The aim of this thesis is to study librarians attitudes towards fiction and reading. I have examined librarians fiction reading habits and how they handle the expectations that users may have regarding their knowledge in fiction literature. There have been many studies concerning the librarians information literacy. This work explores librarians competence in fiction literature. The primary question posted in this thesis is: What kind of fiction are librarians reading and how do they feel that they can correspond to the users expectations? The data collection is based on literature on the subject and qualitative interviews with eight librarians from different kinds of libraries.

The aim of this Master's thesis is to examine the theories and visions of five futuristic projects at children's libraries in Sweden and Denmark to investigate if these projects have approaches that are significantly different from today's best practices of the libraries and the current theories behind the children's sections.More specific questions are also asked:Are the projects taking advantage of the children's perspective or is it the adult vision of children's needs that is governing?Are the projects promoting collaborations with other actors, thereby facilitating a future development of the children's library by others than librarians?The comparisons reveal that new methods and tools are beeing developed, while the traditional ambitions and views on children and children's needs are essentially unchanged. The role of the library as a social room and meeting place has increased, while its role as a place for finding and transferring information has been challenged by Internet and home computers. The library can still compete as a public place offering relevant contents and assistance by attentive, well-educated adults.In conclusion, the futuristic projects are expected to promote greater variations between children's libraries, by presenting literature, media and information in many different and more innovative ways. Such greater diversity and multiplicity would allow the libraries to market themselves with a clearer message in order to compete with other (commercial) activities for children..

The aim of this Master?s thesis is to examine in what way the introducing of library plans in three municipalities have affected the work in library organizations. We base our study on a new institutionalist perspective, which focuses on changes in organizations from a social and interpretative perspective. By using this theoretical framework, it is possible to study how interpersonal relations affect the development in library organizations. Through qualitative interviews with ten librarians, we investigate how the establishing of library plans has influenced, and been influenced by, the library field and by the environment, i.e.

The purpose with this study is to examine what kind of support there is for school libraries at the selected independent upper secondary schools and how these schools ensure that libraryservices is available to their students and their teachers. The purpose is also to examine what attitudes the administrators of the schools have to school libraries and teaching in information seeking. A qualitative method with interviews was used to fulfil the purpose. As a theoretical basis of the study Loertschers taxonomies of the school library media program and Limbergs three levels of pedagogic research were used and the interviews were analysed with these two theoretical frameworks as a background. The result of the study showed that neither one of the three examinated schools has a school library which means that they use the public library instead.

The aim of this Master's thesis is to examine the contemporary educational tasks of the Swedish public library as they manifest in Swedish library journals. Our main question at issue is: Which educational discourses are there? And in relation to our main question: how do the concepts of information literacy, lifelong learning and adult education relate to each other? Is there an antagonism between the public library's duty to supply fiction as opposed to non-fiction? and: What are the consequences of these discourses in the service provided by the library?Our theoretical starting-point is the discourse theory as proposed by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe. We analyse 39 texts from four Swedish library journals: Ikoner, bis, DIK-forum and Biblioteksbladet. The analysis is done in two phases.

The purpose of this masters thesis is to examine the arguments that are being used when closing and establishing peoples libraries. During the 90:ies, in the community of Gothenburg, 4 public libraries were closed and another 3 public libraries were opened. A possible reason for this change lies in the reform from the city Committee that split the community of Gothenburg into 21 pieces; all with one centrally appointed political Committee. The library activity has since the reform was implemented got worse in some areas, foremost in the already neglected city sections, and better in some areas, which where able to establish new libraries. Argumentation analysis indicates that the arguments used at closure where mainly economical and neither the number nor relevance and validity of the arguments where good.

This essay investigates the psychological aspects in students' experiences of their university library and the information seeking process. Focus of the investigation is library anxiety, a kind of fear towards the university library with cognitive, affective and behavioural aspects. Twenty students at Uppsala university, who was about to conclude or recently have concluded an academic essay, were interviewed about their experiences of the university library, Carolina Rediviva. Five respondents stated experiences of fear, anxiety and apprehension in the library and it is on these informants that the greater part of the analysis and discussion draws. The essay suggests a model of library anxiety where outer environmental aspects of the library, such as the library environment, roles and routines of the library and library staff, interacts with inner personal aspects of the individual such as personal experiences, intellectual capacity and sensitivity to stress and anxiety.

The aim of the thesis is to examine the Swedish publiclibrary-debate between 1965 and 1975, with a focus on theinfluence of the New Left movement. The empirical materialconsists of articles from two library journals, and is studiedwith the intent to achieve knowledge of the library ideologyexpressed in context of the socialist movements of the 1960sand 70s. The method used is ideology analysis. Threedifferent areas of debate have been included in the study:issues pertaining to library holdings, problems concerning theworkplace and social and outreach activities.Some of the salient and key ideas that often recurs in thematerial touch upon the dangers of mass market literature, thenecessity for an expanded workplace democracy, theimportance of social work and the need for a more politicallyactive library. The bureaucracy, centralism and authoritariantendencies in the library world are criticized, as well as thenotion that the library should remain a politically neutralinstitution.

My purpose with the study is to investigate if it is possible to argue in favor of organizing public libraries according to the client based theory. To create a base to argue from I have studied UFO, a department focused on young adults at the age between 15 and 25 at the public library of Malmö. This case study, performed by investigating the documentation of UFO as well as conducting an interview with the project leader, is the base from which I then can argue for or against the idea of organizing public libraries according to the client based theory. Public libraries should always reflect the communities they serve. This challenges the staff of different libraries in different regions to arrange their organizations accordingly to their local population and to be flexible enough to follow the changes of this population.

Scholarly publishing has since the introduction of electronically distributed periodicals seen a time of change, mainly in the STM-business (Science Technology and Medicine). The roles of the three main participants in the publication process; researcher, publisher and library are developing into new directions. Researchers themselves are taking a more active part in the discussion, with the boycott list from the Public Library of Science organization as an illustrating example. Reforms are being launched partly as an economical and efficiency issue, partly as an increasing desire from researchers to maintain the control of scientific end result. This Master s thesis examines how the partly conflicting goals of the participants affect the conditions for scholarly publication in an electronic environment.

The aim of this Master?s thesis is to study the information needs of the homeless. The main focus is to investigate what kind of information needs that are to be found among the homeless and also how information is exchanged and shared by the group. Another aspect of our study includes the sources that are used to fulfil these information needs. The homeless use of the library, as one of these sources, is also examined.

The main object for this thesis is to study how students in library and information science at Högskolan i Borås search and valuate documents in the process of writing a paper. The study is based on a series of interviews with 12 students. Our methodology is also based on studies of their final product. The goal of the study was to map out how the students make their decisions during their search process. We studied the students use of search words, relevance judgements and how their need for information changed trough out the writing of their paper.

The purpose of this Master?s thesis is to investigate how public library users consider the knowledge of the librarians and to examine what the users expect from the librarians. To begin with, we contemplate our own view of the librarians, their knowledge and what help we expect at the library. Realising that we do not expect particularly much from librarians, although we have studied to become librarians for two years, we assume that the regular library user does not expect much either. This assumption resulted in our decision to investigate this particular question.

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 thesis is to gain a better understanding of how elderly people seek and use information in everyday situations. A further aim is to suggest ways for the library to offer more services specifically tailored for pensioners. This is an important topic as pensioners are a rapidly growing group of library users. We conducted qualitative interviews with four elderly people concerning their information needs in everyday life, and discovered that they rarely use the library, preferring instead to get their information from various internet sites and their pensioners? organisation.