The purpose of this study is to determine who visits the V Frölunda Library, Gothenbug,what magazines they read and why. The data presented in this thesis are collectedusing four methods: general observation and counting numbers of visitors, interviewswith 202 magazine readers, the completion of 1308 questiomaires regarding approximately350 maghes and interviews with more than 100 Library visitors.The data indicates that men are significantly overrepresented among magazine readersas compared to the female visitors. These men are primarily from the white collar sectorof the community. This leads to a pronounced underrepresentation of the blue coIlarworkers. Young people visit the magazine room in the Library at a rate about twice thatexpected from the population distribution.Women are primarily interested in magazines dealing with the home whereas men aremore interested in business, cars, boats and sports.

The background to this thesis is the impact of information technology on libraries and Librarywork. If information technology causes changes in the tasks and work of libraries, thenLibrary organisations should also change. It is important to engage and inform the staff if suchchanges are to succeed. This thesis investigates the notions about Library tasks and Librarywork among eight "middle-managers" at Linkopings universitetsbibliotek.The investigation is based on interviews and then analysed with Soft Systems Methodology(SSM). By identifying the "Weltanschauung" of the staff, the thesis tries to create logicallydesirable and culturally feasible models of systems relevant to the situation at Linkopingsuniversitetsbibliotek.

Swedish libraries are currently discussing andimplementing the classification system Dewey (DDC).Most libraries in Sweden have used the Swedishclassification system SAB until recently. In 2008 TheRoyal Library of Sweden (KB) decided to switch fromSAB to DDC. Many academic libraries chose to followKB?s example and by January 2011 a switch was made atKB and at many academic libraries.The aim of this master thesis is to examine and analysethe Library sector?s discussion that occurred before andduring the Swedish switch from SAB to DDC. The mainquestion asked is; What is being discussed about Dewey2010-2011 and in what manner? To organize and anlysethis discussion discourse analysis is used.

The City Library has a problem getting children interested in reading. Futhermore, there are no clear signs to aid children to navigate themselves to books targeted to their age group. To solve this problem, this thesis aims to design signs that is both illustrative and informative.Of the images that were tested during the research, I would assume that children in such a wide age range requires the simplest level of abstraction from testing the three testing icons, since the second level of abstraction was not interesting enough for the kids. The third, nearphotorealistic level was most liked by the children who were in the city Library more often and looked for books themselves..

The departure point of this thesis is the context of the institution and the processes surrounding the handling of personal archives at the National Library of Sweden. These processes are examined using Actor Network Theory. Around the personal archive a network is constructed and contained by actors ? the archive itself, the librarian, the conservator, the researcher, organizational structures and others. Within this network choices are made of what is significant.

The purpose of this master's thesis is to examine how a Swedish public Library's collection of books on African history looks like, who the writers are and how Africa and its history areportrayed. The focus of the analysis is on the front and back covers and in some cases on theinformation texts inside the books. The chosen Library is the city Library of Umeå. The 15books examined were found on the shelf classified as Kp ? the classification for African history according to the Swedish SAB-classification system.

The majority of managers of public libraries in Sweden also work as librarians on an operative level within the organisation. This thesis discusses how the manager role is affected by his/her specific assignments and multiple tasks. Seven public Library managers, who work in districts with around 10 000 25 000 inhabitants, have been interviewed. They reflect upon their experience of leadership and different assignments. The main focus lies on: - leadership - communication - decision making - organisational development The interviews show some positive effects, the manager is present most of the time, has a great knowledge about everyday work and daily routines, and is also able to represent the Library successfully in the local community.

This Masters thesis is concerned with the complex planning process of setting up a citizen bureau in a public Library. The aim is to find out how citizen bureaux are designed and to suggest a simplified model of strategic planning. The planning process is studied from a business perspective in the Library context, and this perspective is also used to study citizen bureaux and their written plans elsewhere. A combination of qualitative methods are used: observations, focus group discussions and interviews. Observations in the public Library showed a great need for an environmental analysis as well as structure to the planning process.

The purpose of our research was to examine whether the acceptance and diffusion of RFID technology among the employees at public libraries in Sweden, follow the classic diffusion of innovation model. RFID or Radio Frequency Identification, is a technology that uses radio frequency and microchip technology to track items, in our case, Library books and other Library materials. Diffusion is the process by which, in our case, the RFID technology is adopted by the Library staff. The purpose of this study was to examine what factors influenced the acceptance and adoption of RFID among the Library staff. We used Everett Rogers' Diffusion of innovation theory as our framework.

The aim of this master?s thesis is to examine how managers in some public libraries are using performance measurements and to what extent decision making is based on the results. The main questions posed are:??What performance measurements and indicators are used in the libraries examined???What is the attitude towards performance measurements among Library managers???How and to what extent are performance measurements and indicators used in the process of decision making???What improvement would Library managers wish regarding the development of performance measurements in public libraries?The theory is based on a model of evaluation of the public sector in addition to general steps of evaluation of quality and performance measurement results. The investigation is based on qualitative interviews with seven managers of public libraries in Sweden.

The increased popularity of e-books in the Swedish publiclibraries started a debate in newspapers and Library journalsbecause of the increase in costs, which this popularity hadled to. The main subject of the debate was the businessmodel provided by the e-book vendor Elib, which accordingto some ruins the libraries financially. In this thesis, opinionarticles have been analyzed using a theoretical model ofcultural politics by the Danish Library and Informationscience researcher Dorthe Skot-Hansen. The results of thestudy showed that people from the Library field, publishersand authors were the ones contributing to the debate. Theanalysis of the articles showed that the model of culturalpolitics which consists of four general motives: socialchange, education, economic growth and entertainment wasvisible in the articles.

This thesis examines information seeking and information needs at the Swedish Government Offices. The Government Offices comprise the Prime Ministers Office, the Government Ministries and the Office for Administrative Affairs. Approximately 4 500 members of staff are employed, of whom around 120 are political appointees. For this study, interviews have been conducted with 15 senior officials and political appointees at the Government Ministries and the Prime Ministers Office. The interviews have been supplemented with literature studies based on user studies research in Library and information science.

Tolfterna was a popular education organization that existed between 1896 and1964 and that arranged social evenings and set up a Library for working women. This thesis purpose is to investigate Tolfternas's activities in 1902-1907 and hereby place Tolfterna in the education- and Library history. The thesis examines the Library catalog and the protocols from the social evenings and analyses them by means of the popular education ideologies of the early 1900's: Patriarchal education, civic education, self-education and the domestic/housewife ideal.The analysis shows that the organizers of Tolfterna as well as the working women who visited the social evenings had political and social interests. This places Tolfterna in a civic education context.The social evenings contained a mix of politically orientated discussions, traditional lectures and entertainment as music and reading. The Library had self-education orientation, it contained mostly fiction and was run by the working women.

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 purpose of this Master?s thesis is to perform a user oriented evaluation of the International Library?s website. The questions posed in this study are; for what purpose do the users in this study turn to the International Library?s website; what does the users information searching process consist of when visiting the site; how does navigation, layout and content effect the users satisfaction with the website; do the users in this study consider that the International Library?s website can be improved and if so, how? The study was performed with a user oriented approach where six qualitative interviews with librarians who use the website were conducted. These interviews were analysed using Brenda Dervin?s Sense making-theory and Leclercq?s theory about user satisfaction.