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.

After W.W. II the Social democratic government wanted to modernize and rationalize the Swedish society. The university system was reformed[INS: :INS] to support growth of industry and science. But the reform did not reach Swedish academic library system and it was not well organized. The aim of this thesis is to analyze the reaction of the Swedish academic libraries to the new era in the framework of ideological criticism.

Allocation of funds to public libraries is uneven and this study will try to explain the reasons and clarify why the allocations of funds are distributed like they are and what calculations influenced the financial apportionment. This master thesis accounts for allocation in seven public libraries in Uppsala. The study shows that one reason for uneven allocations is demographic. Another reason is that the library has come into a good or bad circle. There are no models for allocation of funds to public libraries in Uppsala, thats why their allocations are given after a percentage increase of earlier years allocations, and that leads to a good or bad circle.

The aim of this bachelor?s thesis is to investigate what role the public library in Sweden may have when it comes to gender equality issues. The questions at issue that were asked, in order to give an answer to the aim, was how the librarians defined and saw work with equality, how much the steering documents for the library impact and what they are doing in their practice to weaken the dichotomies between the sexes. The theoretical starting point used for this study is three concepts, the gender system, the stereotypes and the gender contract described by the Swedish historian Yvonne Hirdman. The purpose of the three concepts is that gender is a social construction which produces gender stereotypes and a gender order in society, which the library is a part of.

The aim of this thesis is to study how librarians in Swedish libraries perceive the task of mediating fiction. What are the librarians private relationships to fiction and how do they perceive the position of fiction in contemporary society? What views have they developed of the borrowers approach to fiction and how do they perceive the borrowers increasing influence in the library? How do librarians prioritise and which principles form the basis for their purchase of fiction? How do they categorise fiction in the library and how much do economic and political factors influence the decision making process for the purchase of fiction? Finally, how do they define their roles as mediators of fiction and which strategies do they adopt to communicate which literature the library has to offer? The material used in this study was acquired using a qualitative interview technique in which six librarians with experience of literature mediation partook..

The aim of this Master's thesis is to study the public library identity from a brand perspective, how the public library brand identitity is communicated through blogs and what is communicated in them.The authors analyse the public library identity through selected concepts and a model within Aaker´s and Kapferer´s branding theories. These theories have been applied on literature and blogs as a method. The authors have examined literature about the public library identity in different works within Library and Information Science and political documents that applied to public libraries. An empirical study has been carried out on blogs published by public libraries in Sweden.The result of this study has lead to the identification of different core and extended identities for the public library brand. The core identities have been identified as democracy, adult education (the swedish word ?folkbildning? has no correct translation in english, adult education is the recommended related term) and lifelong learning.

The purpose of this thesis is to describe and analyse the road towards a modern library in the southern archipelago of Gothenburg between the years 1943 and 1976. The archipelago consists of about thirty smaller and larger islands, of which seven are inhabited throughout the year. Styrsö and the surrounding islands composed a municipality of their own until 1973. In January 1974 it became a part of the municipality of Gothenburg, this is also the year when the only bridge in the archipelago was ready to be taken into use, between Donsö and Styrsö. There is no bridge between the mainland and the islands.

This study investigates Swedish and Finnish official perception of Russia following the Cold War. This is aimed at categorizing changes in perception of Russia over time and assessing the impact of perception on defense policy. The study uses a comparative method where the contents of three foreign policy reports of Sweden and Finland respectively are analyzed according to dimensions based in image theory. Results show that Swedish and Finnish perceptions of Russia are overall similar between the reports being compared, except for Finnish perception of Russian relative power being significantly greater. Changes in Swedish and Finnish official perception do not clearly correlate with changes in defense policy.

The aim of this study is to deepen the knowledge of how libraryusers, library personnel and the relationship between them are expressed in ?strategicdocuments? of university libraries in Sweden. As used in this study, strategic documentshave the purpose of pointing out focus and strategic planning for an organization. Sixstrategic documents are chosen. The main theory and method used is critical discourseanalysis signed Norman Fairclough.

he purpose of this master thesis is to learn more about the ancient Alexandrian Library. The method used in this thesis is methodology of history, especially a critical attitude when it comes to evaluating the ancient texts. I put forward three questions to which I desire to find answers. First: What do the sources from Antiquity tell about the Alexandrian library? Second: How do modern writers of books on the subject use these sources? Thirdly: I look into the possible historical and cultural reasons that the first of the Ptolemaic kings could have had for establishing the Mouseion and the Library of Alexandria.

This thesis is based on a study conducted at the City Library Dynamo in Gothenburg where data have been collected through qualitative interviews with young people aged 15 - 25 years. Our intention was to examine what young people think about the City Library Dynamo as a venue, and how they perceive its activities and functions.In order to compare two different cultural venues for young people, where Dynamo is one, interviews were also conducted at a location other than the library, at Arena 29, a cultural activity house for young people in Gothenburg. Twelve qualitative and semi-structured interviews were conducted in order to collect data which was then transcribed and structured. As a theoretical framework we have used the new model for the public library, developed by Hvenegaard, Jochumsen and Skot-Hansen 2010.Our result shows a thoroughly positive image of the City Library Dynamo, particularly as a meeting and study place. Young people stated that they felt welcome and that the City Library Dynamo was designed and tailored to match their needs.

The aim of this thesis is to accomplish an understanding on how librarians experience their professional role at private companies. The study is based on qualitative interviews with persons who have a degree in Library and Information science, but does not work as an ordinary librarian. To answer why the respondents work at private companies, this thesis dwells on how the education in library and information science prepares their students to face an alternative career; why the respondents wants to work at private firms instead of a library; if the salary is a key factor in order to choose a career; if the respondents think the companies appreciate their qualifications, and finally, if the respondents think they intrude on other professions' territory? Working at a private company, with a degree in library- and information science, is not, according to the respondents, easy. Although appreciated by their knowledge in the field of information, the interviewees think that the title librarian is hard to cope with.

The aim of this thesis is to examine collaborative tagging as a potential asset to libraries by a review of 10 social bookmarking sites and their features, and a discussion of these features? possible use when the environment changes from the web to a library. Previous research on collaborative tagging is presented, as well as overviews of social bookmarking, folksonomies and the concept of Web 2.0 and Library 2.0. The study itself is presented as a walkthrough of common features and how they work, followed by a schematic overview of which sites have which features. Finally each site is presented in a more detailed manner.

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.

This essay aims to explore the development of the common foreign and security policy within the European Union as well as the recent addition of the post of High representative in the field of the common foreign and security policy. This essay will attempt to achieve this trough exploring the questions; how have the aim of the European foreign policy developed, how the forms of cooperation has within this field developed and finally what impact will the recent addition of a high representative for the common foreign and security have. My aim is to answer these questions with the help of neo-functionalism.The results that came out of this essay point to the direction that the neo- functionalist premise about spill over effects and the notion about increased supranational influence turn out to have some validity in them. The study has shown that during the time the cooperation within the field of foreign and security policy have developed it is possible to see that supranational institutions will gain influence when the scope of integration within a policy area widens and deepens..