The purpose of this study is to examine the phenomenon ?Living library?, where people are lent out instead of books. First it is looked into what the Living library means to the person who is borrowing a living book and what it means to the living book itself. Than the Living library is put in a public library context. This is done through a case study of the city library of Helsingborg and the city library of Malmö.

The aim for this master?s thesis is to investigate the indexing consistency in a folksonomy Delicious. This is done by investigating how users construct tags. By applying a semiotic perspective and use analysis of content the occurrences of inflected forms, hyponymy, meronymy and users own tag creations were established. Lancaster?s seven factors is the starting point for the discussion about indexing and the factors that affects it in either a negative or positive way.

This master thesis deals with the problem of integrated libraries. The number of integrated public and school libraries has significantly increased over time. These libraries are integrated for different reasons, most often because of economic considerations. The goal of the thesis is to investigate librarians´ understanding and perceptions of the professional role in this type of integrated libraries. I have investigated how librarians see and interpret their own professional role, and what factors influence their perceptions in an integrated library.The three main questions are: How do the librarians explain their professional role in an integrated library? How does their professional role change because of the fact that they work in an integrated environment? What factors, according to the librarians, influence and/or change the professional role mostly? The data has been collected through interviews with eight librarians at integrated libraries.

The web sites of Swedish public libraries display a high level of heterogeneity when it comes to design and graphical user interface. The thesis is based on the opinion that the visuals of a public library web site have implications for the user as well as for the library. The design of the graphical user interface influences the attention of the user and his/her ability to absorb information. Furthermore, there is a connection between the visuals and the users opinion about the credibility of the content of the web site, as well as of the organisation itself. The research question is: Which factors may have an impact on the design of the graphical user interfaces of a public library web site? The purpose is to create an understanding for these factors and emphasize them.

Har ni någon bra kärleksroman? : en studie av indexering av skönlitteratur vid stadsbiblioteken i Malmö och Mölndal. Have you got a good love story? : a study of fiction indexing at the public libraries of Malmö and Mölndal.The thesis analyses interviews with users of two Swedish public libraries to find aspectsof fiction important to users and consequently to be considered when indexing fiction.Descriptions of a novel by 50 users at each library are compared to the index terms usedfor these novels. For the analysis, the authors propose a model of their own based onAnnelise Mark Pejtesen's AMP system for fiction indexing.

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.

The purpose of this master?s thesis is to investigate the culture for children in the age of 10-12 year-old at the library in a small town and to see if the library and children shared the same view of the libraries missions. We have interviewed 3 groups of 5-7 children at two times. We have also interviewed a children librarian about her opinion of her work and childrenculture. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child works as our theory in this thesis.

Information is essential in order for pharmaceutical companies to be successful. This essay focuses on the information provision of pre-clinical scientists at AstraZeneca R&D Lund, and the role of the company library in this process. In semi-structured interviews, four pre-clinical scientists were asked to describe their information provision regarding what type of information they need, how they find it and what sources of information they use. Four librarians from the company library were also interviewed to give their perspective on the information provision of pre-clinical scientist. The study also aimed at comparing the image of the process as described by the scientists themselves and the librarians.

This study is an attempt to shed light on problems and possibilities of the school library of the Swedish comprehensive school concerning library law and goals of the school and the school library. Many investigations about the role of the school library of the comprehensive school have been carried through. They have all more or less come to the same conclusions. In spite of Swedish library law and goal documents of the school library, the school libraries are often neglected, if not will and commitment are to be found among teachers. Using a model of the school organisation by Gunnar Berg, three cases of school libraries are presented and analysed in a larger organisational and political perspective.

The aim of this thesis is to study a number of standards and theories, from the two research areas human-computer interaction and psychology, about how a graphical user interface (GUI) should be composed in order to facilitate interaction between humans and computers. Special emphasis is put on how the GUI should take into consideration the strengths and limitations of human cognition and perception. A study of three web catalogues shows how these theories appear when concretised. The following questions are answered in this thesis:What guidelines and styleguides can be found that specify the design of a user-friendly GUI?How do a few library catalogues on the web match a selection of these design principles?The guidelines are extracted from literature concerning human-computer interaction, psychology, automated library systems and web design.

The purpose of this study is to investigate librarian?s opinions concerning literature with state supported distribution and how to mediate and market these in the library. The types of mediation and marketing that have been studied are positioning, labeling and oral mediation.The study is qualitative with interviews at seven main public libraries in central Sweden. The respondents of the study were responsible for the literature with state supported distribution within the library.The study is based on a theoretical frame of reference containing theories from Jofrid Karner Smidt, regarding librarian?s mediation in libraries, and François Colbert?s theory on marketing planning for arts and culture.The results of our study showed that librarians have both positive and negative opinions when it comes to the literature with state supported distribution.

The digital era has led to technical advances that have transformed the role of the public library from being a place that is used only through physical visits and material, into also being a virtual space that can be accessed by users from outside the library through Internet-based access to e-media such as e-books and streamed or downloadable audiobooks.The aim of this study is to examine how the role of public libraries in Stockholm County has changed in the process of developing into digital libraries: how this has affected their organisation, work methods and strate- gies, as well as their accessibility. The theoretical framework of the study draws on Michael K. Bucklands theory of information accessibility, which is based on six factors of access that are determined by different types of barriers. The methodology is based on a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods. Primary data was gathered through an empirical survey, which consisted of a structured questionnaire distributed to most of the public libraries in Stockholm County and semi-structured interviews with selected librarians and experts for further in-depth understanding.

The purpose of this master?s thesis is to examine what needs and expectations the patrons have on the local public library services for adult students. With increased knowledge of these matters the library will be able to support and improve the service for users. The focus is on adult students with immigrant background who study Swedish as second language in a municipal adult education school. The main questions are: How do adult students use the library at present? What do they consider to be most important when using the public library for their studies? How do these expectations correspond to their experience of the library services? Two focusgroups and one in-depth interview were carried out.

The aim of this master thesis is to study what relationship mentally disabled adults have with the public library and what factors affect their meeting with the library. The work of the library is also studied so that the experiences of the mentally disabled can be put in relation to the work performed for the group. The method used was interviews with four mentally disabled adults and one librarian responsible for the social function and availability at the library. As a theoretical framework Marianne Andersson and Dorte Skot-Hansen?s model over the profiles of the library and Michael Buckland?s barriers, which must be overcome to achieve full access to information, were used.

A qualitative study of high school student teachers' ideas about libraries and school libraries.Interviews have been conducted with future teachers about the library's role in their education,their views on library functions in high school and whether they as teachers will use theschool library. The results show that the students have had some instruction concerninghow to use the library as students, but very little as regards their future teaching. The professorsof teacher education focus on the fact that the library should be used in high schoolteaching, not how to use it. Despite this, the student teachers look very positively upon libraries.Libraries play an important part in their education and they are all sure that they asteachers will use the school library, which includes interacting with the librarian. To them, themost important school library function is to allow pupils to seek information..