This essay is about leadership in libraries within the academic world, i.e. leadership in research libraries. To place our survey in a context we begin the theoretical review with a chapter about organisation theory. We dont think its possible to separate the leader from the organisation so we wanted to describe the organisation and its effect on the leadership. The next theoretical section is about leadership research.

The aim of this Master?s thesis is to analyse how adult students in Swedish adult education seek information for school tasks. The focus is on how they use the public Library and electronic information sources and their reflection on information and sources in this process. Also of interest in the study is the help they receive from staff in the public Library and their teacher. Methods used in collecting and analysing data for this study were of qualitative nature.

In this masters paper the change that Lidköping public Library went through between 1952 and 1959 is described and analysed. The aim is to describe and analyse the reactions that arose at the time that the first professional librarian, Jörgen Elgström, acted to create a modern public Library in the town. The issues that are handled are: How did the local politicians and the general public react to the process of change that was started by Jörgen Elgström? What were the consequences for the staff, the premises, lending, child and youth activities? The paper is concentrated around the period 1952-1959 because this is the time when Jörgen Elgström was working in Lidköping. Jörgen Elgström has a central role in the paper.

The purpose of this Master's thesis is to contribute to a betterunderstanding of children's free time reading book practices by studyingpupils in the school Library and their processes of finding and borrowingbooks for themselves to read silently in the classroom, so called free timereading books. The study also includes observations of the staff's role,particularly the school librarian's in supporting pupil's book selection.The empirical material consists of field notes from an etnographic studywhere pupils in 4th grade (aged 10-11) and staff were observed duringthree school Library visits. The theoretical framework is inspired byLennart Björneborn's concepts of information practices in libraries:serendipity, integrative Library interface, mediation flow and affordancespaces.The study shows that pupils' search for free time reading books in theschool Library is relatively routine-based at the same time as it isspontaneous. The process is an interplay with factors such as time,display and interaction in the integrative Library interface. In the presenceof adults, finding books becomes an imposed task for the pupils.

The purpose of this study is to look into what part libraries take in the integration of mentally disabled persons into the society. What I wanted to know more about was how the mentally disabled persons experience the Library. I also wanted to find out what librarians and persons working with mentally disabled persons have to say about the part libraries take in the integration of mentally disabled into the society. The study is based on interviews and literature studies. I have interviewed two librarians, four mentally disabled persons and two persons working with mentally disabled people.

Studies of the information needs of Library patrons are necessary in order for the Library to serve the community. Alas, studies of non-heterosexual persons are rare in the field of Library and Information Science in Sweden. This study aims at examining the information situation of women in same-sexed parenthood by means of analysing their situation as norm-breaking. The study is done through examining the specific information needs of this group, how they seek and receive information, what barriers they encounter and what function the Library has in this information situation. A queer theoretical approach to heteronormativity in combination with McKenzie?s two-dimensional model of information seeking is used to perform a qualitative analysis of the material.

This master thesis is a study of a new electronic Library reference service-project called Speak instantly to a librarian and the purpose of the thesis is to investigate a new electronic reference service and how the librarians who work with it experience it. This should be seen from an informational society point of view. The study is conducted from two questions: - What needs do the libraries have and how do they argue for the project and the chat-reference service Speak instantly to a librarian? - How do the librarians experience the personal work situation in the new reference service, and its use of chat technology? Together with interviews of a selected group of librarians from the public libraries of Göteborg, Malmö, Nacka and Stockholm, this thesis includes aspects such as the theory of the informational society by Manuel Castells, as well as literary studies of the history of Library reference, the development of electronic reference service and the virtual Library, and the background and the beginning of the studied project Speak instantly to a librarian. The thesis also contains an overlook of other similar Library projects in the United States of America.

The myth of the user - a study of the user discourse and its visionariesThis study is a discourse analysis of the visions that implicitly are expressed in different texts about user-centered Library theory. Several other studies have analyzed the discourse and conceptualization of how the user is expressed in the Library debate. Therefore we have chosen to analyze the visions that are expressed by three different sources: the evaluation of the Swedish GÖK project, which was an reorganization of three different libraries in Sweden (Greenhalgh, Worpole & Landry 1995). The influential book by Michael E. Casey and Laura C.

This master's thesis is about alternative career opportunities for Library and information science graduates. Ever since the beginning of our education we have been interested in working outside of the traditional libraries. Now that we are about to receive our degrees in Library and information science we are doubtful if the competence we have obtained is enough to meet the demands of the labour market. The employment field we have been studying in this master's thesis is information management, since this is a field that we find comparable to Library and information science. Our study involves a qualitative survey amongst recruiting companies to investigate how the recruiters value different educations, competences and personal skills when they employ staff within the field of information management.

The aim of this master's thesis is to study how gender equity is discussed and worked with at a Swedish public Library, and what potential consequences these discussions will bring. By analysing different types of documents and interviews with Library staff using discourse psychological theories and methods we show that two dominating discourses coexist and determine the direction of how gender equity is discussed. These discourses are argued to create and uphold gender and gender roles within the organisation as well as in society at large.In our study we find that one of the identified discourses has, as one of its consequences, that it preserves and regenerates traditional gender roles. This discourse is mainly used when discussing personnel policies and when recruiting. We call this the discourse of gender role preservation.The second discourse is mainly seen when discussing the public dimension of the Library's functions.

This study examines the closure of public libraries, and the nonprofit organizations takeover of them as a phenomenon. The aim is to understand why the nonprofit takeover is common and what the takeover symbolizes and if the discourse in media invokes the views on libraries and the profession.Interviews were made with librarians, politicians and representatives of a nonprofit organization to study different sides of the phenomenon. Other empirical data were found in local and national newspapers and media-channels. I discovered that public libraries are highly valued by both politicians and the community. The study also showed that a Library in a community makes people feel valued.

The aim of this master?s thesis is to examine how libraries can organize their collections in terms of Library shelving and displays and to what extent these activities stem from a desire to create a user-friendly Library. The thesis is based upon a case study of Arkenbiblioteket in Sweden and the material consists of a literature study and qualitative, semi-structured interviews with three librarians at Arkenbiblioteket. The theoretical framework consists of theories on information-seeking behavior, classification and displays. These theories form the basis of the analysis of the empirical material.The main reason for the changes in shelf arrangement at Arkenbiblioteket was a desire among the Library staff to create a user-friendly Library.

This study examines the cultural place and status of video and computer games in the Swedish public Library. Using works on popular culture and the theories of Pierre Bourdieu, this study employs quantitative methods, as well as textual analysis, to analyze the results of an online questionnaire with 19 questions focusing on selection criteria, shelf placement, perceived competence, as well as reasoning for having or not having these games in the Library. 286 out of the 440 libraries contacted is participating in the study, and the libraries consist exclusively of public libraries in Sweden that are found in the database of the Royal Library.The results of this study show that a larger number of libraries than previously indicated have started to provide electronic games to their patrons. At the same time, patterns in the data and comments suggests that these games in many cases still do not enjoy the same level of cultural recognition as other media. Indicative of this is the way most libraries seem to focus on the medium being exclusively for their young patrons, with seem-ingly very little in the way of investment for adults.

The main focal point of this study is about public libraries and its possible roles in today's society. Going from having had a clear educational orientation, public libraries has with time amassed several other roles, which all need to relate to the swedish law regarding libraries and other governing documents, as well as business plans. This thesis focus on a qualitative investigation, which was conducted through in-depth interviews with librarians and other staff at a public Library in Stockholm, named bibliotek Plattan, to ascertain the prevailing opinions within this facility about the role of libraries and librarians. The choice of examine this particular Library was based on the fact that bibliotek Plattan differs from the public Library in general and only offers material for adults. Their collection of litterature is primarily based on fiction novels.

In this diploma work we present the results from a study of how adult immigrants utilise the services provided by the public Library in Biskopsgården, Gothenburg. A survey encompassing 51 Library visitors of foreign origin and an interview with two librarians at the Library were performed.The results from the survey show that the majority of the informants were male students inages from 26 to 45 years and that they had been living in Sweden for a maximum of five years. 73% of the informants used the Library to borrow literature in Swedish, 53% to read newspapers and periodicals in their native language, 43% to borrow literature in their native language and 43% to read newspapers and periodicals in Swedish.These results were compared with two other related studies with which partial correspondencewas found. In addition, related topics such as multicultural librarianship and the psychological aspects of immigration are discussed..