The starting point for the present study is that the physical environment can enhance the learning processes of children. We want to contribute to more focus being placed on this within library and information sciences. Our main aim is to illustrate how the physical environment can facilitate the learning of children. In order to achieve our aim, we examine a concrete physical environment, namely the children?s department at the main library in Kungsbacka.

This Master thesis is about elderly visually impaired and their use of libraries. It poses the question how visually impaired elderly looks upon their local library. Their thoughts and opinions are mainly from two sides. One is what they think about the service that they get. The other is what they think about the information concerning this service.

The purpose of this study is to examine the conditions for pre-school teachers to achieve those goals that are constituted for science education in the Swedish curriculum for the pre-school. The study questions of formulations are: which importance have the conditions for the work with science education in pre-school, which importance have pre-school teachers engagement and knowledge for the work with science education in pre-school and does the pre-school pre-school teachers think that they have enough conditions to achieve those goals that are constituted for science education in the Swedish curriculum for the pre-school. The results are based on an interview survey with ten pre-school teachers from three pre-schools that are connected in a unit. The interviews were recorded and transcribed. The results from the study points out that the pre-school teachers engagement are most important for the work with science education in pre-school to flourish.

An increasing number of scholarly publishers are beginning to make their journals available electronically. At the same time there is a growing amount of exclusively electronic journals freely accessible on the Internet. These are facts that librarians have to take into consideration.This master's thesis aims to describe the electronic journal and its role in Swedish academic libraries. In a review of current literature about electronic journals, the authors discuss their strengths and weaknesses, and their impact on scholars, publishers and libraries. To investigate the situation in Sweden, a questionnaire was sent out to 43 academic libraries.Questions were raised about the selection and acquisition of electronic journals, access, technology and economy.The results show that almost half of the 35 responding libraries offer electronic journals to their users.

The purpose of this paper is to develop an idea about geography in literature and through the study of science fiction literature examine the ?future city?. With the perspective that the city is a social construction and through the use of discourse theory, I have tried to emphasize how the future city is a representation of cultural discourses and in what way geography in literature can be used to increase our understanding of urban places. My intention with this paper has also been to find a way to connect the fictional future city with today?s urban planning discussion about the future city.

The purpose of this master's thesis is to examine how the public library communicates with young users through the library web sites. Four Swedish public library web pages for children are analysed. In the analysis the web pages are treated as a combination of semiotic resources that, communicating as a whole, hold a meaning potential. In order to identify the underlying meaning of the whole I have applied the tools of Kress' & van Leeuwen's visual social semiotics to the chosen web pages.The information value, the framing and the salience of each composition is examined and analysed, as is the size of frame, the perspective and the vertical angle of a selection of images from each web page. The results of the semiotic analysis are then discussed and related to Jochumsen et al:s four space-model and the notion of ?child perspective? and ?empowerment?.The results show that the child perspective is strongest on the web pages that represent the performative space as dominating and that empowerment is mainly represented as ?doing?, ?participating? and the ?free choice?.

The purpose of this investigation is to study how librarians experience bookcrossing. We focused on the two following questions: Which variations are there in librarians conceptions of bookcrossing as literature exchange and reading support activity? Which variations are there in librarians conceptions of bookcrossing compared to other methods of literature exchange and reading support? Bookcrossing is an international book club where you share your books by leaving them at public places. The thesis is focused on librarians? conceptions and not the conceptions of members of bookcrossing.

The aim of this thesis is to examine one part of Amazon.coms recommender systems: Similar Items. The purpose is also to show the difficulties with subject access, i. e. to find a similar book to the one you just read; problems with traditional systems versus the usefulness with recommender systems like Amazon.coms Similar Items. Similar Items presents a set, a cluster of related items to a given item based on customers co-purchase.

The main purpose of this master thesis is to give the reader a picture of the experience of art and of its room in the public libraries, but above all to examine the phenomenon temporary art exhibitions in public libraries in the county of Östergötland. The study is limited to a specific activity of art, namely temporary exhibitions in libraries. Geographically, the investigation is limited to the public libraries and their branch libraries in Östergötland. Time concentrates on the present situation in 2000 and 2001. Methodologies are partly observations in some libraries, partly qualitative questionnaires to all primary libraries and their affiliates in Östergötland.

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.

 This bachelor?s thesis purpose is to examine how library staff experiences the meeting with non-Swedish speaking users of public libraries, and how they solve different situations. Today there is not much research on this subject but we find these questions important to study because we think it is good to be aware of the situations that can arise and discuss how to solve any problems. To have a basis for this qualitative study we conducted group interviews with library staff, where they are asked about their experiences with non-Swedish speaking users. In the analysis the results of the interviews are compared to previous research and related to communication theory, which is the theoretical framework for this study.

The public libraries in Sweden has an obligation to serve all of its citizens, but despite of this they often fail to include their LGBTQ-patrons. Since the year of 2008 RFSL (the Swedish Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights) have arranged a specially designed certification-process based on normcritical criterias that a chosen institution should fulfill to make their work more inclusive for LGBTQ-people. Sollentuna is the first municipal in Sweden to certificate all of their libraries. This study aims to examine what the certification have meant for the public library in Sollentuna and how a normcritical view can contribute to include LGBTQ-patrons at the library. As a method we used a qualitative interview-study to get a full picture of the certification-process and its influence on the public library of Sollentuna.

This thesis explores the opinion of different participants in the music business regarding music being made available at the public libraries. The aim of the thesis is to answer the following questions; which are the most important issues concerning the distribution of music? How do the informants perceive the public libraries mission and activity in regard to make recorded music available? Which are the benefits/disadvantages with music being made available at public libraries? Seven qualitative, semi-structured interviews were conducted with representatives from the following organisations; SKAP (The Swedish Society of Popular Music Composers), FST (Society of Swedish Composers), SAMI (Swedish Artists and Musicians Interest Organisation) SMF (The Swedish Society of Musicians), SOM (Swedish Independent Musicproducers), IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry) and EMI Music Sweden. A study of literature and articles generated nine themes, which constitutes the frame of reference for the thesis. The result shows that several of the informants have not reflected upon the public library as an important actor when it comes to the distribution of music.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine how novices set about when they search for information. Marchionini's information-seeking model is the theoretical starting point, which is supplemented by theories of other specialists within the field, such as Chowdhury; Harter; Large, Tedd and Hartley. As method a questionnaire survey was used. The questionnaire was sent to 96 students at IHM Business School in Gothenburg and 57 questionnaires were returned. The results show among other things that the majority of the students used highly interactive search strategies, and they did not plan their search before they carried out the search.

The purpose of this Master thesis is to examine whether the term elasticity is relevant and functional to apply to public library organisations. Another aim of the thesis is to relate the term elasticity to public library organisations in a network society. Sociologist Manuel Castells provide the theoretical framework on the network society. Three investigations (meant to complement each other) in two Swedish public libraries seek to give answers to these questions.To be able to examine which areas of public library activity are elastic, I make a rough definition of what public library organisations consist of ? nine activity fields are identified using IFLA?s guidelines in combination with Swedish law of public libraries.