With a new digital world that runs parallel with our physical one, we are also facing a new type of architecture and new materials that this new architecture is built on. In this thesis I examine pixels and vectors, two of the digital materials used to create pictures. By approaching them as digital materials, I have mapped their different qualities, when and where one or the other is more or less applicable and the reason behind it. My main research question asked was the following: Are the (digital) materials challenged outside their primary fields of application, and in that case, in which way? With this question in mind, I carried out a semiotic picture analysis on four pictures, later on dividing them into four different categories, based on their different qualities and their ability to deliver information.

Today, one of the foremost tools used by the library staff is the library catalogue search tools. It has come to our understanding that some library staff are dissatisfied with how the search tools works. The aim of this study is to illuminate the library staff's negative experiences of the search tools, and to present a basis for future discussion and development. To our help we have used a quantitative survey which were sent to library staff that used one of the two largest integrated library systems in Sweden, BOOK-IT and Mikromarc. The questions regarded the library staff's perception of a number of features in the search tools.

The purpose of this thesis is to explore the experiences and views some users have of the library environment and services of the University Library of Halmstad. The main question to be answered in this thesis is what importance the users attribute to the library environment and services while pursuing their most recent library errand. To answer this question a study of relevant literature on the subjects of library environment, library services and user-surveys in other academic libraries was carried out and a questionnaire was distributed to 22 respondents in the process of visiting the University of Halmstad Library. The literature background and the results of the conducted study were interpreted and discussed and led to the following conclusions: 3 respondents encounters with the library environment and its services were negative in part and thus their experiences and views were relevant to the completion of their library errands. The other respondents? encounters confirmed their overall positive earlier experiences and views of the library environment and its services, but had no real concrete significance for the completion of their library errands..

The aim of this paper is to examine how dyslectic adults define the service quality at the public library of Gothenburg. The purpose is also to investigate what level of service quality the library provides and which responsibilities the library has towards the dyslectics. Answers are sought to the following questions: - How do dyslectics perceive the service quality at the public library of Gothenburg and is that service quality satisfactory? - What responsibilities does the public library of Gothenburg have towards the dyslectics according to cultural policy documents? In this paper six persons have been interviewed. Of these, four are adult dyslectics, one works with people with special demands and the last one is the chief librarian.

The aim of this study is to understand how the library environment affects the experiences and feelings of public library users. In order to concretise this, the study sets out from the public library in Bollebygd. We wanted to find out how the library users experience the library environment. Does the library environment affect the meeting between library users? How does the environment affect their moving patterns inside the library? Which environmental factors influence the users' experiences? Our questions were: how do users experience the library environment - as a mediating space for information and culture? - as a social room and meeting place? The material used to attain the purpose of the study consists of qualitative observations and interviews, and literature studies.

In this Masters thesis the image of the public library in the local press and in the eyes of the public is examined. The questions posed to examine this are: - What activities of the public library are described in the local press? - What activities does the public associate with the public library? - What functions and roles of the public library can be found in the articles and interviews and how are they expressed? - What opinions of the public library and hereto related activities can be found in the articles and interviews? This study is based on an analysis of 127 articles, published in Borås Tidning during a period of six months, and of interviews with 35 people from Sjuhäradsbygden. To analyse the articles and the interviews Marianne Andersson and Dorte Skot-Hansen´s model of roles for the library has been used. The model includes four roles for the library: the library as a cultural centre, a knowledge centre, an information centre and a social centre.

The purpose of this study is to examine the phenomenon ?Living library?, where people are lent out instead of books. First it is looked into what the Living library means to the person who is borrowing a living book and what it means to the living book itself. Than the Living library is put in a public library context. This is done through a case study of the city library of Helsingborg and the city library of Malmö.

The aim of this Master thesis is to make a survey of the public library staff-relations at work and discuss relationship marketing as it applies to public libraries. Relationship marketing involves the establishment, maintenance and development of users and other library-related relationships, including the relations among the library staff itself. Good relations among the library staff is a necessary condition for good relations with others. The focus of relationship marketing is at the user?s needs, wants and demands instead of the library collections and services.

The purpose of this study was to find out what are the information needs of the nurses and if the hospital library can satisfy these needs, and see how the hospital library reaches the nurses with their information provision. The main questions are: what kinds of service exist at the hospital library? What kinds of needs have the nurses concerning the hospital library? How are the needs satisfied by the hospital library? What marketing strategies are used by the hospital library to reach out to the nurses? Is it enough to achieve the goal? The method in this study was a case study with the emphasis on the qualitative interviews. The study was conducted at the hospital library at Södra Älvsborgs Sjukhus in Borås. The interviews concerned the nurses views on the hospital library, information needs and marketing.

The main purpose of this thesis has been to identify and discuss problems connected with the preservation of newspapers in Sweden. Another purpose was to see if the preservation of newspapers has been influenced by the fact that preservation studies in general concerns printed monographs and digital materials. This qualitative study is partly based upon interviews with four librarians experienced in working with newspapers and preservation. The thesis deals with cultural heritage in general and on a more specific level with newspapers where the following questions are dealt with: Why preserve? Who preserves? How to preserve? and What is preserved? Strategies used for preserving newspapers such as paper, microfilming and digitization are described as well as legal deposit, the Swedish microfilming programme and TIDEN, a digitization project of newspapers.

The aim of this thesis is to study what impact the USA Patriot act has had on American libraries. The authors intent has been to see what changes have occurred in the librarians work-routines and to study their attitudes toward the Patriot act. The authors have also intended to find out what the consequences would be for the libraries. The findings are related to Swedish circumstances. The material used in this thesis consists of six interviews conducted at three libraries in the Bay Area in California.

The purpose of this study is to examine two educational materials from different decades, to see if they have a conscious gender and equality perspective, and to see if they have followed the development society made regarding gender and equality. Even the curricula have a part in my study as I will relate them to the educational materials. Equality as a concept means briefly that women and men should have the same conditions, and gender depicts our notions of femininity and masculinity.I have chosen to do textual analyses, focusing on multimodal discourse because I analyze both text and image. I also use both quantitative and qualitative methods.My questions are: In which way do the curricula and the educational materials express equality?; In which way do the curricula and the educational materials express gender?; Do the educational materials express the fundamental values written about equality and gender in the curricula? And, if this is the case, does it mean that educational materials have followed the development of the Swedish society?The conclusion of this work is that equality and gender are presented as goals in both curricula, but the new curricula have developed that section more.

In the library community there is a continuous discussion about enhancing user interactivity on library websites, according to the principles of Web 2.0, called Library 2.0. The purpose of this thesis is to study how librarians conceive Library 2.0. The focus is on the study of the librarians? conceptions of user interactivity on the website, and if the librarians conceive that their professional role is affected by Library 2.0. The study is implemented methodologically by interviewing six librarians and using phenomenography as an approach.

The purpose of this master?s thesis is to investigate the culture for children in the age of 10-12 year-old at the library in a small town and to see if the library and children shared the same view of the libraries missions. We have interviewed 3 groups of 5-7 children at two times. We have also interviewed a children librarian about her opinion of her work and childrenculture. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child works as our theory in this thesis.

This study is an attempt to shed light on problems and possibilities of the school library of the Swedish comprehensive school concerning library law and goals of the school and the school library. Many investigations about the role of the school library of the comprehensive school have been carried through. They have all more or less come to the same conclusions. In spite of Swedish library law and goal documents of the school library, the school libraries are often neglected, if not will and commitment are to be found among teachers. Using a model of the school organisation by Gunnar Berg, three cases of school libraries are presented and analysed in a larger organisational and political perspective.