The purpose of this master?s thesis is to describe and analyse the origin and development of the municipal Library of Västervik. There have been four previous libraries and our examination starts in 1859 with the foundation of a parish Library. The other forerunners were a working-class movement Library and two libraries in the International Orders of Good Templars. Before the merger of the libraries there were discussions in the municipal council, among the working-class movement and in the IOGT.

Little attention has been paid in the literature to Libraryassistants in Swedish public libraries. In this bachelor thesis,the professional role, work duties, career prospects and statusof Library assistants are examined at two public libraries.Because of a scarcity of published information on thedevelopment of this profession in Swedish public libraries,retired Library assistants, as well as currently employedLibrary assistants, librarians and a Library head wereinterviewed.Since the ?80s, work duties of Library assistants havechanged, with a reduction in some of the more manualaspects of Library work, the development of new duties and,overall, an increasing similarity in the duties performed byLibrary assistants and librarians.Additionally, the public perception of Library assistants as acategory distinct from librarians was investigated bydistributing questionnaires to Library patrons. Contrary toexpectations prompted by statements in the literature, asubstantial portion of visitors was found to be aware of thetwo separate categories.Library assistants at Swedish libraries have no careerprospects, unless they undertake studies in their own freetime and at their own cost, and obtain a librarian degree. Adifference between the situation of Library assistants inSweden and corresponding professional categories in a fewother countries is that, at present and for several years, noformal education for Library assistants has been available inSweden.

The aim of this master thesis is to investigate the ideas about functions that public libraries have in the local society. We have used the method idea analysis on four municipal Library plans, to find out which ideas about Library functions that frequented each plan, and what similarities and differences there were between the ideas about functions in each plan. As a theoretic base, we have used a theory about three dynamic spheres in modern society: the state market and civil society, and examined how these three spheres influence and control the Library functions. We have extracted six different ideas about Library functions: educational, social, economical, entertaining, serving and democratic functions. The most dominating ideas in this study are ideas that the public Library should be an educating and formative institution.

The aim of this Master's thesis was to examine the political and cultural reasons for making music materials compulsory at Danish public libraries by the new Library act of 2000. The aim was also to examine how the public libraries have responded to this reform. To answer these questions a literature study was conducted as well as interviews. The results of the literature study indicated that the main reason for making music materials compulsory is to increase the influence of the Library users. The study of the debate concerning the new Library act showed that a majority of the Danish political parties as well as the Danish Library organizations had a positive attitude towards the new obligation.

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 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.

The purpose of this Masters thesis is to examine the growth of the Library in Vaggeryd. We have analysed how four factors influenced the Library development during the years between 1862 and 1953. The four factors we have studied are development of society, collective actors, Librarys economy and individual actors. We have worked with the following question: · How have the four factors: development of society, collective actors, Librarys economy and individual actors, influenced the growth? We have focused on the changes that the industrialization brought on the society development, and on the growing of the non-governmental organisations.

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 main purpose of this Master´s thesis, is to describe and discuss what constitutes the Library collaboration between The Swedish Royal Library and the National Library of Guatemala, but also to analyse which effects the support has for public Library work in Guatemala. The data consists of interviews and direct-observations during 2 months of fieldwork in Guatemala, Central America. The analysis is based on literature studies combined with the answers from the respondents and other results from the field work. We have found above all three factors to be of importance in the constitution of the collaboration between the National Library in Guatemala and the Swedish Royal Library: the Swedish Library discourse, the Swedish aid discourse and the relationship between the people involved with the project. The Library discourse in Sweden and in Guatemala emphasizes different aspects of the work.

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.

The purpose of this master thesis is to describe and analyse the development of the Library history in the municipality of Karlsborg. This is done with a comparison to the Library development in Sweden as a whole and in particular to the cities of Lidköping and Halmstad. I have worked according to the following questions: 1. How did the libraries develop before the municipality took over? 2.

This bachelor thesis is a study and an evaluation of the planning and implementation of the targeted marketing campaign "Småbarnsföräldern" at a public Library. The analysis is based on the following questions:? What goals does the Library have with the marketing campaign "Småbarnsföräldern"?? How has the Library chosen to plan and implement the marketing campaign "Småbarnsföräldern" and what role have the users had in this process?? What is the internal result of the Library?s marketing campaign ? how did the staff experience the marketing campaign "Småbarnsföräldern"?? What is the external result ? how did the target group, the parents of young children, experience the marketing campaign "Småbarnsföräldern"?The method is based on a case study of a single Library with a series of interviews and document analysis. The study reveals that it´s difficult to plan a marketing campaign against a target group. The target group, the parents of young children, didn?t observe the marketing campaign, two informants had noticed the poster but didn?t pay much attention to it.

This thesis is about language planning in Faeroese libraries as seen from the countrys specific situation, with Faeroese as a mothers tongue, but with great dominance of the Danish language within media. The purpose of my thesis is to examine language planning activities within the Library, and the consequences this planning has for the system. Different theories about language planning provides a framework for my model of the Library as a linguistic eco-system with actors performing status planning, represented by the government with its influence in cultural politics, the librarian with his or her Library tasks and the user with his or her needs. The thesis has a qualitative attempt, and the empirical material consists of different documents about the country and materials from interviews made with seven qualified librarians, employed within general libraries in the Faeroe Islands. The analysis shows that the librarian in different ways promotes the Faeroese language within Library activities, and because of the attention paid to the user in the public Library he/she influences the librarians planning.

The purpose of this Master thesis is to examine whether there is a connection between distance to the schoolLibrary and the extent to which teachers are using it as an integral part of their teaching. The study aims to answerif the physical distance to the school Library is affecting teachers' ways of working with the Library, if it affects thecollaboration between teachers and librarians and finally if teachers that are using a school Library outside theschool premises are doing so less as an integral part of their teaching compared to teachers that have access to aschool Library within the schools premises.The study is based on qualitative interviews with six teachers in the intermediate stage of the nine-yearcompulsory school, of which three have access to a school Library within the school premises and three haveaccess to a school Library outside the school premises. The two groups of teachers are compared in order to findout if there is a connection between distance to the school Library and the usage of it. Loertscher's school Librarymedia program and teacher taxonomy have been used as a theoretical framework.The study shows that the teachers who use a school Library within the school premises have a bettercollaboration with the librarians than the ones who use a school Library outside the school premises. The studyalso show that theese libraries are an integral part of the teaching to a higher degree.