The Internet has played an important role for libraries giving them a means of fulfilling their democratic mission of giving equal access to everyone, including people with disabilities. In order to achieve this it is of the utmost importance that they ensure that their web sites are accessible. In this masters thesis we have examined to what extent the web sites are accessible. The thesis is based on theories of human-computer interaction, information architecture, pedagogy and a checklist. The checklist is derived from established international guidelines from W3C, which has been adapted to, and is used by Swedish public authorities to achieve the mission of a ?24-hour authority?.

Spatial design for children nine to twelve years old at the Halmstad City Library. An investigation about the specific needs of the target group and how the child department can be designed to stimulate their experience of visiting the Library. The aim was to create a spatial concept from the children?s ideas that inspires to playfulness and lust to read at the Library. A more personal goal was to collaborate with an external part to prepare for my future role as a designer within child culture.

The main aim of this thesis is to study how and in which way the Library personnel works with reading groups and their view of reading groups. I also want to study which role the governing- and policy documents have in the Library personnel?s work. The following questions were asked.Which similarities and differences between the different Library personals outlooks and acting can be interpreted from the following aspects:? Promoting reading, book selections and the leader's role?? To talk about personal subjects and to create possibilities for personal growth and increased empathy?? To promote language development and reading comprehension?The methods used in the study are a combination of interviews and observations.

The purpose of this master?s thesis is to examine the activity at the Library and preschool at Kristineberg (a part of the town of Borås) and its underlying approach. How do the activities agree with the ideological attitudes of the 1970s? To answer these questions I have carried out a case study based on qualitative interviews. The theoretical background includes ideas of the Library, the community center and the cultural activity at the Library.

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.

The structure of the Swedish public Library field has been evolving during the last decades. The traditional mission of educating the citizens to become responsible, democratic and knowledgeable members of society has in a way led to the integration between public and school libraries. Lately new co-operational models have been under debate and a sense of resistance has arisen because of the economical and market influences. In parallel with closure of Library branches new libraries have evolved in malls and wash houses and some with self-service with no use of librarians. This work shows how co-operation in rural areas finds the common goals for the people living there who are concerned about keeping the service needed including the public Library and thus using existing means and crossing borders of commercial thinking.

Libraries all over the world struggle against the threat of decreased funding and a lack of governmental interest. In countries with an under-developed Library sector the interest from the government is often minimal or non-existent. Since the 80´s Sida, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency has contributed to the Library development in Central America through the Royal Library of Sweden. Nicaragua was the first country to be counterpart in the project. For a period of eight weeks I have completed a field study in Nicaragua and visited the National Library Rubén Darío and public libraries in the country.

The purpose of this Master?s thesis is to examine the accessibility and barriers of public libraries to intellectual and mentally disabled children and young people. This we will do by examining whether the Library staff acts according to policies of the libraries. Our method has been qualitative interviews with Library staff and we have also observed the environment, media and marketing of these libraries. As a theoretical starting point of the analysis we use Michael Buckland?s different aspects of access to information.

The public Library is an institution that throughout history has been associated with anumber of social codes, that seem to be deeply rooted in the minds of the public. Thesecodes regulates how users act and interact in the Library environment and as a Library useryou have to obtain knowledge about these social codes.This master's thesis aims at studying how these codes are transferred to children in the earlyschool-age, how children react to the social codes and what effects they have on thechildren's development into Library users.The empirical material used in this study consists of observations and interviews. Theobservations are conducted during two school classes visits to a public Library and focuseson the interaction between librarians, the children and their teachers, and the interviewswere conducted with the two librarians responsible for the Library visits.The theories used in this master's thesis consists of symbolic interactionism, in the form oftheories by George Herbert Mead and Erving Goffman, Peter L. Berger and ThomasLuckmanns theories regarding the concept of institutions. Another theory that's used in thismaster's thesis is the one concerning the social aspects of information literacy focusing onthe concept of epistemic communities as presented by Kimmo Tuominen, Reijo Savolainenand Sanna Talja.The result of this study is that the social codes are communicated to the children primarilyby the teachers rather than the librarians.

This Master's thesis aims to investigate librarians' identity construction through the study of their narratives about themselves and their lives. We want to understand in what way the education in Library- and Information science contributes to shape the students professional identity and how these identities then continue to be transformed when they enter their professional lives. We assert that this construction of identity takes place through socialisation. We start with the reference work because we think this is a central part of librarians' tasks. Our theoretical starting point is constructionism, we mean that professional identity is a social construction that continuously is formed and transformed.We interviewed six former students at Library- and Information science at Lund University.

This paper aims to analyze how preservation of and access to old and rare book collections are organized in public libraries in Serbia. The paper is based on an analysis of documents, a survey and qualitative interviews with librarians in Belgrade and Novi Sad. Serbia is a country that has experienced violent historical periods with far-reaching consequences for its old and rare book collections. The interpretative background refers to documents about cultural policy in Europe and in Serbia. Serbia is a country in transition which aims to join the European Union.

This essay investigates the psychological aspects in students' experiences of their university Library and the information seeking process. Focus of the investigation is Library anxiety, a kind of fear towards the university Library with cognitive, affective and behavioural aspects. Twenty students at Uppsala university, who was about to conclude or recently have concluded an academic essay, were interviewed about their experiences of the university Library, Carolina Rediviva. Five respondents stated experiences of fear, anxiety and apprehension in the Library and it is on these informants that the greater part of the analysis and discussion draws. The essay suggests a model of Library anxiety where outer environmental aspects of the Library, such as the Library environment, roles and routines of the Library and Library staff, interacts with inner personal aspects of the individual such as personal experiences, intellectual capacity and sensitivity to stress and anxiety.

The purpose with this study is to examine school-leaders?, school-librarians? and teachers? expectations and aims for their school-libraries at two different schools in the city of Växjö. The study is based on these five questions:· How do school-leaders, school-librarians and teachers think about learning?· What function does the school-Library have?· What roles do school-leaders, school-librarians and teachers have in the school-Library?· How do school-leaders, school-librarians and teachers experience the co-operation in the school-Library?· How would school-leaders, school-librarians and teachers wish that the co-operation should be?To be able to answer these questions I have done thirteen qualitative interviews and studied literature relevant to the subject. Three different theories are used as a theoretical framework; the traditional perspective, individual constructivism and social constructivism.

The focus of this master thesis is the Library politics of the French Right wing party the National Front and the debate that followed the application of this politics. This qualitative study is divided into two parts where the critics to this politics represents one side and the adherents the other. The critics are composed by representatives from the French, Swedish and ? to some extent ? international Library sector, while the adherent side is made up of politicians from the National Front and their adherents. The empiric material mostly consists of articles published in Library, Right wing and daily press.

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.