The aim of this essay is to examine fan culture?s role in Swedish public libraries. I have interviewed, via email, six librarians who encounter and use fan culture in their daily work. The theoretical elements of my essay are based on a modified set of theories by Dorte Skot-Hansen that identifies six ideal types of cultural political rationalities. My study reveals that fan culture is used in Swedish libraries as a tool in increasing user participation in library activities.

The aim with this Master's thesis is to study the debate that takes place in the local community when a public library branch is threatened by closedown through the local newspapers. Through this it is our aim to understand why the debate takes place, and why so many people gets concerned with it. By relating this debate to contemporary research of library- and information science, and the discussion in three major Swedish library journals, we have found the answers to these questions. By studying the debate, we found six subjects that where essential for this study. These were Politics and economics, Urban and rural districts, Democracy and accessibility, The service of the library, The meeting place and To replace a closed down library.

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 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 study is to examine the function of the public library in the local community at present. I have searched for the answers to the following questions: Which position has the public library in the local cultural policy? What characterizes each library and which are the priorities? What is the local profile of the public library? What cooperation partners does the public library have and what do they mean to the library? Does the public library intensify the local community in any way? To answer this, I have made three qualitative case studies. Interviews and collection of documents were carried out in three different communities.

The subject of this thesis is studying how physical libraryenvironments express ideas on the function of the library, asstated in guiding documents. The ?physical library? isdefined as everything inside the library building, andexcludes the library architecture, focusing on things likefurniture, furnishing and the arrangement of physical media.The two questions asked in this thesis are: What aspects ofthe idea of a public library?s function, as expressed in theguiding documents of the library, are possible to study in thephysical library environment? In what ways can theseaspects be studied in the physical library environment?The study of the thesis is divided into two parts, a ?prestudy?and a ?main study?. In the pre-study aspects areidentified by reading guiding documents from differentpublic libraries, and analysing the result together withprevious studies on physical library environments. In themain study three Swedish public libraries (located inHelsingborg, Åstorp and Klippan) are visited, and theirenvironments are studied based on theory on what items andmeans of expression can influence the experience of thelibrary function.The four aspects that are identified in the pre-study areculture, education, accessibility, and development.According to the results of the main study, culture isexpressed in the library environment through aesthetics,education through the environment being inviting andstimulating for studies, accessibility by the environmentbeing inviting, functional and democratic, and developmentby modernity.

The living library started in Denmark at the festival of Roskilde in 2000. It was initiated by the youth organisation ?Stop volden? (?Stop the violence?). Since 2005 the idea of lending a human being who represents a prejudice has also become a practice in a few public libraries in Sweden. I found it interesting to analyse the living library in relation to the mission of diversity in the public library.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how students who study with Problem-based learning PBL in a distance learning course perceive the support from the university library. I first went into adult education, PBL and distance studies, one at a time, and then took a look at the combination of problem-based learning in distance studies. During the investigation, I conducted five interviews using a phenomenographic method to understand how the students perceived the support they received from the university library. The university library gives a lot of support but what I noticed while I was writing was that it is difficult to reach the students with the information regarding the help that is available to them. I give some example on how to develop the support and find that the students have a wide range of different needs for support from the library depending on their individual situation, social context, academic ability, location and course of study.

The aim of this Master thesis is to study the public libraries' function as a place for people to meet. Four major questions are taken up: + Do the public libraries have the function of a meeting place? + How important do the librarians and the visitors find the libraries possible function as a meeting place? Do they think that this function is important? + What differs the public libraries from other places in society when it comes to the function of a meeting place? + What differences are there between a larger and a smaller library when it comes to the function of a meeting place ? The basis of this study are interviews with employees at a province library in Jönköping and at a smaller library in Sjöbo in Borås municipality. Our study deals with the history of public libraries, its functions as a meeting place, its architecture, culture, and statistics concerning numbers of visitors and loans of books. The conclusions that are drawn are that the public libraries have qualifications to function as a meeting place even if that isn't always the case.

The purpose of this Master Thesis is to investigate the quality of the library service at the City Library of Uddevalla. In particular this thesis will examine the quality of the library service to people who are disabled. This applies particularly to the service to people with reduced ability to move or to see, which also includes people with infirmities due to old age. We also have investigated how well the library itself is adapted to the disabled. In order to get more information about the library service to people who are disabled, we have studied literature on this subject and the Master Thesis contains a summary of those documents.

This essay investigates the integration of the school library into teaching in one of Sweden?s senior high schools and the effects of the new education act which gives school libraries a stronger standing. A second purpose is to investigate teachers? views on professional responsibility with regard to the development of information literacy. Through an email survey different aspects of library integration are investigated.

The purpose of this master thesis is to investigate the understanding of children's librari-ans regarding children's needs and preconditions in a library context and based on devel-opmental psychology and information seeking theories. The children's perspective is said to be the guiding star in the children's library and the thesis also aims to study the chil-dren's perspective as defined by children's librarians.The master thesis is a qualitative study based on interviews with children's librarians working at major public libraries. Observations of the children's libraries in the study have to some extent been performed.The study reveals that children's librarians are fairly knowledgeable about children but do not to a full extent use that knowledge into adapting the library to children and their needs. The children are not contributing to the adaptation of the library to any extent as there are few routines for that matter. In society in general children are on a regular basis represented by adults and their perspective on children and children's needs, which may differ from the perspective children have on their own lives, and the same is applicable for the children's library.

The object of this master thesis is to question why the sheet music heldby libraries is not used more than it is. I have mainly studied the inc idenceof any cooperation between the music schools and libraries,whether there has been consultation on the purchase of sheet musicand whether the music schools borrowed sheet music from the libraries.For the thesis qualitative methods were used in the form of interviewswith ten leaders in music or cultural schools in Sweden. The mainstudy has been focused on the library and music school in Vänersborg.To compare my results and draw conclusions I have used the work ofSanna Taljas: Music, Culture and the Library: an analysis of Discourses.The result of the study showed that there is very little cooperation betweenthe library section for music and the music school. The greatestinterest for cooperation appears to come from the library personnel.Both the library and the music school personnel claim insufficient timeand money for their lack of cooperation..

The purpose of this Master?s thesis is to examine what role the new city library in Halmstad has for its users. The questions posed in this study are: What do the users actually do at the library? What roles are the most significant according to the users? Have the politicians succeeded in their intention of realizing a modern library according to the users? The theoretical starting point is Andersson?s and Skot-Hansen?s theory of four different roles of public libraries. In order to extend the model we added a fifth function; the one of aesthetical experience.

The purpose of this Master?s thesis is to examine what role the new city library in Halmstad has for its users. The questions posed in this study are: What do the users actually do at the library? What roles are the most significant according to the users? Have the politicians succeeded in their intention of realizing a modern library according to the users? The theoretical starting point is Andersson?s and Skot-Hansen?s theory of four different roles of public libraries. In order to extend the model we added a fifth function; the one of aesthetical experience.