This thesis aims to study the impact of the transition from communism to democracy on the public libraries in Poland. The central areas of study are changes in: the organisation of the public library system, the role of the public library in society, the librarian's daily work and job situation and collection development. The thesis is based on qualitative interviews with public librarians, public library managers and researchers in Warsaw, Torun and Gdansk. The theoretical background consists of chapters outlining thoughts on democratic and communist library ideas and public libraries' responses to a changing society. The results show that the public library system has been affected by two major decentralisation reforms in Poland, leaving the libraries in the care of local governments.

This paper is intended to provide a picture of which associations water can wake in the human mind from the perspectives of garden history as well as from that of environmental psychology. I hope to paint a fairly broad picture of our perception of water that can serve as a basis for discussion and as a starting point for different forms of design work in landscape architecture. The historical perspective emphasizes the importance of water as a condition for the emergence of gardens and in a wider perspective the importance of water in early cultures. Also, I describe a picture of how water has been used throughout the history of gardens from early Egypt to the baroque era. The garden history analyzed from an art historical perspective gives a picture of human associations to water, and the history behind these associations is presented. As a compliment to the art history approach, I have chosen to highlight our associations with water from the perspectives of environmental psychology and evolutionary science.

The aim of this Masters thesis is to examine how five childrens librarians in Ireland and five in Sweden interpret and implement the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in public libraries. This study is hermeneutic. Using a qualitative method consisting of ten interviews with childrens librarians and structural factors such as; library policies and laws; together with an insight into Irelands political, social and economical history and the historical development of childrens public libraries in Sweden and Ireland, has enabled us to create an understanding for the interviewees statements. Anthony Giddens structuration theory has been used for the analysis, helping us to determine how the duality between the structure, the actors and their action effect the interpretation and implementation of the Convention in librarian work. The result of the analysis clearly shows that in comparison to Irish librarians, the Swedish interviewees are more aware and have a better understanding of the Convention and how to put it into practice.

The aim of this master thesis is to describe some general trends and important steps in the Swedish university libraries user-orientation from the implementation of the university college reform 1977 until today. The aim gave rise to four further questions. Literature studies and empirical studies in the form of focusing interviews have been carried out, in order to answer the questions. Of the entire background material I have made a simple form of general analysis. I found that the libraries, during the years have interacted with the following four interested parties, the government, the mother organization, other libraries and the library users.

The focus of this thesis is the library at the Swedish school in Berlin, Germany. Being a school in a foreign country, and playing a role also as a public library, the conditions for the library are somewhat unusual. Considering those conditions, how should the library be organised and developed to meet the users' needs in the best way possible? To put the library in Berlin into a greater perspective, the first chapters of the thesis are dedicated to the issue of school libraries in Sweden; their historical development, their importance in the school curriculum and their present situation. Swedish research in the field of school libraries is presented and includes descriptions of theoretical analysing models.

The main purpose of this Master?s thesis is to develop an understanding of why non-users do not use public libraries by studying their information and culture habits and their relationship to public libraries. One of the motivating factors behind this choice is the lack of earlier research on the subject, particularly qualitative research. The theoretical framework is stratified into three associated levels with Brenda Dervin?s sense-making theory on an individual level, Marianne Andersson?s and Dorte Skot-Hansen?s model of the roles of public libraries on an institutional level and Pierre Bourdieu?s theoretical apparatus on a social level.

The purpose of this Master thesis is to examine whether the term elasticity is relevant and functional to apply to public library organisations. Another aim of the thesis is to relate the term elasticity to public library organisations in a network society. Sociologist Manuel Castells provide the theoretical framework on the network society. Three investigations (meant to complement each other) in two Swedish public libraries seek to give answers to these questions.To be able to examine which areas of public library activity are elastic, I make a rough definition of what public library organisations consist of ? nine activity fields are identified using IFLA?s guidelines in combination with Swedish law of public libraries.

Public libraries have an important roll of making information accessible to all people. This democratic right supports the cultural development in our society. When public libraries build websites offering information and services it can sometimes cause obstacles for impaired users. It is therefore our purpose to evaluate a selection of websites and library plans to examine how the libraries work with accessibility for these users. This thesis is based on theories of cognitive and human computer interaction, and information architecture.

The aim of this thesis is to study different aspects of the public libraries' investment in public access computers connected to the Internet. What level of accessibility can be found at the surveyed libraries concerning the number of computers open to the public, as well as chat and email services? What activities have been taking place with the computers in focus, and what have the goals of these activities been? Is there any control of content, and what aspects of the Internet are, if that is the case, subject to censorship. And how do the governmental policies relate to the surveyed libraries' intentions and activities regarding the Internet? In order to answer these questions, each main library in the 42 largest towns of Sweden was surveyed response rate: 100 %.

Undersökningen anknyter till Skånes danska förflutna. Riksdagen år 1720 bildar en bas för undersökningen, där de skånska deltagarnas agerande ska hamna i fokus. Deltagandet kommer att följas utifrån en diskussion kring statsbyggnadsprocesser och kollektiva identiteter, där jag är intresserad av att undersöka om det finns något i de skånska representanternas sätt att uttrycka sig som går att härleda till deras tidigare danska rikstillhörighet..

The focus of the thesis is to examine the regional branding ofpublic libraries in Norrbotten, with the main focus on Piteå public library, in order to find trends that indicate a successful branding based on Hariff & Rowley?s (2011) identified key factors.The empirical data has been collected through a triangulation of interviews and documents. The findings show that they have done a proficient preparatory work prior to the regional branding of the public libraries, and that the libraries have worked together with a communication bureau in their marketing strategies since the beginning of the public library cooperation. The results also show that Piteå public library, through branding efforts, received another relationship with the media where the media now occasionally contact the library.The conclusion of the thesis is that Piteå public library promoted the library through campaigns that provide the opportunity for activities and experiences, and that they want to convey the image of itself as a venue for social interaction. The marketing of the libraries fulfill the most of the criteria, but there are still areas of branding that needs to be further explored..

Bioinformatics is an interdisciplinary scientific subject which connects biology, biomedicine and information science. Bioinformatics generates new biological knowledge by using computer methods and biological databases and can thereby play an important role for the understanding of diseases and be used for development of new medicines. The appearance of bioinformatics has thereby had a big impact on biomedical research.In this study, I have examined bioscientists' use of bibliographical databases, bioinformatic databases/web sites and bioinformatic tools and their needs of support concerning these resources. I have also examined which support the scientific libraries offer their users concerning bibliographical databases, bioinformatic databases/web sites and bioinformatic tools and have compared it with the needs the libraries think that the users have and the needs the users state that they have.The results from the study show that there is a wish for library support concerning bibliographical databases, bioinformatic databases/web sites and bioinformatic tools. The wishes of the respondents are in contrast to the libraries' view about bioscientists interest concerning bioinformatic databases/web sites and bioinformatic tools.

This master thesis is a study of a new electronic library reference service-project called Speak instantly to a librarian and the purpose of the thesis is to investigate a new electronic reference service and how the librarians who work with it experience it. This should be seen from an informational society point of view. The study is conducted from two questions: - What needs do the libraries have and how do they argue for the project and the chat-reference service Speak instantly to a librarian? - How do the librarians experience the personal work situation in the new reference service, and its use of chat technology? Together with interviews of a selected group of librarians from the public libraries of Göteborg, Malmö, Nacka and Stockholm, this thesis includes aspects such as the theory of the informational society by Manuel Castells, as well as literary studies of the history of library reference, the development of electronic reference service and the virtual library, and the background and the beginning of the studied project Speak instantly to a librarian. The thesis also contains an overlook of other similar library projects in the United States of America.

The topic of this bachelor thesis is the promotion of easy-to-read fiction for 10-12 year old children in public libraries. The number of easy-to-read fiction books is increasing on the book market. This can be expected to affect the public library. The hypotheses for the study are: 1) Public libraries expose easy-to-read fiction and use it in their reading promotion activities and, 2) The acquisition of easy-to-read books and the use of easy-to-read books in reading promotion activities have increased over the last five years. A self-completion questionnaire was distributed to 44 public libraries in Sweden.

This study examines the cultural place and status of video and computer games in the Swedish public library. Using works on popular culture and the theories of Pierre Bourdieu, this study employs quantitative methods, as well as textual analysis, to analyze the results of an online questionnaire with 19 questions focusing on selection criteria, shelf placement, perceived competence, as well as reasoning for having or not having these games in the library. 286 out of the 440 libraries contacted is participating in the study, and the libraries consist exclusively of public libraries in Sweden that are found in the database of the Royal Library.The results of this study show that a larger number of libraries than previously indicated have started to provide electronic games to their patrons. At the same time, patterns in the data and comments suggests that these games in many cases still do not enjoy the same level of cultural recognition as other media. Indicative of this is the way most libraries seem to focus on the medium being exclusively for their young patrons, with seem-ingly very little in the way of investment for adults.