The aim of this thesis is to investigate the points of view of three groups of actors about their local learning center and its collaboration with the library. By interviewing groups of actors from the municipal sector, the library staff and students, I aim to investigate their associations of the learning centre, what kind of services it should offer, and how they understand the role of the library staff in specific collaboration between the public library and the adult education administration. The study design is based on Gunnar Grepperud?s and Terje Thomsen?s three missions for a local learning centre; the mission of a broker, a meeting place and a motivator. I also use Carol Kuhlthau?s levels of mediation as an approach to investigate how the actors want the library staff to work in relation to the centre.

The purpose of this Masters thesis has been to study the changes made in shelf arrangement and library environment in a Swedish public library. The aim was to examine the reasoning done by the library staff regarding classification, the Swedish classification system SAB and changes in library environment. The basis of our study were three questions: 1. Why has Västervik public library made changes in the shelf arrangement? 2.

This Master?s thesis is the first to quantitatively study the prevalence of library anxiety at a Swedish university. Library anxiety is a concept describing the negative feelings students can experience when using the library. The study was conducted using web questionnaires sent out to 512 students at Växjö university. 38 % responded and the results were analysed with the help of, amongst other methods, correlation studies.

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 purpose of this master´s thesis was to investigate the role and function of the annual reports of public libraries: for what purpose are they put together and how are they evaluated and utilised. The study presents different views on the structure and content of library annual reports. Focusing on a specific public library and its municipal administration, the authors identify and describe problems and possibilities regarding the library annual reports. The study also provides a general view of their occurrence, their addressees and the importance attached to them.In a review of current literature on accounting and activity reports the authors place the annual reports of public libraries in a wider context. The study also presents two current models of performance measurement - the Intangible Assets Monitor and the Balanced Scorecard - which were developed in the private sector, and the authors discuss their relevance when applied to public libraries.Data were collected both in interviews and by means of a questionnaire.

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.