Since the role of the libraries as merely a place for loans has decreased, the importance of giving the visitors a total experience has increased.The aim of my thesis was to investigate whether a change in the sound environment at the library of Jokkmokk could generate more satisfied visitors, whether they are borrowers or use the library for other purposes. The change in the sound environment was to be effected by means of a background sound experiment in the magazine room at the library. Action research was used as a research strategy and observations and interviews as method to collect data.The experiment was conducted with two selected sounds of nature: birdsong and a rippling brook. The observations and interviews were executeted in three stages: 1. Without any background sound.

The aim of this study is to show how some persons with one of the Swedish national minority languages as mother tongue use a library with regard to their mother tongue and culture. The research questions are: How do Sami-speaking, Finnish-speaking and Meänkieli-speaking (Tornedalen Finnish-speaking) persons use a library with regard to their mother tongue and their culture? What aspects do they find important in this use? As a theoretical frame I have used Marianne Andersson and Dorte Skot-Hansen?s model of the functions of the local library and Will Kymlicka?s theory of the value of maintenance of minority cultures. The study is a qualitative user study. Deep interviews have been conducted with 9 persons with Finnish, Meänkieli or Sami as mother tongue.The results show that the main use of the library is as a cultural centre and the most frequently used service is borrowing of literature.

The bachelor thesis examines conceptions behind the Swedish public librarian?s opinions of the public library as a meeting place. The study uses the critical discourse analysis, developed by Ernest Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, to analyze a focus group interview. The discourse analysis identifies four themes in the empirical material: the imagined arena of the meeting place, the behaviour in the meeting place, the meeting place?s librarian and the polemic against the meeting place.

The aim of this study is to explore if and how library managers market their competence in communication with local politicians. It is also our aim to find a definition of the competence of librarians. The report identifies and describes problems and possibilitieswith marketing of competence to politicians on the basis of one Swedish municipality's library managers. In order to fulfil this aim we have used a literature study on marketing, competence, the political process and the librarian profession. We have alsocarried out an empirical study where we interviewed ten library managers in onemunicipality, seven politicians in the same municipality and ten representatives for central professional organisations mainly in Sweden.The results are that most library managers don't market their competence because they don?t believe in marketing competence.

The purpose of this Master?s thesis is to examine what role the new city library in Halmstad has for its users. The questions posed in this study are: What do the users actually do at the library? What roles are the most significant according to the users? Have the politicians succeeded in their intention of realizing a modern library according to the users? The theoretical starting point is Andersson?s and Skot-Hansen?s theory of four different roles of public libraries. In order to extend the model we added a fifth function; the one of aesthetical experience.

The purpose of this Master?s thesis is to examine what role the new city library in Halmstad has for its users. The questions posed in this study are: What do the users actually do at the library? What roles are the most significant according to the users? Have the politicians succeeded in their intention of realizing a modern library according to the users? The theoretical starting point is Andersson?s and Skot-Hansen?s theory of four different roles of public libraries. In order to extend the model we added a fifth function; the one of aesthetical experience.

A study around some fourteen and fifteen year old boys, who are interested in reading. It is about their reading and library habits, what has created their interest and where they acquire access to literature. A certain amount deals with the habits of the boys? school-friends in this subject. The result compares with earlier made reports.

The following thesis in library- and information science is a qualitative, comparative analysis of the relationship between the minority populations in Sweden and Finland and the library. The objective with the thesis is to investigate how the state is working to promote minority groups at the library and what lead to today?s situation. The investigation starts, as regards time, with the European charter for Regional or Minority Languages, which was published 1992 and ends with the establishment of the Swedish library law 2014. The method that is used will be a comparative analysis that aims to compare Sweden and Finland.

The aim of this thesis is to investigate new knowledge about how children search for library material and which strategies they use, and if the latest research gives any answers whether we should adapt systems and services or teach information seeking in a better way. In this thesis knowledge is understood as research publications but also results from projects in library practise, and studies concerning children 6 to 18 years old are included. The method used is a knowledge survey. We have gathered and evaluated documentation from different sources like citation and reference databases within the field of library and information science. The result implicates that there are, both in old and new documentation, three main search strategies children use in their search for information in a library context; they browse, they search in library catalogues and they use some sort of reference service.

Mental illness is today the leading cause of long-term sick leave and insomnia, anxiety, depression and burnout are among the most common conditions. The aim of the study was to investigate the stability of these conditions and how this is influenced by gender and age, as well as the extent to which these states are risk factors for each other. The participants were a random sample (n = 2336) from the general population in the age of 18-79 years. The results showed that stable illness was more common among women than men, and that stable illness decreased with aging. The stability itself was not affected by gender or age. Relations between the conditions were bidirectional and they constitute major risk factors for each other (odds ratios, OK = 2.37 to 6.46). The largest risk factor for a condition is, however, previous occurrence of the same problem. Previous burnout was found to be a significantly larger risk factor for future burnout than previous insomnia for future insomnia (OK = 9.63 and 5.74, respectively). The results suggest that insomnia, anxiety, depression and burnout, despite their differences, are similar regarding symptoms and underlying causes. The importance of early interventions to prevent comorbid conditions which are more complicated and more difficult to treat is emphasized..

This two years master?s thesis takes interest in the concept of marketing related to the Children?s Library. The purposes have been to investigate the perception of marketing among a few librarians working at the Children?s Library in the Swedish region of Halland and further to analyse their perception of marketing in the daily work at the library. Eventually to analyse the consequences of these librarians approach to marketing related to their perception of the library?s mission.

The main purpose of this thesis is to investigate how the societysystem in Austria has influenced the library system. The aim is toanalyse in what way these influences have changed during thegrowth and development of the public library system and how it isdisplayed in each separate library branch. The focus of myinvestigation has been the municipality public libraries in Vienna,and mainly the three libraries in the third district of the city. Themethod I have used is literature studies, examining and analysingsource material from the internal archive of the public libraries inVienna. I have also used the qualitative interview method in orderto examine the situation in the selected libraries Rabengasse,Erdbergstraße and Fasangasse.As there is no common library law, there are significantdifferences in the library structure in different parts of Austria andeach municipality decides how they want to prioritize the libraries.Since the public libraries of Vienna are well organized together inBüchereien Wien, the library structure in the separate librarybranches is coordinated.

The main purpose of this thesis is to investigate how the societysystem in Austria has influenced the library system. The aim is toanalyse in what way these influences have changed during thegrowth and development of the public library system and how it isdisplayed in each separate library branch. The focus of myinvestigation has been the municipality public libraries in Vienna,and mainly the three libraries in the third district of the city. Themethod I have used is literature studies, examining and analysingsource material from the internal archive of the public libraries inVienna. I have also used the qualitative interview method in orderto examine the situation in the selected libraries Rabengasse,Erdbergstraße and Fasangasse.As there is no common library law, there are significantdifferences in the library structure in different parts of Austria andeach municipality decides how they want to prioritize the libraries.Since the public libraries of Vienna are well organized together inBüchereien Wien, the library structure in the separate librarybranches is coordinated.

Our state of emergency is good - is the public library prepared for the future?Our state of emergency is good! These are the words spoken by Prime Minister Per Albin Hansson in 1939. He claimed that Sweden had nothing to fear from a future war, we were safe. Today we know it was not so. Is this the situation for Swedish public library of today? Is the public library ready to face the future, or is it only fancy words?We have to form the future, not let the future form us.

The purpose with this essay is to study how children in the fifth grade experience reading in three different reading cultures; library, home and in school. The children?s experiences from reading are compared to expectations from library and school.Data, to this study, is collected through qualitative interviews in two focus groups and analyzed by using an idea analysis. The INSU-model, Information Needs, Seeking and Use, and Aidan Chambers reading circle in combination with a triangle of the three reading cultures are used as a theoretical framework. The analysis shows that children are using reading for different purposes in different reading cultures.