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 subject of this thesis is to ascertain the task of the public library in Swedish society today according to the employer, that is the State and the municipalities, and according to the public library itself. The thesis also tries to establish as to what extent these different actors share the same view of the task. To this purpose I have studied the library law, the target reports of municipal authorities and public libraries, and made interviews with public library representatives during the autumn of 2001. The particular consideration of this paper is whether the task is being described in active, culture making terms or in passive, service functionary terms. Initially, I describe the task according to the library law.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how a public library, as an information center and a meeting place, may contribute to bring Swedes and immigrants closer to one another, which is a prerequisite for integration. To realize this purpose, I have asked three questions. Which conditions and demands are stated in central documents for libraries immigrant activities? What do the library called Biblioteket Västers multicultural activities contain? How does the library conceive its object to strengthen immigrants identity so that its activities, contribute to integration? As method, I have used hermeneutics, which means that I have interpreted the thesis material. In the theory I have described relevant literature and confirmed the importance of identity, language and the majoritys acknowledgement for integration.

Information overload is by no means a new concept, but has come to prominence the last decade. A generally accepted definition of the phenomenon does not exist. The main question in this master thesis is how to define information overload in order to create a connotative concept for information science. This thesis reviews the nature and causes of information overload, and considers possible solutions, both individual and technical, and their relevance to the information professional. The review of the results shows that researchers seldom or never give a legible definition of what the concept information holds.

Fountain of Knowledge? The Changing Role of the Library at the Upper Secondary School Level. There have been many changes in the Swedish society in general, and in the school system and hence the school library in particular during the last decade. The aim of this master thesis is then to study what students at the upper secondary school level consider to be the optimal school library to meet their specific information needs at school. In addition to and in comparison with this, the aim is also to study the present conditions of the upper secondary school library as described in documents, reports and other studies in this field.

The aim of this essay has been to study six female seniors use and view of the library and its roles. The two Danish scientists Jochumsen and Rasmussen talk about the library in terms of a social center, cultural center, knowledge center and information center. Depending on what lifestyle the seniors belong to in the social room, they use the library differently. The social room consists of four lifestyles, north-west, north-east, south-west and south-east. The things that are important to consider in order to be able to place each senior within the different lifestyles are education level, economic standard, interests and so forth.

This thesis deals with information provision to the knowledge intense biotechnology businesses of Ideon Science Park in Lund, Sweden. Previous research concerning the information needs of Science Park companies has been conducted from the information provider s perspective. Instead, we apply a user perspective to find out what information needs these companies have, and how they prefer to acquire information. Central terms are: information, -needs, -acquisition, -consciousness, -strategy, small and medium sized enterprises, scientists and engineers, information (resources) management, networks, tacit knowledge, knowledge transfer and innovative milieux. The companies need scientific and business information; the latter is easily obtained within Ideon.

The aim of this study is to investigate the public libraries use of their websites in their marketing. Our study is based on the websites of 60 public libraries. The libraries are chosen because of their geographical location in three different provinces? Skåne in the south, Östergötland in the middle and Norrbotten in the north. These three choices enable us to cover densely as well as thinly populated areas, the agricultural district, the woodland and cities of various sizes.

Abstract Ideon Science Park was built on the edge of Lund city in mid-80ies. The Science Park was surrounded by open farm land and Lunds Faculty of engineering(LTH). The architecture, the facades of the buildings, were placed to face the faculty. The Science Park has since then grown, and the actual front of the building is no longer faced towards LTH. The people working at Ideon are met by the backside, the meeting with Ideon is primarerly a meeting with fields of parkinglots. The initiative to this thesis was taken by Ikano Fastigheter AB, one of two real estate owners of Ideon Science park. Their aim is to make the area easier to orientate, they want it to be more internally connected and with a stronger identity. The thesis is mainly dealing with two questions conserning Ideon Science center.

This paper will portray the differences and similarities that exist between students whoattended the Swedish School of Library and Information Science in Borås.The study is based upon quantitative information gathered from a survey which wasdistributed to first-year students in Borås in the auturnn term 1994. A total of 77 studentsresponded to the survey.We also do a comparative study of the students at all the library programs in Sweden.This is partially based on the findings by a thesis prior to this one by the authorsSvalstedt and Österdahl.We found that the students in Borås differ mainly in their personal histories and backgrounds.When it comes to their attitudes towards the profession and educationalmatters they are similar. Further we found the same to be tme in our comparison of thelibrary programs in total..

The wide spread of the Internet and new information technologies in recent years has come to effect how libraries manage and disseminate information. Search engines like Google are widely used by people who often find the information retrieval systems of libraries to be too complicated. In 2004 Google announced plans to digitise five major library collections. Organisations representing the publishing industry and authors have since then filed lawsuits against Google claiming that Googles scanning of library books infringe the rights holders copyright. Due to Googles potential impact on libraries this thesis aims to examine how Googles digitisation project, Google Book Search, has been received in the library community.

In the last few years there has been an ongoing debate concerning the methods of assessing the quality of public libraries and their services. This study investigates the opinions and needs of the users at four different public libraries in Malm : the local libraries in Bellevueg rden, Limhamn, and Kirseberg, and the main library in central Malm . The purpose was to find out whether different user groups display different patterns in their library use and, in addition, to identify what library services they prefer. The data were collected through interviews with users and librarians, and by means of a user survey ccarried out at the four libraries. The results indicate that certain differences in the usage patterns do exist between the main library and the local libraries.

Information overload occurs when the amount of information exceeds the individual s capacity to efficiently process and use the information available. In this situation information instead of being an asset becomes a load. This interview study deals with college students experiences of information overload when working on their thesis. Focus lies on use of Internet based information resources. The main result was that the students experienced information overload in specific situations and steps of the process.

The purpose of this study is to examine teachers and school-leaders attitude to the school library. Both the cause of and the consequences of these attitudes are examined. In order to fulfil my purpose I have examined this through both literature and empirical studies. I have interviewed the headmaster, the school librarian and two teachers at two comprehensive schools. As theoretical framework I have used David Loertschers taxonomy containing theories about the levels in an ideal school library and Miles model of school development.

This thesis deals with the information needs and information provision of teachers in compulsory school, from a role theoretical perspective. The object is to investigate teachers opinions on their information needs and information provision. The following questions have been used to approach the problem: Which are the information needs of teachers in compulsory school? How do teachers get the information they need? Which difficulties and deficiencies do teachers experience in their information provision, and what does the ideal situation look like? The theoretical frame of reference consists of a model of the information seeking of professionals, which is based on role theory. Qualitative interviews have been carried out with nine teachers.