The aim of this master thesis has been to investigate discussions about public access to Internet in public libraries. Areas of interest were the debate in Sweden as well as in the United States. The approach was qualitative and questionnaires were distributed by e-mail to a number of Swedish public libraries. The results from the survey were then supplemented with a theoretical background and a literature study. The usable questionnaires obtained from 20 libraries showed a rather uniform approach among the Swedish librarians of how the Internet is best provided by public libraries.

This masters thesis takes the providers perspective on public library story times for children. The main questions are: What perspectives can the providers have? How does the perspective affect the content and how is the story time drawn up? Five story time providers were interviewed about the purpose of their story times, the methods they used and the content they chose. A model with four criteria was used to analyze the result of the interviews. The criteria were: adult criteria, consideration of the childrens view, pedagogical criteria and literary/story time criteria.

The aim of this master thesis is to study what relationship mentally disabled adults have with the public library and what factors affect their meeting with the library. The work of the library is also studied so that the experiences of the mentally disabled can be put in relation to the work performed for the group. The method used was interviews with four mentally disabled adults and one librarian responsible for the social function and availability at the library. As a theoretical framework Marianne Andersson and Dorte Skot-Hansen?s model over the profiles of the library and Michael Buckland?s barriers, which must be overcome to achieve full access to information, were used.

The aim of this essay is to examine three separate Swedish public libraries and their respective websites on the grounds of the usability sciences. I firstly had to summarize the main properties of the usability-field in order to gain an extended knowledge of its purposes and possible usage for today?s library systems. I was then able to apply the extended knowledge in the examination of the three library websites and the purpose of determining whether or not they were designed according to the standards set by the usability-sciences.Usability is a rather new science that deals with the dissection and examination of computer-based systems, in order to find the key components that make systems user-friendlier. With user needs being the main focus of its research, usability tries to meet all the different needs of the modern user and construct systems that are less system-centered and more user-centered.

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 aim of this Masters thesis is to examine the library discourses concerning the phenomenon and concept of digital libraries in Swedish library press 1980-2002. What changes can be identified? The questions are: what is said about the conditions for the phenomenon; how is the concept of digital libraries used; who makes these statements; what are the relations between these discussions and the library context in which they are made? Five Swedish library journals, BBL/Biblioteksbladet, DIK-forum, Human IT, Svensk biblioteksforskning and Tidskrift för dokumentation, were examined. The method used was discourse analysis. The theoretical starting-point was Foucaults discourse theory.

The purpose of this paper is to examine different methods for organisation and retrieval of pop and rock music recordings, and the problems concerned with this organisation. The focus is the question whether values towards pop and rock music influence the organisation of music in major Swedish record collections. As a background for this discussion, the study also discusses how music is organised in these collections, and what kind of problems are associated with their organisation. Also included in the paper is a minor investigation of how problems with the organisation of pop and rock music are dealt with in Library and information science, and how values towards pop and rock music are dealt with in society in general. The main focus of the study, however, is an empirical study of how values towards pop and rock music manifest themselves in the pop and rock organisation of six Swedish institutions with major collections of music recordings.

The aim of this Master thesis is to delineate the ideology behind the public library politics in Gothenburg, during 1945-50. The study is an archive survey. To be able to account for the public library politics in Gothenburg during the period, the author has studied documents in the archive of the public library board in Gothenburg. The description of the politics is the source for the research papers analysis. The thesis principal issue, is on what ideological basis the public library politics has been formulated in Gothenburg, during the period of interest? The concept of ideology is defined as a coherent system of norms and values.

The purpose of this thesis is to explore how the internal information processing and management is carried out within a unit of Viskafors municipality. Furthermore, to explore and make recommendations of how the organisation can improve its internal information management. To get a full picture I have interviewed people at different levels of the organisation. The main findings showed that there was a dysfunction in the internal information processing and management. For example the study showed that the internal information did not reach out to the different parts of the organisation due to insufficient information processing.

The aim of this Master?s thesis is to examine the information needs of gay, lesbian and bisexual adolescents? when they are coming out. I also examine what kind of information they seek and where they might find this information. The purpose is also to examine what role the public or school library plays. The study is conducted through qualitative interviews with gay, lesbian and bisexual adolescents?.

In 1930 a new library reform came into force, which in reality was the beginning of the modern Swedish library. The purpose of this reform was to take measures to promote efficiency, for example to increase library co-operation. The Government grants were at the same time raised considerably. However, as early as in 1930, but especially the following year, the depression hit Sweden. The Government reduced the grants until the first half of 1936.

The aim of this master?s thesis is to examine the virtual reference service Ask the Library [Bibblan svarar] from a postmodern perspective. Ask the Library is a Swedish online reference service that is run by the country?s public libraries. The postmodern theories of Jean-François Lyotard are used to study how information is managed and transmitted within the service.

Romanization as a method in the bibliographic environment makes retrieval difficult in many aspects. The object of this thesis is to illustrate the importance and the possibility to include non-Roman script in the records of the library catalogue. The questions at issue are about the consequences of romanization, the technical requirements for implementing non-Roman script, and bibliographical resources that have been developed during the last 20 years. The thesis is based on a literature study and correspondence with people who are familiar with the subject. The thesis points out that Romanization causes information to be distorted in various ways and is inconsistent with the requirements of exactitude in bibliographic control.

The aim of this master thesis is to measure library service quality in two groups of libraries, newly developed and well established, and to see if there are any differences in the users perception of the dimensions in LibQUAL+. The thesis also examines the different perception of quality for the user groups: undergraduate students, graduate students, and faculty. Another approach is to test the Swedish translation of LibQUAL+. Different theories on service quality are presented but the main theories are from the marketing perspective. The grounding and development of LibQUAL+ is described as well as the use of the instrument in different libraries.

The starting point for this study is the situation for immigrants during the process of integration. This study aims to describe and discuss, with a broad approach, if certain information needs arises when immigrants meet the Swedish labour market and in such a case, do they use the library and how does the public libraries meet those needs. A secondary aim is to help increase the understanding of immigrants and forming a basis for further efforts by the libraries to improve services for immigrants and point at areas where there is a need for further research. - Which expectations and demands meets immigrants on the labour market and which library needs are possibly generated by this? - What services and range of material do the libraries offer immigrants and how are they marketed at the libraries homepages on the Internet? - Do immigrants from outside the western culture use the library and in that case how? Swedish human capital and Swedish social capability are identified as demands that are often held by operators on the labour market.