of the upper secondary school library as described in documents, reports and other studies in this field.

The aim of this master?s thesis is to study librarians? views on children and young people as Internet users in Swedish libraries. It examines what types of problems and possibilities the librarians see with children?s and young people?s use of the Internet, how these problems might be solved, and what they think about regulations and filters. Qualitative interviews were conducted with nine librarians, and their statements were analysed with David Buckingham?s After the death of childhood as a theoretical foundation.

This thesis should be regarded as an integrated research synthesis. The purpose has been to analyse how the literary sociologist Lars Furulands model the literary process correlates in relation to todays book market for fiction. The central problem has been: In what different ways can some of the main actors featuring in Furulands model of the literary process use, produce or provide copyright protected works of fiction which are electronically distributed? Three questions have been considered to penetrate this problem: In what different ways can to judge from some projects which have been carried through at common public libraries electronic works of fiction be provided to their presumed readers? What reasons could there be as it appears in a number of texts that four Swedish authors have chosen to disseminate their works of fiction by the aid of the Internet? Which main functions may, according to current research, be supported by electronic media in connection with editing and retail of fiction? During this study a picture of two quite disconnected processes of publication has materialized. These processes seem to proceed parallelly to each other, without any close contact, in a traditional respectively an electronic circuit.

This thesis aims at exploring a national collaborative gateway-service, PictureAustralia, hosted at the National Library of Australia. This will be done by means of investigating some underlying principles for descriptive standards and conventions as of the library discourse which is the objective of bibliographic control and access. The reason to do this is to bring some main features of these principles into the context of a cross-institutional cooperation between libraries, galleries/museums and archives in a picture database service. The attention will lay on the objectives of what functions the system is designed to perform to give access, as defined by Elaine Svenonius in the Intellectual Foundations of Information Organization 2000, and how these objectives will affect this particular database-service collocating performance, which is a system- and logical approach. Though, this study will be done in an explorative and qualitative way, by a case-study, which is to examine some sample metadata records emanated from different institutions in this project.