The purpose of this Masters thesis is to investigate the reasons for public libraries to have story-time today and also the reasons for story-time at the public library historically in Sweden. Why is the phenomenon of story-time still existing at public libraries today? The study is based on a questionnaire that was sent to childrens librarians in the Västra Götaland region. The material collected in this questionnaire was put together and resulted in six different categories showing the libraries purposes and thoughts of their story-time activities. The categories were: cultural heritage/tradition, joy of reading, language and imagination, library visits, storytelling and mutual experience.

This two year master thesis examines the Swedish prison library's history during cell prison era.The investigation extends from the mid-1800s well into the 1900s. The purpose is to investigate theprison library by using a power concepts influenced by Michel Foucault. The questions revolvearound the ideas that formed the basis for the prison library and how the prison library was organizedin practice. Three types of sources are used to answer the essay questions and illustrate its pro -blems. Firstly, annual reports concerning the swedish prison system.

The aim of this Bachelor?s thesis is to find out what librarians think about the public libraries? collections. How do they want to develop their collection and what do they want the collection to offer society?Sanna Talja has developed a theory about different attitudes regarding collection development. These are named ?the general education repertoire?, ?the alternative repertoire? and ?the demand repertoire?.

This thesis studies if public libraries in Sweden have taken part ofinformation regarding the Swedish government policy that publicareas are to be made accessible by 2010. Also studied is thesignificance of information and resources on the execution ofaccessibility adaptations at public libraries.The analysis uses Lennart Lundquist?s theory of implementation ofpublic policies, that the person executing the policy needs tounderstand, be able to and want to in order for the policy to besuccessfully executed. The study was carried out through a surveyand the thesis focuses on the factors of understanding and beingable to.The survey was sent by email to all 290 municipal libraries inSweden with an answering frequency of 65%. The results arepresented in table format with explanations.The thesis finds that a clear majority of respondents have hadaccess to information about accessibility adaptations, but thatmuch fewer consider the information clear enough.

Title: Development and continuity: A new institutional case study of a Danish public library in changeAbstract: The purpose of this master's thesis is to discuss and analyse the relationship between the traditional core values belonging to the institution of the public library, and the development work that takes place at the institution. The thesis also investigates the relationships that influence the development work.By investigating a library that is considered progressive in its development work, our purpose is also to unveil alternative values that compete with the traditional core values. By illustrating the perception among seven staff members and the director at Aarhus Public Libraries, we want to illuminate the terms for development among public libraries. In addition to our interviews, an activity plan is studied.We base our study on new institutional theory which focuses on norms and values in an organisation. This focus helps us to understand the development work from a comprehensive view.Our study shows that the development work at Aarhus Public Libraries is taking place in a complex environment that consists of several different actors and different interpretationsof the traditional core values of public libraries.

The aim of this essay has been to find out if children can identify themselves in childrens literature describing children who have immigrated. We wanted to investigate if the interest in reading books about children who have immigrated was the same whether the investigated childrens origin was Swedish or not. We chose two books for this purpose. We also wanted to see what the access to books about children who have immigrated was at three libraries. The locations for the libraries were; in the investigated children´s school, at the main library in the municipality and at a smaller library also located in the municipality.

The subject of this thesis is the history of the library at The Göteborg Museum of Art. The aim of the thesis is to depict and analyze the emergence and the expansion of the library?s holdings until 1939. To fulfill the aim, two questions are asked. The first question is: Is it possible to argue that the library?s holdings were collected to document the entire world of art? The question is formulated in relation to a comment by Susan Wyngaard.

This paper is about finding a set of unwritten rules pertaining to the teaching of history in an exclusively Swedish college. I want to know if truancy among immigrants has anything to do with SO teachers? choice of content or their teaching methods. Unwritten rules are a complex phenomenon but by applying different perspectives and teaching methods a pattern will emerge. It is possible to discover different influences in the way the teacher chooses their material and work plan.

The purpose of this essay is to examine what happens with library e-resources after implementing the discovery tool Summon. Summon provides a Google-like experience and uses multiple facet options when users need to narrow their discovery. Observations of change in the libraries e-resources with regards to database searches, click-throughs in linkresolvers and full text downloads are examined through looking at earlier reports and statistics from libraries in America and England. This provides a way to compare with Chalmers University of Technology?s Library.

The aim of this study is to examine how librarians experience implementations of changes in the physical space of the public library. The study seeks to answer the following questions from the librarians? perspective: What are the underlying reasons for changes in the physical space of the library? What are the important functions of the public library to the community residents? What reactions do librarians get from community residents after changes in the physical space of the public library? The study is based on semi-structured interviews with librarians working at seven small public libraries in Sweden. A model of four library spaces, which was developed by Andersson and Skot-Hansen in 1994 and refined in 2012, is used as a theoretical framework to help analyzing the results. The majority of the libraries are structured according to the older version of the model.

User-centred acquisitions at three academic librariesA new way of developing collections has been adopted at a number of small academic libraries, user-centred acquisitions. The method implies that the main way of building the collection is by means of receiving suggestions of titles from library users. The main purpose of this thesis is to investigate changes in acquisitions of monographs. At a more detailed level it seeks a deeper understanding of what user-centred acquisitions is and how the method effects the acquisitions process. Changes in stock management and the reason why the libraries have chosen the method is investigated as well.

The aim of this study is to investigate librarians? opinions about books supported by the government and delivered for free to the main public libraries in every community. The study is also investigating how the governmentally supported books affect the process of buying books for the public libraries and how the librarians think about quality and mediation in the acquisition. The analysis is based upon interviews with six librarians that are responsible for the purchasing at five main libraries in small communities in the South of Sweden. The results from the interviews are discussed and analyzed from the perspective of mediation.

The study of culture is specifically relevant to libraries confronting changes. A variety of conditions makes it beneficial for libraries to understand the strengths as well as the weaknesses of the underlying culture. Such an understanding can help libraries in adjusting to changes easier, without losing the cultural values that they hold important to their identity and strategic strengths.Taking this as a starting point the purpose of this essay is to examine and describe what aspects in prevailing library cultures are important to pay attention to when meeting changes. To accomplish this we will explore the concept of library culture, its substance, meaning and expression.Culture is reflected in the artifacts, values and underlying assumptions of formal and informal groups. Culture can be found at various levels.

The aim of this paper is to elucidate and analyze history teacher's didactic choices in the conflict between unequal educational materials and the requirements of equality in the curriculum of Swedish secondary school. The empirical data consists of interviews with five secondary school history teachers, observations of their lessons as well as analysis of their tests. The starting point was to investigate teachers' didactic work in the role as a bridge between the non-equal historiography presented in textbooks in history and the curriculum?s demands for equality. Three different approaches have been observed in the teachers' didactic work when considering gender perspective into their teaching: that women become extensions in a male-dominated historiography; that another part of the story is presented when a gender perspective is considered; and that the gender perspective is included in history teaching and becomes an integral part of all the content of the subject.Several of the teachers acknowledged that gender equality is less prioritized than the courses core content and related assessment criteria.

The aim of this thesis is to investigate and increase the understanding of a present function of today´s public library, namely the function of meeting place; here called the social function or social space. Two small town libraries are included in the study, and the questions examined are:How is this function described at the two libraries and what similarities and differences are there between the two? How can one describe the relation between how the library as social space is described in research and at the libraries? The theoretical framework used in examining these questions, consists of three different discourses in culture policy (the discourse of state, market and civil society) and theories on civil society and the public library. A summary of current research makes visible eight different aspects of the public library as a social space. These aspects functions as parts of the theoretical framework as well.