The starting point for this study is the situation for immigrants during the process of integration. This study aims to describe and discuss, with a broad approach, if certain information needs arises when immigrants meet the Swedish labour market and in such a case, do they use the library and how does the public libraries meet those needs. A secondary aim is to help increase the understanding of immigrants and forming a basis for further efforts by the libraries to improve services for immigrants and point at areas where there is a need for further research. - Which expectations and demands meets immigrants on the labour market and which library needs are possibly generated by this? - What services and range of material do the libraries offer immigrants and how are they marketed at the libraries homepages on the Internet? - Do immigrants from outside the western culture use the library and in that case how? Swedish human capital and Swedish social capability are identified as demands that are often held by operators on the labour market.

This paper analyzes governance of cultural and ethnic integration. The study has a comparative perspective between five municipalities in Skåne. One aim in this thesis is to clearify the ratio between the state and municipal authority and how municipalities exercise their autonomy. I analyze the advantages and disadvantages in different governance methods linked to how the municipalities are working in practice and what problem the integration policy is intended to eliminate. I also resolve the influence of officials and citizens in the policy process.My conclusion is that direct ruling to a large extent is limited by indirect control.

This bachelor thesis explores the conditions for a harmonized EU gender equality policy. Recently the maternity leave directive has been introduced by the European commission and seeks to improve the conditions for pregnant workers. The controversial subject of this maternity leave has illustrated many of the problems connected to the development of a social dimension in EU. First of all, the debate concerning the maternity leave directive in the European Parliament has shown that both sides in the parliament seem positive towards creating legislation in this matter on EU level. However, parties at the right tend to disagree to many of the amendments in the proposal, such as the maximum entitlement.

The aim of this Masters thesis is to examine what part and importance electronic games play in the life of girls, how the girls use electronic games and what the girls think and say about their use of electronic games. We also intend to examine what girls have to say about electronic games at the public library. Our attempt is to illuminate and bring knowledge to those who work within the library with the selection, purchase and conveyance of electronic games. Method used in the survey is focusgroup-interviews with girls in the age between 12-14 years in three different schools. The findings are related to four different perspectives, theory of child development, from a gender perspective, theories of understanding how young people use computer games and theories to understand the purpose of public libraries.

The purpose of this article is to investigate how and from which sources librarians collect information on their profession with respect to factors that are important for their work. In order to achieve this goal, a questionnaire-based survey will be conducted at three medium-sized central-public-libraries in southern Sweden. Using this survey, I wish to answer the following four questions: To what extent do librarians acquaint themselves with changes and developments within regional and cultural policy arenas important to their work? To what extent do librarians acquaint themselves with information using conferences and library debates that are focussed on changes and developments relevant to their work? Do librarians consider that they have enough time within the limits of their work hours to follow developments within the librarian profession, for example with respect to developments within information technology, and how would they appraise the future demand for information technology-based services at the library? From which source(s) do librarians collect information relevant to their work? The theoretical basis of this paper can be compared to a radar as it scans subjects-of-interest to the organization in the field of business intelligence. This investigation uses a quantitative method, with data collected via a survey consisting of 13 questions.

The present thesis is about how preschool children develop their language skills. The purpose is also to discuss how library and preschool can collaborate and in different ways together help the children to achieve different skills and to use their first and second language in a more appropriate way. The main problem identified from literature and own observations is why library and preschool dont collaborate to help young children to develop their language skills? Which reasons are behind a lacking collaboration? What can be done to increase collaboration between the library and the preschool? How can librarians and preschool teachers use their different professional skills in the best manner to be able to help the children to develop their skills in language acquisition? Is it possible to measure childrens language skills and how can one decide what characterizes a good collaboration? We started with a literature review and continued with collecting qualitative data by means of interviews with people who worked as librarians and preschool teachers, who were supposed to collaborate in a language oriented project. We have chosen different language theories by well-known scientists and we have only picked a few of them, which we considered relevant for the chosen topic.

The purpose of this thesis is to research public librarians view ofthe public library as a meeting place and how it may contribute tofacilitate social integration. To study this we have asked thefollowing research questions: How do public librarians work withthe public library as a meeting place? And how do they contributeconditions for ?soft inclusion??The method we have used for this study is semi-structuredinterviews. Seven public librarians from the Gothenburg areawere interviewed and the empirical material was analyzed usingqualitative content analysis.As a theoretical foundation we have used Dorte Skot-Hansensmodel of the public library as a third place and Mikael Stigendalstheory on social inclusion. Furthermore have we used research onthe public library as a meeting place and social integration as acomplement to the model and the theory.Conclusions from the material gathered is that public librarianssee the public library as a meeting place with potential tocontribute to integrating individuals and groups with one another.The librarians? foremost method was to attract visitors withactivities aimed at certain target groups.

In this master thesis I investigate different views on literary quality in two quite different library journals; Biblioteksbladet and Bibliotek i Samhälle. One aim of the study is to see whether the ambiguity of the term literary quality is considered. Since there is no universally accepted definition of literary quality to be found the analysis is inspired by discourse analysis. This theoretical frame work starts off in the assumption that our views of the world are much dependent the way we describe it. The work of Finnish scholar Sanna Talja is presented and the results of this thesis are compared with the three perspectives on music culture that are presented in her book.

The aim of our study is to gain understanding of how parentsperceive their own, the preschool's, and the library's efforts to stimulate preschoolers' enjoyment and yearning to read, as well as what types of collaborative efforts the parents seek.The study is based upon qualitative interviews with parents, both mothers and fathers, to preschool children (aged 1.5 to 6 years old). The analysis does not offer any generalizations. We have chosen to use a sociocultural perspective as the theoretical starting-point of our study, our thoughts being that we learn together with and by the help of others. We consider this perspective to be closely related to Aidan Chambers's "The Reading Circle", which we have chosen to use as our tool of analysis.It turned out that the parents perceived their own reading stimulating role as crucial, even if they did not consider all they did as reading stimulative. Some things, such as discussing the book while reading, occurred naturally but is also an important part to stimulate reading.

This master's thesis studies Utländska biblioteket, a 19th century foreign literature subscription library in Karlskrona, Sweden. The aim of the thesis is to investigate Utländska biblioteket between 1835?1864.The material consists primarily of primary sources from the archive of Utländska biblioteket. The main primary sources are the library's accounts book, its minutes, and two book catalogs. Using analytical tools from Jürgen Habermas, feminist criticism of his ideas and from Pierre Bourdieu, as well as results from previous research on older library forms and female organization in the 19th century, the thesis answers questions relating to the library as a society, its members and its book collection.The investigation shows that Utländska biblioteket was a subscription library as well as a book circle.

The aim of this Masters thesis is to identify discourses within the school library field and to analyse which professional identities the discourses result in for school librarians. The empirical data consist of 71 articles from Swedish journals concerning school libraries and school librarians, between the years 2000-2003. The theory and method used is a discourse analysis which is inspired by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe. This form of discourse analysis was chosen since it was useful when identity was the focus of study. The analysis is accomplished in three steps.

AbstractUniversity of Växjö, School of Social SciencesCourse: PO 5363, Political Science 41-60Title: US and UN, cooperation or conflict?Author: Charlotta BjuvlingSupervisor: Lennart BergfeldtDate: Autumn 2007The international society changed a great deal after the end of the cold war. It gave the United Nations a new oppertunity to act after the deadlock during the war, and it gave the United States a new hegemone role in the world politics. The aim of this paper is to investigate wheter the United States foreign policy action have been accordence to a realistic way of thinking since the end of the cold war. I will do this with the help of my research questions:? Have the United States followed the guidelines of the United Nations in their foreign policy?? Are there signs that show of a change, either towards more or less cooperation between United Nations and the United States?To answer these questions I will use the theories realism and Hedley Bulls concepts of fairness and his ideas of an international system in his book ?An Anarchical Society?.

We studied how librarians would adapt to telework, the performance of job responsibilitiesfrom home. We found'that all duties could be accomplished. but to varied extents.Computerbased searches, interlibrary loans, acquisitions, indexing and telephone referenceservices are the duties most likely to adapt to telework whereas cataloguing andclassification probably are best performed in the ordinary workplace.Most duties would demand access to technical means of assistance when performed fromhome. Connections to the library's local network, directly or via modem, are requiredbecause it is unrealistic to expect librarians to telework with fewer tools than theyordinarily have available. Although librarians generally believe that teleworking will nothave a large irnpact on the operation of the library, most would like to telework.Whether teleworking is a viable strategy depends on the characteristics of the duties, thelibrarian's desire to telework, but also on the size of the library, the size of its staff, thelibrary's activities, and how work is distributed between librarians..

The aim of this master?s thesis is to examine the virtual reference service Ask the Library [Bibblan svarar] from a postmodern perspective. Ask the Library is a Swedish online reference service that is run by the country?s public libraries. The postmodern theories of Jean-François Lyotard are used to study how information is managed and transmitted within the service.

Romanization as a method in the bibliographic environment makes retrieval difficult in many aspects. The object of this thesis is to illustrate the importance and the possibility to include non-Roman script in the records of the library catalogue. The questions at issue are about the consequences of romanization, the technical requirements for implementing non-Roman script, and bibliographical resources that have been developed during the last 20 years. The thesis is based on a literature study and correspondence with people who are familiar with the subject. The thesis points out that Romanization causes information to be distorted in various ways and is inconsistent with the requirements of exactitude in bibliographic control.