The scope of this master´s thesis is the issue of usability in relation to interface design,in particular the interface of a university library´s online public accessed catalogue, orOPAC. Since the OPAC can be seen as the library´s ?shop window? to the world, it isof great importance that the interface to the OPAC can be used by patrons witheffectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction.The master´s thesis is based on a qualitative study performed at Karolinska InstitutetsUniversity library, and contains both a usability evaluation and an interview study. Twointerfaces were evaluated: a standard web interface provided by the system supplier, andan interface developed in-house by Karolinska Institutet´s systems department. The twointerfaces are both connected to the same online library catalogue, thus making possiblea comparative study..

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.

Studies have shown that library employees often choose not to use readers? advisory tools but to instead rely entirely on their own experience, often doing the library user a disservice. However, very few have looked at why this is so. This thesis looks at to what extent thirty individual employees in thirty Swedish public libraries use readers advisory tools when helping a patron find a good book, with the major focus on what motivates them to use these tools and why some choose not to use them. It was found that readers? advisory tools where not used with any consistency and that many things influence the library employees? use of these tools.

The aim of this Master?s thesis is to investigate if the library can be a real partner for researchers in managing and dealing with their research information. In this study, six researchers have been interviewed about their problems with information management. This study uses the method Critical Incident Technique for the interviews with the researchers. This method focuses mainly on problems and what happens around those problems.

: This bachelor thesis explores library students? attitudes towards marketing in libraries. The aim is to find out if they are interested in working whit marketing questions in their future workplaces. To perform the study the author used a questionnaire survey and 48 students completed the survey. The answers where converted into present form and 10 charts were created to show the result.

The aim of this study is to investigate methods of collection development, the users? influence on selection and quality aspects, focusing on non-fiction literature in Swedish public libraries. To find out opinions of collection development, I use the method comparative literature study. Antonio Gramsci?s concept hegemony forms the theoretical background, and hegemony as concept is related to a library context by using Maj Klasson?s text on the librarians? different positions of authorities.

This thesis purpose is to investigate the sociopolitical factors and causes that led to why KB chose not to use the criteria and guidelines for their digitization activities are described in DIGSAM. To do this I focused on three research questions;- What factors (internal / external) led to the decision not to use the criteria guidelines for digitization, which is described in the policy document DIGSAM and what arguments and opinions formed the basis for the decision.- What is the Library's digitization activities, the factors, criteria and guidelines governing activity in the current situation? - Will KB's choice not to use DIGSAM as a whole in their digitization activities affect national library's role as a beacon for the Swedish libraries digital work? In what way and why? In order to answer these questions I interviewed three of KB:s librarians who had extensive knowledge of digitization and DIGSAM. I chose to also use a pilotstudy that was conducted at KB in the of spring 2010. The idea was to use this material as a basis to build on.As a theoretical framework, I chose to use a socio-political theory of Ingrid Mason.

The aim of this Master´s thesis is to examine how public library managers reflect on readers´ advisory and promotion of adult literature, and how they view and discuss the governmental proposition Läsa för livet (prop. 2013/14:3). Questions posed in this study are: What matters do public library managers think fiction have on adults? How do public library managers reflect on promotion of adult literature? What are public library managers´ views on the governmental proposition Läsa för livet and how it will affect the public library?The theoretical starting-points used in this study are views on literature by Magnus Persson and Gitte Balling, and views on literature promotion by Rasmus Grøn. Method chosen was semi-structured interviews with six library managers in public libraries.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the function of the museum library. The methodused consisted partly of literary studies, and partly of field investigations, conducted mainlyin the form of interviews.Two different sets of field studies have been conducted. The first one is an investigation ofthe museum libraries in Goteborg. After a preliminary study, three of these have been selectedfor further investigation. These are the libraries of Göteborgs Konstmuseum, GöteborgsStadsmuseum and Röhsska museet.

In Sweden there is an integration policy and a policy for national minorities. The integration policy aims to integrate newly arrived immigrants (nyanlända invandrare), whereas the minority policy aims to maintain and strengthen the rights of the national minorities. The national minorities are though, at times, included into the integration policy, even though they hold a minority status in Sweden. This paper aims to, through discourse analysis, investigate the research question: ?how is the content of integration referred to, when it is related to immigrants, contra when it is related to national minorities?.

This master?s thesis studies library teaching at two university libraries, Freie Universität Berlin in Germany and Södertörn University in Sweden. The aim of this paper is to study views on information literacy, how these views affect teaching practice, and how the teaching of information literacy is connected to, on the one hand, German and Swedish learning culture and, on the other, the local community of practice at the studied university libraries. The theories applied in this paper are learning culture and community of practice as developed in the works of Judith Ricken and Etienne Wenger. The methods that have been used are qualitative, semi-structured interviews that were conducted at both university libraries.It was observed that the teaching practices were highly connected to learning cultures.

This study examined gray areas within professional ethics of a public library organization and investigated the relationship between the library as an organization and the librarian as an employee when it comes to support and opportunities to make exceptions to rules and regulations. This relationship is then related to workplace issues.Data were gathered via interviews with six librarians who were placed into two focus groups. Library organization documents that contain rules and regulations (guidelines) were examined. The presumption was that conformity between librarians? experiences and actions and the organization?s guidelines will tell us something about workplace conditions.

The aim of this masters thesis is to examine how the educational work of the Swedish public library was regarded in the Swedish library journal Biblioteksbladet at three different periods of the twentieth century, i.e. the thirties, the sixties and the nineties. Using a theoretical framework from the field of professionalization and a methodological framework of hermeneutics, it is shown that the educational work of the thirties can be described as having a focus on free learning whereas the educational work of the sixties can be described as having a focus on public utility. The educational work of the nineties focuses on the information seeking process of the user. It is noted that this development during the century can be understood as a shift of the cognitive authority of the public librarians.

The aim of this study is to examine how the adult students in the Adult Education Initiative called Kunskapslyftet, experience their use of the Main Public Library in Linköping and how the librarians experience the change in their working situation after Adult Education Initiative has started in July 1997. Methods used in the survey are interviews with librarians and students in the Adult Education Initiative. I have also distributed questionnaires to some of the adult students and studied literature that describe students use of libraries. The result shows that the students generally are satisfied with the service they get from the librarians at the Main Public Library. It also shows that what the students mostly asked for, are help to search information about a subject and to find literature in the library.

The main purpose of this Masters thesis is to examine gender division in public libraries by reviewing literature and interviewing eight public librarians and two chief librarians. The reason why we decided to investigate this topic is the lack of research concerning sex-segregation in library and information science. By choosing this subject we intend to deepen the understanding of the significance of gender both within the public library and of the occupation in general. Some researchers claim that the low status of librarianship is a result of the large proportion of women in the profession. We want to find out how our informants view the relation between professional status and female domination.