The aim of this study has been to explore local cultural policy documents in some municipalities in the geographical region of Västra Götaland. Do the municipalities have these kinds of documents for their local cultural activities, and how are they designed? These are questions which the study has focused on. The study has been concentrated on the library activity in the local cultural policy documents. The research has been a comparative one.

The aim of this study was to map the intellectual base at the Swedish School of Library and Information Science (SSLIS) at the University Collage of Borås, and to compare this intellectual base to the intellectual base of the research area Library and Information Science. This was done by analysing the citations in publications published, between the year of 2001 to the first quarter of 2006, by researchers at the institution, using the technique of author cocitation analysis. Cluster analysis and multidimensional scaling, statistical techniques that are traditional i the author cocitation analysis, formed an objective map of the intellectual base at the SSLIS. This map was then compared with three prior studies, that used the same technique to map the intellectual base of the research area. The result shows that the map of the intellectual base at the SSLIS consists of the specialities: user studies, library studies, culture/cultural policy, information retrieval, bibliometrics and information in organisations.

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 purpose of this Masters thesis has been to examine the importance of libraries for girls leisure time in secondary school. Focus has been on the use of the library as a leisure activity. Interviews were carried out with six girls of the ages 13 to 16. The conclusion of the study is that the library is of importance for the girls mostly through its books. Reading turned out to be an important leisure activity for the girls and the books provided by the library were of significance for their identity development.

The aim of this Masters thesis is to examine the view of funding and sponsorship of culture within Swedish governmental cultural policy. The main issue is to discover changes in attitude towards funding and sponsorship of culture by comparing the discourse of cultural policy in the 1970s with the discourse of cultural policy in the 1990s. The theoretical and methological starting point is Ernesto Laclaus and Chantal Mouffes discourse theory. Another theoretical starting point is Danish cultural policy reasearcher Dorte Skot-Hansens theories of the development of cultural policy in the Nordic countries, and Norman Faircloughs, of critical discourse analysis, theory of the marketization of discourse. Four governmental cultural policy documents, two from the 1970s and two from the 1990s, are analysed through a model loosely based on Laclaus and Mouffes idea of nodalpoints and elements constituting a discourse.

The role of cultural policy within the general political planning of a community can vary both historically and regionally. The aim of this study has been to explore the cultural policy plans, during the 1990's, in the recently formed geographical region of "Västra Götaland". This is a qualitative study, carried out during 1999, and based upon structured interviews with five representatives of the cultural-policy sector in the "Västra Götaland" region. In order to identify connections and tendencies in a more general social context the aims of the five representatives regarding cultural policy have been explored from the perspective of three cultural policy paradigms, namely Dorte Skot-Hansen, Olav R. Spilling and Göran Nylöf.

The aim of this master thesis is to examine which criteria are generally used to guide pub­lic librarians in their acquisitions' decision. The study went ahead in France, principally at La Bibliotheque municipale de Lyon. It also includes a view of some special library services in the social field.Twenty persons were interviewed and an attempt was made to divide their answers into three sections: acquisition routines and criteria for media purchase, how to receive the library visi­tors and their influence on the acquisitions, and, finally, the librarians' own opinions on the matter. One important question was whether censorship is applied and in that case, would it be a deliberately way of acting or rather a spontaneous reaction, more or less unconscious.Censorship in real or manifested through a self-preservative reaction turned out to be a factor closely dependant on the library's financial situation. Many librarians affirmed they would find useful some kind of a written practical library acquisition policy..

This thesis examines how library employees experience the library as a meeting place. Our questions are: What effect has the concept of a "library as a meeting-place" for library staff?How do they see the library as a meeting place? How do they see their workplace as a venue for meetings? The respondents interviewed work in public libraries. We were inspired by a cultural geographic theory that we re-designed. The following divisions were made in order to give the work a definitive structure:The "mental space"The library as a meeting place on a global and universal level;The "conceived space"Librarians and planners' thinking on the specific library as a meeting place;The "living space"How library staff perceive that the library is used as a meeting place in reality.In our analysis, we use a phenomenographic qualitative interpretive methodology.

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.

The aim of this Masters thesis is to examine the view of market-led culture, focusing on literature, within Swedish governmental cultural policy. The main issue is to discover changes in attitude towards cooperation between culture and business by comparing the attitudes and ideas expressed in the governmental policy documents from the 1970s with the governmental policy documents from the 1990s. To illuminate, and with an effort to explain, these attitudes and ideas expressed in the documents their political and social context has been studied as well. The theoretical starting point is two political ideologies, and Danish cultural policy researcher Dorte Skot-Hansens theories of cultural policy in the Nordic countries. The methodological starting point is two variants of analyses that are textual ones.

The topic of this essay is information seeking for children and young people in municipal libraries. This is based in the growing need for information seeking skills in the Information Society. Policy documents on the topic are scrutinized and related to a concrete praxis. Data has been collected through two case studies; one carried out in Ronneby and one in Trandared, Borås. These cases where chosen because of the existence of a local policy for library skills and information search for 6 to 12-year-olds.

The aim of this study was to describe, analyze and compare the Left Party?s, the Social Democratic Party?s, the Liberal People?s Party?s and the Moderate Party?s ideas on immigration policy from 1960-2010. In this study the immigration policy program or party program was analyzed through idea analysis to find out what immigration policy interventions they have come with, and if they want to assimilate or integrate immigrants. Materials used for the study are the immigration policy programs and party programs. Even scientific journals and articles have been used, in both national and international level.

The aim of this thesis is to study the effects of self-service on professional qualifications of library assistants in three public libraries in Sweden. The research questions are: - How do the library assistants experience that their professional qualifications have changed since self-service was introduced at the library? - Does the view on library assistants? professional qualifications and future differ between library managers and library assistants? - Does the view on library assistants? professional qualifications and future differ between the three different libraries? The method used is qualitative interviews with six library assistants and three head of libraries from three different public libraries. The theoretical framework for this study is constructed by theoretical ideas about professional qualifications and technology's impact on professionalism. The results indicate that the cognitive qualifications of library assistants have increased and social qualifications both increased and decreased.

The purpose of this paper is to describe methods to computerize a library and to compare theory with a process in a school library. The case study is based on a school library called Sunnerbogymnasiet which is situated in Ljungby. My questions are;- Which methods are parts of the process to computerize a library?- Which methods are used in the process in Sunnerbogymnasiet?- What does the practical process look like compared to the methods described in theory?In the paper I present the methods in the process according to the studied literature and compare these with a process at Sunnerbogymnasiet. The most significant result is that cooperation between the school library and the community library was the most important reason for the choice of library computer system.

This is a two years master?s thesis that studies five libraries. The purpose with the paper was to look at a specific material and study how it expresses itself around the architecture of the buildings, an if the descriptions were different depending on the library, public library or university library. The conclusion is that the ways of describing the library buildings have varied; depending on one part time and one part evolution. The way library buildings look and have been used has changed over time also, and as well how people perceive and talk, or in this case write about them..