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.

The purpose of this master's thesis is to examine and compare the process of starting a school library at schools which haven't had a school library before, and to examine and compare the experience of this process according to the principals and the persons responsible for the school library.I have examined two Swedish independent primary schools (age 6-15 years). I have made qualitative interviews with the principals and the persons responsible for the new school library. In all, I have made seven interviews. As requested by the new Swedish Educational Act, both schools had recently started creating school libraries. One of the schools had recruited a half-time teacher-librarian and the other had no staffing at all.In the interviews, I have examined the attitudes of the informants towards school libraries, if this attitude has changed during the process of starting the school library, the informants' experiences during this process and the informants' views on the school library as an agent for student achievement.

The aim of this master?s thesis is to examine the accessibility for persons with disabilities to service, materials, and the library building in one Swedish public library, and also to see what guides the development of accessibility at this library. In order to do this we have studied guidelines and political documents to se how this library responds to them. To our case study, data have also been collected by qualitative interviews, and observation of what this library offers impaired persons at the library?s web site, in special materials, facilities, and the functionality of the library building.

The subject of this thesis is to ascertain the task of the public library in Swedish society today according to the employer, that is the State and the municipalities, and according to the public library itself. The thesis also tries to establish as to what extent these different actors share the same view of the task. To this purpose I have studied the library law, the target reports of municipal authorities and public libraries, and made interviews with public library representatives during the autumn of 2001. The particular consideration of this paper is whether the task is being described in active, culture making terms or in passive, service functionary terms. Initially, I describe the task according to the library law.

We studied the understanding of public librarians of the required qualifications for a public librarian, what these qualifications embody and how they should be used, and if there are any differences between geographic regions. We also compared our results to the Library Code, which describes the responsibilities of the public libraries. To complete our study, we interviewed fourteen public librarians at eight different public libraries located in both urban and rural areas in Sweden. Our results showed that even though the qualifications specified by the Library Code were identical, they were emphasized and used differently by the public libraries included in our study. This illustrates that the public libraries prioritize and focus differently on the various aspects of the Library Code.

In this thesis, the introduction of smoke-free restaurants and bars in several EU Member States in a policy convergence perspective is studied. The thesis sets out to explain whether policy convergence has occurred and the possible explanations connected with it. It is stated that 15 out of 25 EU Member States had introduced or decided to introduce smoke-free restaurants and bars up to April, 2006. Out of all the countries in the world, 35, including the EU Member States, had introduced or decided to introduce smoke-free restaurants and bars. The result is analysed by using policy convergence theory and by putting the case in a global environment where tobacco control has become an ever more central theme for public health policy.The EU Member States are different in several ways considered to be important factors for policy convergence, such as cultural, institutional and socio-economic similarities, and the conclusion is made that EU membership has been a most crucial factor for the rapidity of the policy diffusion.

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.

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 bachelor thesis was to gain a deeper understanding of and examine how library blogs are realized at public libraries together with the views among librarians regarding the realization of library blogs.The questions we wanted to answer were: ? How is the library blog realized at the public libraries in this study? ? What are the views among the librarians in this study regarding the realization of the library blogs?The analytical model in this thesis is Connie Crosby?s six steps on how libraries successfully can realize their blogs. Four of the six steps were selected: planning, implementation, marketing and measures of success. The methodology used for this study was semi-structured interviews. Two interviews were conducted with three librarians that have partial responsibility of their respective library blogs.The results of the study show that the process of the library blog can look different in different libraries, and that the respondents had clear views on how the realization of a blog should be done.

The purpose of this study is to investigate how students in a Swedishjunior high school (grade 7-9) view their possibility to participate in thecollection management of their school library, and how the schoollibrary works to involve the students when purchasing media. The studyhas resulted in a model for easy and effective involvement of studentsin the collection development.To achieve this aim both quantitative and qualitative methods are used.A survey in three classes in the school, observations at the schoollibrary and a qualitative interview with the library assistant have beenperformed. The collection management at the school library isdescribed using the School Library Taxonomies developed by DavidLoertscher and two models for participation developed by Roger A Hartand Harry Shier. In the survey, the students are asked about their libraryand reading habits, their perception of their own participation in thecollection management of the library and their opinions of theimportance of student participation in the library.The results show that all students view the possibility of participation as something important, but not all of the students are willing to be active themselves. The proposed model for effective involvement of students in the library focuses on simplicity, voluntariness, distinct information and visible results..

This Masters' thesis is a study on the information behaviour of hospital personnel at the University Hospital in Lund, Sweden. A questionnaire was distributed to 301 nurses and physicians working in the intensive care unit, the population was reduced to 244 persons. The response rate was 52%, i.e. 125 questionnaires were completed. Nurses constituted 68 % of the population.

This Masters thesis aims at presenting a picture of, and critically examining, the Swedish debate concerning the public library and the future by way of 21 articles in three library periodicals. The questions examined are: -What are the views concerning the future public library in Swedish library press? -What characterizes the debate and why? Theories on political institutions and information society are used and the method is hermeneutic, a type of idea-analysis. The first step in the analysis consists of a categorized presentation of the material. The themes concern the form and content of the library as well as competence and hopes/fears.

Information management is today a matter of great importance for every organisation. It is therefore necessary for organisations to see information and its management as a significant part of the organisation s key to success. In this essay we have chosen to study the implications of information policy and information strategy for The Nordic Council/The Nordic Council of Ministers. These two intergovernmental organisations share the same information department. Although The Nordic Council/The Nordic Council of Ministers are non-profitable organisations, they share some characteristics with those acting in a competitive market.