The aim of this master thesis is to explore what role libraries play in the educational process for university students suffering from dyslexia. The question at issue is whether the library is able to meet the needs of students who have difficulty in using the libraries main resource, i.e. printed documents and information in written form. An often expressed view indicates that the modern library creates a lot of obstacles for dyslectic students. The method used is a literature study followed by an empirical study in which interviews were conducted with four students suffering from dyslexia and studying at two different universities and using different libraries.

Library and information science students often ask themselves if their education will be sufficient and adapted to the work tasks they will meet with as future librarians. It is the aim of this Master thesis to investigate LIS-graduates' experiences of the transfer from academic studies into professional life. The thesis thus treats four questions: I: What problems, if any, does the LIS-graduate experience when first employed? 2: Does the recently employed librarian feel that the academically obtained knowledge is applicable in professional life? And, if so, how does it apply? 3: Does the new employee find that there are areas in which his/her academic education has been insufficient? 4: What is the general attitude towards LIS-graduates' education among colleagues and is the library staff prepared to provide the necessary instructions? The investigation is performed through interviews with eight LIS-graduates, all of whom have recently started working as public librarians. The analysis is based on the concepts of competence, qualifications, work skills, knowledge and in the processes of formal and practical learning.

The aim of this masters thesis is to examine the supply of magazines and periodicals for young people at the library. We also examine young peoples reading of magazines and periodicals and compare the librarys selection with what young people read. The main questions of this thesis are: What do young people do at the library on their spare time? What weekly magazines and periodicals do young people read? What range of magazines and periodicals do the city- and the school library have? Where is the department located and how is it designed? What kind of relationship is there between young peoples reading and the selection? To answer these questions we have done an interview with a librarian and a questionnaire among 13-16 year old children. We found that it is not often that young people read their magazines and periodicals at the library.

The aim of this thesis is to examine how high school students use their school library for their information-seeking. The theoretical framework is based on Louise Limbergs three categories of students views on information-seeking and Andrew Large and Jamshid Beheshtis three categories of students choice of information systems. Qualitative interviews were used and seven high school students were interviewed. The empirical material was compared and divided into 9 categories. The results show that the students see the school library as a place where they can search for information, but its also considered to be a good place to hang out between lessons to study or to meet friends.

This thesis applies a discourse theoretical approach in order to examine in whatways and with what possible meanings the library at KVINFO participates in the overall gender discourse in society. This means that our reading takes place at a metatheoretical level, focussing on the library as a constructor of meaning in relation to society's gender discourse.Besides the actual reading, the thesis argues for the fruitfulness of using both a discourse theoretical and a feministic perspective in the field of Library and Information Science. By looking at libraries in general through a lens provided by these perspectives, libraries are staged as battlegrounds for competing discourses,that attempt to promote its particular knowledge claim on how reality should be perceived.The reading shows that it is possible to perceive the library at KVINFO as amaterial articulation that takes shape by and is part in a feministic counterdiscourse against the masculinistic hegemonic discourse, which throughout ?hisstory? has positioned women as ?the other?, and established men as the normative category in society, including the libraries. Through its practise KVINFO has contributed to a change in the collective identity ascribed to women.

This master thesis is about art activity in the public library. The essay takes its starting point from Government cultural political directives and my purpose has been to study how these are followed up in the municipal level. My survey takes place at the main library of Flen in the county of Södermanland. What I am looking for is, what the art activity looks like, what is decided regarding it and what the strategies are. Furthermore I look into how library visitors understand and participate in the art activity.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the ancient library organisation in the Mediterranean area. The focus of the study is if they used catalogues, marked their material and their methods for shelving. During the ancient period the people used to write on clay tablets, parchment- or papyrusrolls and codex, which was significant for the organisation. The method, which I use, for the examination is based on criticism of the sources, how the modern scholars has interpreted ancient remains and texts. The study shows that the first evidence for library organisation is from Mesopotamia 2350 BC.

A company library can only exist if it contributes to a positive result for the company. As endusers are beginning to perform searches on the Internet and have access to databases and electronic documents via their desktops it becomes important for company librarians to thoroughly think through what services should be offered to the users so that the library still contributes to the company s profit. The aim of this dissertation was to try to define the services that the company library offers its users having in mind the changes that have taken place concerning the availability of information. I also wanted to explore whether the librarians had the necessary competence to perform the services offered. Six information specialists were interviewed to give their view on the services their libraries offered.

The aim of this study is to show how some persons with one of the Swedish national minority languages as mother tongue use a library with regard to their mother tongue and culture. The research questions are: How do Sami-speaking, Finnish-speaking and Meänkieli-speaking (Tornedalen Finnish-speaking) persons use a library with regard to their mother tongue and their culture? What aspects do they find important in this use? As a theoretical frame I have used Marianne Andersson and Dorte Skot-Hansen?s model of the functions of the local library and Will Kymlicka?s theory of the value of maintenance of minority cultures. The study is a qualitative user study. Deep interviews have been conducted with 9 persons with Finnish, Meänkieli or Sami as mother tongue.The results show that the main use of the library is as a cultural centre and the most frequently used service is borrowing of literature.

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 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.

This Master thesis aims to study the relation between Swedish governmental cultural policy and cultural events at two Swedish public libraries. The Masters thesis demonstrates how national cultural policy regulates every part of the public library. This demonstration is a result based upon national cultural policy documents and interviews with employees at two public libraries in Sweden. The conclusion that national cultural policy regulates this part of the public library is drawn with help of the circle of culture as applied in Culture Studies and Michel Foucault theories of power. The thesis contains the answer of four questions, two involving cultural policy and the other two events at the library.

The aim of this thesis is to define digital library, and to investigate a relation between the construction of a digital library and user needs. The main questions to be answered are: 1 What criteria was used when constructing a digital library, particularly concerning issues like purpose, function, design, supply, services, resources and future development of the digital library? 2 How do the digital library system designers and system builders criteria correspond with those of postgraduate researchers? And what factors affect the use? A digital library is an enterprise that gives access to information stored digitally and directly available on the net. The crucial is that the enterprise has a control over collection of information and responsibility to make it available to a defined group of users. In order to investigate the relation between the construction of the digital library and user needs, I have interviewed five key people involved with the work with the digital library and twenty postgraduate researchers from the Gothenburg University.

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.

In the library community there is a continuous discussion about enhancing user interactivity on library websites, according to the principles of Web 2.0, called Library 2.0. The purpose of this thesis is to study how librarians conceive Library 2.0. The focus is on the study of the librarians? conceptions of user interactivity on the website, and if the librarians conceive that their professional role is affected by Library 2.0. The study is implemented methodologically by interviewing six librarians and using phenomenography as an approach.