The main purpose of this master's thesis is to investigate to what extent municipal politicians govern a selected public library. This means to clarify who determines the direction of the library and its services and in what way. It also involves examining the relationship between library staff and local politicians in the decision-making process. Which decisions are made by the politicians and which are left to the employees? The study is based on an investigation of a public library in a municipality over a period of ten years the 1990s.

The main purpose of this two year master´s thesis is to study patterns, structures and relations within gender studies when combined with Library and Information Science(LIS). Further aims are to determine the character of student work considering, occurrence, gender and main theme, to study the progress of the intellectual base of gender studies within LIS and to evaluate the use of bibliometrics as a tool for researching the development of a discipline. To achieve these aims, a bibliometric study using both publication analysis and citation analysis, is carried out. The studied material contains student work, specifically focused on gender, from the Swedish School of Library and Information Science (SSLIS) from 1985?2012.

The main purpose of this Masters thesis is to contribute to the understanding of high school teachers information seeking behaviour in the transition from university studies to occupational practice. The theoretical framework encompasses theories of professional socialization, the sociology of knowledge, of professions, and of library and information science. The empirical material has been collected through interviews with six recently qualified high school teachers in different subjects. The interviews have been analysed on two different levels; first on a descriptive level and then on a theoretical level. The major findings are that the academic context limited the student teachers information seeking and they did not have the opportunity to choose cognitive authorities on their own initiative.

The purpose of this masters thesis is to examine how managers in public libraries are managing financial cuts. Questions posed are: What strategies are used by the library manager to handle the cuts and how are the strategies being worked out? What are the consequences of the cuts? How do the managers use their library plans in the work with the cuts and how do the plans change as a consequence of the cuts? Library managers in eleven communities are interviewed about their financial cuts in 2003 and/or 2004. The result shows that cuts are made in different ways. The study analysed the managers statements with a model about strategies created by Oulton.

Citizenship information is defined as the information the citizen needs to be able to take part in and influence the society. Since it is a democratic issue that information concerning the citizens role in society really reaches the citizens, it is of importance to study how the citizens proceed when they have a need for this information. The aim of this Masters thesis is to investigate how our eight informers proceed when they experience this need in a non-work situation. We performed qualitative interviews. The most important part of our interviews was the introduction of some fictitious problems to the informants.

The purpose of this research is to survey and describe some science teachers? conceptions of which assessment criteria they use at the marking process. Questions which are relevant for this research are the following: 1. Which assessment methods form the basis for science teachers? marking process? 2.

The aim of this thesis is to examine how four decision makers at a University College and a library director at the same University College perceive the profile, image and identity of their library. This University College library is used as our main example. We have evaluated the main example in relation to two other University College libraries, in order to obtain a deeper understanding of how these library directors view their own libraries and to attain a more multi-dimensional view of the main example of our study. Our intention is to analyse the current situation, not the past nor the future. Qualitative semi-structured interviews with decision makers and library directors have been conducted.

The aim of this essay is to examine three separate Swedish public libraries and their respective websites on the grounds of the usability sciences. I firstly had to summarize the main properties of the usability-field in order to gain an extended knowledge of its purposes and possible usage for today?s library systems. I was then able to apply the extended knowledge in the examination of the three library websites and the purpose of determining whether or not they were designed according to the standards set by the usability-sciences.Usability is a rather new science that deals with the dissection and examination of computer-based systems, in order to find the key components that make systems user-friendlier. With user needs being the main focus of its research, usability tries to meet all the different needs of the modern user and construct systems that are less system-centered and more user-centered.

The purpose of this master thesis is to investigate what the work situation of children's librarians looks like in the year 2000, after the changes in society which took place since the 1980's. Did the tasks of children's librarians change during the nineties, and if so, in what way and why have they changed? Which new knowledge needs emerged for children's librarians during the nineties, and what was the cause of these new needs? Finally I want to know which needs for professional development arose, and how these needs are fulfilled. The thesis is based on qualitative interviews with children's librarians, library managers, library consultants, one representative of the Swedish school of Library and Information Studies and one member of SAB's children and youth committee. The study reveals that the identity of children's librarianship is strongly associated with the stimulation of language and reading.

The history of books and libraries in the Philippines starts after the arrival of the Spaniards in 1521. During the Spanish era, most of the libraries were established through the religious orders to support their own religious mission. The Americans came in the beginning of the 20th century and have had a decisive influence on the education system and the development of libraries in the Philippines. For the analysis, I have used the models of Michael H. Harris and Magnus Torstensson in their studies of library development.

In this study my aim has been to discover what connections can be made between the way of creating a library building and the general values concerning the library activities and the library users. What kind of ideology could possibly be reflected in a library room? My study includes two different parts. First of all there is a theoretical section based upon literature relevant for the subject. Here I try to focus on the libraryÕs role in society as a public room.

The aim of this essay is to examine different discourses concerning adolescents and library youth services that can be identified in the material. 73 articles from the Swedish library journal, Biblioteksbladet, were analysed trough a model. The different articles were all published between 1916 and 2005. The analysis revealed a result that consists of four discourses about adolescents and youth services at different libraries between 1916 and 2005: the library as fostering discourse, a new era discourse, the visiting activities discourse and the young adult discourse. The library as fostering discourse is based on the idea that the library itself doesnt need to change the service to adolescents, instead the adolescents are supposed to change into good library users.

During my education I have frequently noticed that pupils do not like science or find it hard and dull. The purpose with this investigation is to find out how pupils experience their science education and if they can understand the arguments for studying the subject at school.I have made a questionnaire study among pupils in grade 8 and 9. After analyzing their answers I have interviewed some of the pupils to get answers on further questions.The investigation resulted in conclusion that pupils have hard to connect their science-education to their everyday lives. The most important element in forming the pupil?s opinions about science is their relation to the teacher and how the lessons are set-up.The following questions will be answered in this paper:Do pupils understand why they have science at school?Can the pupils see the use of scientific knowledge in their everyday life?How do pupils look upon their science education?.

The aim of this Master's thesis is to investigate the importance of subject expertise for academic librarians in Skåne. Virtually all librarians in Sweden have studied other subjects besides library and information science (LIS) before becoming librarians, and in this thesis we ask what happens to this expertise. How many librarians can be said to have a good background in the subjects they are working with? Do academic librarians use their subject knowledge on the job? Does it make a difference what subject one has studied when it comes to job opportunities? What do librarians themselves think of the importance of subject expertise? We are also interested in finding out how subject expertise fits in with the growing professionalization of librarianship.A quantitative questionnaire was sent to 195 academic librarians at four different institutes of higher education in Skåne. A total of 107 librarians answered questions about their LIS education, subject background and current job as well questions on how important they perceived a subject background to be for themselves and for academic librarians in general.

This essay describes the philosophy of science that Thomas Kuhn puts forth in his work The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. The question is, does his description of the scientific paradigm work as well today as in the examples he gave in the book?The conclusion is that there are certain factors that make for a number of differences between science today and, for example in the seventeenth century. There is also a growing theory or vision of a post normal science laid developed by among others Jerome Ravetz. This theory or vision is an idea of a science close to peer-communities and fast as well as critical decisions involving opposite values..