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 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 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 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.

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.

Involving prospective users in a development process is important. This makes it easier to make a more usable product. This thesis is about developing an intranet targeting a school and focus is aimed towards intranet usability.The reader is given knowledge into how to design and implement an intranet using persona. Design and develop by using persona is difficult when there is a group with large variety of knowledge, age and technology interest, so as in this case. Persona although always helps during the development phase because of the strong links to the personas that are created, which gives developers a constant reminder of the end users of the system.The thesis describes how information is collected and processed.

One of the aims of this report has been to make an inventory of the building trade market to see which document handling systems that are available. The secondary aim was to document the users´ demands on the systems and other demands such as quality assurance. After this, the document handling systems Byggnet and Lotus Notes, which are rather complex systems, have been analysed. Finally a recommendation has been made. In the inventory of the marketthe internet has been used because it is there the latest information can be found.

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.

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 aim of this Master?s thesis is to explore the meaning of literature forliterate immigrants in regards to identity and integration. The study is based onqualitative interviews with eight Swedes of various backgrounds, but with thecommon experience of an immigration process. In addition to being migrants, therespondents are also public Library users who have an interest in literature and whoread literature during their leisure time. To analyze the empirical material ananalytical framework, consisting of a number of analytical concepts from Libraryand Information Science, Literature Science, and Sociology, has been used.

The subject of this Master?s thesis is the process of change in a public library context, the implementation of the Stockholm City Library?s homepage Biblioteket.se. The aim is to examine the factors that influence this particular change and how they affect the process and extent of change in practice. The study designed as a qualitative case study is based primarily on document analysis, and supplemented by an interview. DiMaggio?s and Powell?s three mechanisms of change; coercive, mimetic and normative isomorphism, is applied.

The purpose of this master thesis is to find out if library activities in civil society may be seen as a complement to public activities. The incitement lies in a discussion in the research activities of social sciences and among politicians, where the opinion is that civil society may function as a complement to governmental policy. The NGO-library Föreningen Miljöbiblioteket i Lund and the municipality of Malmö stad where chosen as units for examination. The common feature of the two units is the global task introduced by the UN, to create a sustainable development. The material used is exclusively concerning domestic information activities.

AbstractThis paper discusses how system development methods today support communication between system developers and their customers and end users. Today there are many system development methodologies with different aims and emphases. It is difficult, however, to find among these methods those who promote good and effective communication with customers because so many of these are very technically rooted and not as much directed towards the soft aspects of systems development - i.e. Human aspects. Our own experiences tells that a simple interview can be initialized without us having an idea what to ask the customer about or how to structure it up - nonetheless it?s done, but the outcome is just chance.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine a new music downloading service called Musikwebben, which is now available in many Swedish libraries. It focuses on the differences and similarities between this service and illegal music sharing services. The question is raised, whether the appeal of Musikwebben is high enough for it to be able to ?recruit? users from similar, illegal services. To answer this question, a qualitative content analysis is used, to explore various views on what legal downloading services have to offer and how these differ to illegal alternatives.