The municipality of Falkenberg is a result of a unification of several smaller municipalities in 1971, each one with a small library. This left Falkenberg with an unusual large amount of smaller branch libraries. The object of this thesis is to describe and try to understand the political conflicts that have erupted during the period 1971-1994. Through a case study containing press clippings from the local newspaper, different reports, political meeting protocols, a historical background of the library and a study of library specific norms and regulations I can create an image of the heated debate. The participants in this debate can be divided into politicians and civil servants and the conflict circles round the fact that from an economical perspective, there is not enough budget to keep all the small, local libraries.

During the late twentieth century, political and societal changes gave rise to an increased interest in performance evaluation in public organizations. This development also affected libraries in the public sector. The main concern for this master thesis is performance measurement in libraries. In this study two different types of libraries are investigated, one public and the other academic. My aim is to find out if and how performance measurement appears in the libraries annual activity reports.

"What's feminine about the Women's library?" This library, Kvinnobiblioteket, is abranchoffice at Björkskatan in the city of Luleå, and the introducing question is thestartingpoint of this essay. To find some possible answers is its object.One way of describing what's feminine about Kvinnobiblioteket is through presenting itsobjective, ambitions and methods of working. That is done mostly in a chapter headlined"Kvinnobiblioteket", and shows how the women's perspective concerns for exarnplepurchase of books and magazines, displaying of books, the opening hours, design etc.Although the focus in the survey is not in the former kind of description, but in the interviewsbeing made during a two week long period of time with ten women at Kvinnobiblioteket(both library user and personnel) at spring 1995. The results of the interviewsthen have been compared with theories from psychological-, feminist-, literature- andlibrary and information sciences, as we11 as to former surveys and essays.The material together leads to some keywords that seem to be important when trying tofind out what's female about the women's library.

This masters thesis aims to investigate how upper secondary school pupils experience their information seeking in a school context without access to a school library. It is the pupils own thoughts and opinions about information seeking and criticism of the sources that is the main focus. The literature that has been used consists of material from research concerning youth and different aspects of information seeking such as the information seeking process, information seeking on the web, criticism of the sources and how pupils interact with other people in order to acquire information. The method that has been used is group interviews. Twelve pupils from an independent school without access to a school library have been interviewed in groups of three.

Information is essential in order for pharmaceutical companies to be successful. This essay focuses on the information provision of pre-clinical scientists at AstraZeneca R&D Lund, and the role of the company library in this process. In semi-structured interviews, four pre-clinical scientists were asked to describe their information provision regarding what type of information they need, how they find it and what sources of information they use. Four librarians from the company library were also interviewed to give their perspective on the information provision of pre-clinical scientist. The study also aimed at comparing the image of the process as described by the scientists themselves and the librarians.

This essay is about how the library can make a difference inintegrating the minority Roma people into the Swedish society.Roma people have been subjected to persecution anddiscrimination for a long time. In this essay, I examine theactivities, functions and capabilities of libraries that can have apositive effect for the integration of the Roma people. Myquestions are: How can libraries reach out to the Roma people andwhat function do the library have for the integration of the Romapeople? I have used Marianne Anderssons and Dorte Skot-Hansens theory the four functions of the library ? the culutralcenter, the knowledge center, the information center and the socialcenter. Based on this theory, I have interpreted and analyzed thematerial that I have gathered through interviews and literaturestudies such as thesis, dissertations, repors and parliamentdocuments.

Denna studie har undersökt hur en användares motivation att samla mynt i ett serious game påverkas av att dessa är sammankopplade med spelets gameplay. För att undersöka detta har två versioner av ett serious game skapats, ett där mynt endast kan användas för att köpa kosmetiska uppgraderingar och ett där uppgraderingarna som kan köpas, utöver kosmetiska förändringar, även påverkar spelets gameplay. 12 personer har deltagit i testet och värderat hur mycket motivation de känt då de spelat spelen. Resultatet tyder på att det inte existerar någon markant skillnad mellan hur mycket motivation testdeltagarna kände inför att samla mynt i de båda versionerna. Undersökningen skulle kunna utvecklas genom att fler tester utförs på flera olika typer av mjukvaror..

Mediation of fiction for adult users in Swedish public libraries is a subject which has been little studied from a theoretical perspective. The motivation for this thesis was based on this realization, and the opinion that actual library users too seldom get their voices heard in library and information science-research. The thesis analyzes interviews with seven library users in which they have been asked to talk about the librarys work with mediating fiction. The answers are analyzed using a discourse analytic approach to see how the librarys work with mediating fiction is constructed in the users talk.Two main discourses are identified, one authoritative and one neutral. In the authoritative discourse librarians are talked of as experts who have the knowledge to guide users to the ?right? literature.

The aim of this master thesis is to investigate the mobile library development in Sweden since the start in Borås, Sweden in 1948. We have concentrated on three six-year periods. Our aim has been to describe a part of the mobile library development. We wanted to research the background of the said development. To do this we also studied the library and overall development in Sweden during the same years.

The purpose of this thesis is to systematically describe and map how authorities define the school library and its function based on the current policy documents for the Swedish upper secondary school. The study is guided by the following questions: ? What dimensions does the school library have according to the explicit definitions, descriptions and requirements? ? What implicit arguments, references and unspoken assumptions about the school library and its role, function and significance can be derived? The study is delimited to the national policy documents, which have been divided into two groups ? structural and teaching focused ? corresponding to the two questions above. Further delimitations have been made to avoid noise and to manage a manual content analysis. Each question required its own analysis tool.

The main aim of this master thesis was to see the process of an interactive online reference service from idea to final product. The reference service we have studied is developed and used by the Library of the National Institute for Working Life in Stockholm, Sweden and goes by the name phibi. Our goal was to review the whole realization process from the reasons why a service like this was created, how the service was introduced and implemented inside the organisation and finally what the result and consequences were for both the library staff and for the users of the service. Phibi is designed to be a tool that fosters communication between the library staff and the remote users where the users get the opportunity to be helped with their questions by the library staff although they are not physically present in the library. To understand the process we conducted a case study with 11 interviews of the library staff, the superior and the initiator to phibi.

This master deals with the theme youth and public libraries. The essay is based on observationsand qualitative interviews with young people at the ages of 13 to 16 years old, whovisited the public library of Skara, employees at the library, and politicians in the community.The main issue in the study is; what is and what can be done to increase youth utilization ofpublic libraries. I have emphasized on the media stock, the organization of books, theenvironment and the staff of the library, marketing, specific target group, activities, andcooperation with both internal and external forces.Theories about youth culture and some projects concerning young peoples behaviour in librariesare also presented..

Varför ökar antalet besök på folkbiblioteken medan antalet lån minskar? Syftet med den här undersökningen är att studera vad besökarna gör på Luleå folkbiblioteks huvudbibliotek och hur de betraktar sitt bibliotek. Frågeställningarna är: ? Vad gör besökarna på biblioteket förutom att låna böcker, tidningar och AV-medier? ? Hur betraktar besökarna på Luleå folkbibliotek sitt bibliotek? ? Vilka är det som besöker biblioteket? ? Hur är miljön på biblioteket och vilken inverkan har den på biblioteksbesökarna? ? Är biblioteket också en plats som lockar till sig andra besökare än de som söker det som förknippas med biblioteksverksamhet? För att kunna besvara frågeställningarna har en observationsundersökning och en enkätundersökning gjorts. I analysen har några begrepp från Bourdieu använts.

This two year masters thesis is written in the scientific field of library- and information science. The purpose of the study is to investigate the collaboration between teachers and librarians in different types of school library organisations. Two school libraries with only the school as a target group, two integrated public- and school libraries, one school library division and one public library that provides the school with school library services has been studied. The study takes place in Uppland.The theoretical framework used is based on Montiel-Overall and her four models of collaboration: coordina-tion, cooperation, integrated instruction and integrated curriculum. The first research question focuses on the col-laboration between teachers and librarians based on each of the TLC-models.

The aim of this thesis is to examine discourses about the user category young people in two well-established Swedish library journals between the years 2005 and 2010.The empirical material consists of 65 texts derived from the library journals Biblioteksbladet and Bibliotek i samhälle. By using discourse theory and methodology I discover several different ways in which young people are categorized in the library context. As a complementary theory I have analyzed the material from an intersectional perspective. The result shows that young people most of the times are defined by adults. Several characteristics such as creativity, interest in modern technology, messiness and need for support are repeated in the descriptions of the young, suggesting that there is clear idea of how young people are.