The main purpose of this Master?s thesis is to do a benchmarking study of the marketing activities at the public library of Valdemarsvik. The purpose is also to describe and get a deeper understanding of benchmarking as a method for improving library activity. Four major problem areas are addressed: How can one use benchmarking as a tool to achieve change? How can one learn with benchmarking? What similarities and differences are there between benchmarking and other similar methods for competence development? Is benchmarking better than other similar methods for competence development? The empirical approach was qualitative and the method chosen was action research.

The main purpose of this bachelor?s thesis is to examine how Swedish upper secondary school librarians and related staff relate to the online encyclopaedia Wikipedia. The research is placed in the all-embracing context of information literacy and source criticism on the Internet. The study was carried out in the form of qualitative interviews and based on two theoretical bases: firstly, the concept of cognitive authority stipulated by Patrick Wilson, and secondly the idea that Wikipedia has a draw towards late modern epistemological assumptions. The latter theory was also associated with the perceptions of knowledge among the library staff interviewed.

The aim of this thesis is to mediate to the reader an image of Chinese classification systems and in what way the methods of classification have progressed during time. The tradition of classification in China is very old and dates back more than two thousand years, but it wasnt until the downfall of the dynastic era in the beginning of the 20th century, that Chinese libraries and methods of classification were modernized. This thesis also identifies the development of Chinese librarianship which is of old age since Chinese literature stretches three thousand years back. The main question is in what way the values of three different philosophies are reflected in five classification systems compiled between 1953-1975. The three philosophies are Daoism, Confucianism and Maoism/Mao Zedong Thought.

The purpose of this study is to find out how libraries can be user-friendly to people with dyslexia by focusing on how adult dyslectics experience the library. Data were collected through literature and interviews with adult dyslectic students. Two different types of user studies served as a theoretical framework; one was an individual-related study by professor Wilson and the other was a system-related one from professor Buckland. The findings in this study shows that dyslectic library users often experience difficulties when seeking for materials in the library, due to the libraries organisation of material according to the written language. Through technical aid and a more user-friendly organisation of materials it may be easier to find relevant material for dyslectics.

Integration projects at two libraries: multiculture, meetings and possibilities takes its start in the fact that Sweden is populated with people from many different nations. The libraries have a unique possibility to arrange integration projects as a supplier of culture and information. This case study focuses on two integration projects arranged by two libraries; the library of Jönköping with the project Brobyggarbiblioteken, and the library of Kortedala which was involved in the project Ordbron. My purpose is to find out how these two libraries chose to work with integration, migrants and multiculture. The aim is to examine if the library could function as a passway to the Swedish society, and to find out if the library can facilitate for migrants to maintain contact with their native country.

This evaluational study has been initiated by the County Council of Gävleborg (LandstingetGävleborg), politically responsible (and the main economical) authority of BibliotekGävleborg, the regional library institution in the county of Gävleborg, Sweden.The aim of the study is threefolded:1. to evaluate the organization of Bibliotek Gävleborg during the 1990's as we11 as theeffects of a reorganization carried out in 1990, and, through the use of interviews and a questionnaire, to ascertain the attitudes of Bibliotek Gävleborg's branch users (mainlythe municipal libraries in the county) towards the organizational development.2. to evaluate and compare regional library activities in Gävleborg prior to and duringthe 1990's, and to investigate the attitudes of the afore-mentioned branch users towardsBibliotek Gävleborg's activities.3. to investigate and discuss possible future directions of regional library development in Sweden in general, and in Gävleborg in particular.The closing, debating chapter in the study also'contains a few suggestions of measures to enhance regional library activity in Gävleborg..

The purpose of the master thesis was to reflect and analyze music library activities and policies in the public libraries in the area around the city of Borås, in the south-western part of Sweden. With this thesis I also wanted to look at the interaction between the public libraries, the music school and the music associations in the same area. To investigate these matters, qualitative method was used in the form of interviews with seven librarians from seven different libraries and five representatives of different local music organizations. Other methods used were observations and source studies. The literature used discusses the role of the music department of public libraries as well as that of a music librarian working in a public library.

This Master thesis aims to study the relation between Swedish governmental cultural policy and cultural events at two Swedish public libraries. The Masters thesis demonstrates how national cultural policy regulates every part of the public library. This demonstration is a result based upon national cultural policy documents and interviews with employees at two public libraries in Sweden. The conclusion that national cultural policy regulates this part of the public library is drawn with help of the circle of culture as applied in Culture Studies and Michel Foucault theories of power. The thesis contains the answer of four questions, two involving cultural policy and the other two events at the library.

The main aim of this master thesis was to see the process of an interactive online reference service from idea to final product. The reference service we have studied is developed and used by the Library of the National Institute for Working Life in Stockholm, Sweden and goes by the name phibi. Our goal was to review the whole realization process from the reasons why a service like this was created, how the service was introduced and implemented inside the organisation and finally what the result and consequences were for both the library staff and for the users of the service. Phibi is designed to be a tool that fosters communication between the library staff and the remote users where the users get the opportunity to be helped with their questions by the library staff although they are not physically present in the library. To understand the process we conducted a case study with 11 interviews of the library staff, the superior and the initiator to phibi.

In the Swedish school library discussion, the most prominent role of the school library haslong been that of cultural centre in the school, with the main goal being to encourage children'sreading. During the 90ies there were signs of a shift in focus to the role of information centre,giving active support across the whole range of the curriculum, in the independent researchingwork of the students. At the same time severe budget cuts caused great worries for the future.The interest for the school library media centres increased during this time, many differentorganizations said they wanted to fight for better school libraries. The purpose of the presentwork was to find out who they are, what they want and what their ideal school library lookslike. Fourteen organizations were studied, focus was on activities during 1995.

The purpose of this master thesis is to investigate how the public library can support adult learning through collaboration with other actors in the community. This is done by examining the activity of Linköping municipal library towards the user group adult students. The questions raised consider; the political view of supporting adult learning, the role of the public library, who are the actors in Linköping, the experiences of collaboration and finally what promotes and restrains collaboration. The investigation is done as a case study with qualitative methods. The qualitative methods was found to be the most appropriate for this study, since the majority of the empirical material has been collected through interviews.

The essay is about the Nobel Library's investments in fiction, the change of certain linguisticareas since 1904 and the purchase policy of the Library. The paper contains an introductoryhistorical chapter, where I describe the history of the Swedish Academy, the life and willof Alfred Nobel and in conclusion a description of the Nobel library of the Swedish Academy.When writing this essay I have used a combined qualitative and quantitative method, meaningthat I have interviewed the librarians of the Nobel Library, studied the purchase catalogues,and kept statistics over the books.in different linguistic areas purchased since 1904 onwardwith an emphasize on years ending with "4". The outcome of this survey is that the purchaseof books within the different speech areas doesn't vary as much as first expected, and thatthere rises and falls within all the linguistic areas which could be further explored..

The aim of this Masters thesis is to examine the importance of public libraries for individuals in their everyday life and to study the differences in views between the individuals. Questions posed in this study are: What do public libraries mean to individuals? Which differences between individuals views of the public library are to be found? What is the reason for differences to occur? The analysis is based upon qualitative interviews with six persons, four women and two men between 31 and 55 years of age. The theoretical starting points are Anderson and Skot-Hansens theory of four different roles of public libraries and Bourdieus theory of lifestyle. The study acts on a hermeneutic attitude.

The aim of this Master?s thesis is to examine three library weblogs to evaluate how they are used and what type of information the libraries publish in these specific weblogs.The following three questions are the basis of this study:? What is the content of the weblogs?? How is the weblog used as a tool by the libraries?? How is the interaction between the library and the readers of the weblogs presented regarding the comment function?The method that has been used in this study is content analysis and the code units have been created during the process. It is mainly a qualitative analysis but it does also contain quantitative elements. With the content analysis, 21 different themes where cut from the three weblogs. These themes where then put into the model of the local library profiles worked out by Marianne Andersson and Dorte Skot-Hansen.

The aim of this Master?s thesis is to examine in what way library users are depicted on images at two academic libraries; the University College of Borås Library & Learning Resources (BLR) and the Gothenburg University Library (GUB). 62 images, from websites and information brochures, are analyzed and the main questions are: How are users represented on images? What activities are shown? What is the difference between BLR and GUB? How can the consequences of the representations be understood? Little is currently known in the LIS-field about how images work as constructors of the social reality. The theoretical and methodological point of departure of the study is discourse analysis, new institutional theory and picture analysis.