In 1930 a new library reform came into force, which in reality was the beginning of the modern Swedish library. The purpose of this reform was to take measures to promote efficiency, for example to increase library co-operation. The Government grants were at the same time raised considerably. However, as early as in 1930, but especially the following year, the depression hit Sweden. The Government reduced the grants until the first half of 1936.

The aim of this master´s thesis is to explore how a library through it´s spatial distribution expresses, and is an expression for, a view of knowledge. This is done by an analysis of the Orkanen library at Malmö Högskola. Questions posed in this study are: What view of knowledge is mediated through the spatial system and in the shelving of books? What view of learning is expressed in the spatial distribution of functions and artefacts?The theoretical framework of this thesis has two fundamental features. One, which focuses on theories of social space, a part that is mainly influenced by the theories of space syntax.

This master's thesis asks two main questions concerning the history of the City and UniversityLibrary of Gothenburg: what was the prevailing view of the library and its role? Whateconomic support did the library receive and from whom?By critically examining extensive source material mainly from the library archives and cityand state records, these conclusions are drawn: the City and University Library was regardedas a purely scientific library by all involved except the state as early as the 1920s. The state didnot express this view until 1946. The support came almost exclusively from the city ofGothenburg, the state not extending support on a larger scale until 1946 and then onlysporadically. The widely-held view of the library as a scientific one was ignored by the statein its repeated refusals to grant the library support both before and after 1946.

This Masters thesis concerns collaboration between teachers and librarians. Three theoretical perspectives, profession, power and legitimacy, are used to analyse the results of written interviews with eight teachers and one librarian at a comprehensive school. We did not find evidence of any deeper collaboration between teachers and the librarian. The effects of profession had little impact on the relation although the involved parties seemed to appreciate differences in education and points of view. The teacher retains power over education and grades while the librarian holds sway over the physical library and the purchase of books and other media.

Integration projects at two libraries: multiculture, meetings and possibilities takes its start in the fact that Sweden is populated with people from many different nations. The libraries have a unique possibility to arrange integration projects as a supplier of culture and information. This case study focuses on two integration projects arranged by two libraries; the library of Jönköping with the project Brobyggarbiblioteken, and the library of Kortedala which was involved in the project Ordbron. My purpose is to find out how these two libraries chose to work with integration, migrants and multiculture. The aim is to examine if the library could function as a passway to the Swedish society, and to find out if the library can facilitate for migrants to maintain contact with their native country.

The purpose of this study was to find out what different groups of visitors do when they are at Borås City Library. Three issues were formulated from the purpose and they were: What do users do when they visit the City Library in Borås? What occupations do those who visit the library have? What similarities and differences are there in the use of the library depending on the visitors? occupations? To answer these questions a questionnaire was handed out among the visitors at Borås City Library. The theory that was used when the material was analyzed comes from the book?Gør biblioteket en forskel?? and the book is written by Henrik Jochumsen and Casper Hveneegaard Rasmussen.

This Master's thesis concerns the public library as a public meeting place. Our aim has been to find out why and how the library as a social meeting place has been discussed within the Swedish library community and if there has been a constant core in the discussions from the mid 70's and up to the present day. In order to do this we apply a place and space-perspective. The result of the study is that the core of the said discussions concerning the library as a meeting place is to create belongingness. This is the reason why the library community has an interest in the public library's function as a meeting place with the idea that people, by using the public library in that aspect, may experience a feeling of belonging to the society.

The purpose of this Master?s thesis is to describe the development of the most important libraries in Skövde, starting from 1830. We conclude our examination about 1940, when the municipal library has been active for almost ten years, and the libraries started by the temperance and working-class movements have been deposited at the municipal library. In order to explain this process we describe the development of the Swedish public library and its predecessors, such as reading societies and the popular national movements? libraries, as a background and comparison to the early libraries in Skövde.

The purpose of this master's thesis is to describe and analyse the origin and development of the library of Workers´ Educational Association in the community of Oskarström. This library is special because the organisation run it much longer than usual, until 1977, and to find an answer to why, we have the following questions: Why does the library of Workers´ Educational Association start their activity in Oskarström, and how does it develop, in relation to premises, librarians, financing, the stock of books and the numbers of books out on loan? What is the reason that the library in Oskarström is municipalized as late as 1977? The methods we use are hermeneutics and evaluation of the sources. The library is founded in 1914 and become important for the workers. Important sources of income are the subventions given by the state, municipality and other associations.

When the Tranemo library moved to new localities in 1991 there were also some changes made to make the library more user-friendly. The purpose of this essay is to see how a useroriented change can be done and how it has been perceived by members of the library staff and the library users.This is done by the following means:l) interviews with members of the library staff,2) a questionnaire to the users in Tranemo,3) a comparative questionnaire to users of the libraries in Skara and Lerum.The comparison was concentrated on how the library presents its material. The result of this comparison shows that even though there is a difference among the three libraries, the difference is small and it is impossible to say for sure that it has anything to do with the changes that have been done. The interviews and questionnaire in Tranemo give a positive picture of that library..

The purpose of this master thesis is to investigate how the public library can support adult learning through collaboration with other actors in the community. This is done by examining the activity of Linköping municipal library towards the user group adult students. The questions raised consider; the political view of supporting adult learning, the role of the public library, who are the actors in Linköping, the experiences of collaboration and finally what promotes and restrains collaboration. The investigation is done as a case study with qualitative methods. The qualitative methods was found to be the most appropriate for this study, since the majority of the empirical material has been collected through interviews.

This masters thesis takes the providers perspective on public library story times for children. The main questions are: What perspectives can the providers have? How does the perspective affect the content and how is the story time drawn up? Five story time providers were interviewed about the purpose of their story times, the methods they used and the content they chose. A model with four criteria was used to analyze the result of the interviews. The criteria were: adult criteria, consideration of the childrens view, pedagogical criteria and literary/story time criteria.

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.

This masters thesis aims to investigate how upper secondary school pupils experience their information seeking in a school context without access to a school library. It is the pupils own thoughts and opinions about information seeking and criticism of the sources that is the main focus. The literature that has been used consists of material from research concerning youth and different aspects of information seeking such as the information seeking process, information seeking on the web, criticism of the sources and how pupils interact with other people in order to acquire information. The method that has been used is group interviews. Twelve pupils from an independent school without access to a school library have been interviewed in groups of three.

We have carried out a study of a classification system for the Swedish collection at The Royal Library in Stockholm from 1887. It was printed in 50 copies. The constructor, Bernhard Lundstedt, and his colleagues used it as guidance in lack of a catalogue. We regard it a local classification system. Little research has been done on old classification systems, but Francis Miksa points out the importance of examining them.