In the last few years there has been an ongoing debate concerning the methods of assessing the quality of public libraries and their services. This study investigates the opinions and needs of the users at four different public libraries in Malm : the local libraries in Bellevueg rden, Limhamn, and Kirseberg, and the main library in central Malm . The purpose was to find out whether different user groups display different patterns in their library use and, in addition, to identify what library services they prefer. The data were collected through interviews with users and librarians, and by means of a user survey ccarried out at the four libraries. The results indicate that certain differences in the usage patterns do exist between the main library and the local libraries.

This thesis is based on the implementation of a bilateral rural development program in Burkina Faso. The main purpose of this study was to put the actual implementation process of a bilateral development program in view. This was done by investigating how two dominant perspectives in the implementation literature can explain what in fact happens during the realization of an aid program. A further aim of the thesis was to explore the limitations of these two dominant theories, in order to get a full understanding of the complexity of the realization of an aid program. Based on the implementation theory, this study shows that the realization of an aid program can be understood from three different angles.

After being excluded from the Swedish Social Democrat party in 1917, the Revolutionary Socialists founded the Social Democrat Left Party. From this point onwards, the Social Democratic hegemony and dominant position within the Swedish workers movement and political landscape was challenged. This thesis aims to investigate the power struggles between these two parties, the Revolutionary Socialists and the Social Democrats, and their desire to influence control of the unions. Taking cues from earlier research calling for a more localized look at this struggle, this thesis turns to a case study of union matters of the the Factory Workers Union Local 84, at Västerviks Tändsticksfabrik, a match manufacturer and largest employer in the Swedish coastal town of Västervik from 1925 to 1930. Organizational material including meeting protocols, annual reports and member registration lists from the local political parties, cooperative union organizations (VFS) and Local 84 serve as secondary data sources.

AbstractAt the UN Conference on Environment and Development in 1992 the nations stated that traditional environmental policies were not sufficient to handle the multidimensional challenges posed by sustainable development. Governments needed to broaden their political decision making procedures in order to coordinate and integrate environmental, social and economic policies. Therefore a new tool was introduced in Agenda 21, National Strategies for Sustainable Development (NSDS). The aim of an NSDS would be to bring together actors from all parts of society to jointly reach a consensus on how to work towards the vision of a sustainable society. An NSDS would be seen as a strategic tool to help focus national policies for SD.

In this thesis we will discuss the importance of human resource development in smaller companies and if it will change from when the Swedish economy was in an economic boom and later on came to be in a recession. We choose to use a more qualitative approach for this research in order to conduct a more in-depth study of five smaller sized companies located on Gotland, Sweden. In order to limit our research we had as an ambition to answer these following questions:? What obstacles are there when it comes to human resource development and knowledge transference within smaller sized companies?? What can simplify or enable human resource development and knowledge transference within smaller sized companies?? Does the teaching process change to a more tacit human resource development between co-workers when there is less room for conventional human resource development?The result of the research came to show that the biggest barrier, when it comes to competence development within smaller companies, is time. However, our research also showed that a majority of the companies has changed from a more external educational plan to a more internal educational plan which focuses on keeping the human resource development within the company.

The aim for this essay is to investigate students attitudes to a local schoolboard with student majority to determin the level of functionality, relevancy and interest for this schoolboard among the students in a Swedish gymnasium in Örebro. This is done by distibution of a questionnaire form to a third of the students in the third grade . The results show that the attitudes overall amongst the students are positive, although the level of interest is low. One explanation for this low level of interest could be the lack of information from the school board to the students..

In this study we have investigated the news interview both from the perspective of the journalists and of the subjects of the interview.We have made interviews with 50 persons who participated as sources in the news and with 21 journalist who wrote the articles in the local newspapers Östran and Barometern in Kalmar, the 21 of November 2008.The journalists were asked to tell their story of how the articles where produced, how they prepared before the interviews, if they had an image of the articles in advance and if they were satisfied with the outcome of the article. The persons who had been interviewed were asked to tell us how they felt about the interviews, if they were satisfied with the outcome of the article, if they could consider being in the newspaper again and to give their opinion of local journalism.Most of the persons who had been quoted in the articles said that at least one or two things went wrong in the articles. Despite this they would not hesitate to be interviewed the newspaper again.Surprising for us was to see how often the journalists get ?served? with both the news and the subjects of the interview. It was for an example often that the Journalists visited press conferences and wrote articles from press releases.

Although English is commonly used in Swedish advertising, little is known about its effects. The purpose of this paper was to investigate how a Swedish or English language choice in product advertisements affects the effectiveness of the ad. Further, a local/global dimension of the advertisement was created to investigate how the results differ for local and global brands. Subsequently, an experiment was conducted where the effect of language choice on several well-established measures of ad effectiveness such as awareness, comprehension of the ad message, credibility, attitude and buying intentions was analyzed. In line with previous research, English in product advertisements is not completely comprehended since English is not the local language in Sweden.

With varied electoral success for anti-immigration parties across Western Europe, Sweden is often held as an example where anti-immigration parties have been less successful. This have caught the interest of many scientists around the world and have recently developed theories on a subnational level when testing Sweden?s municipalities, on why they have failed here but not in other countries. But in the election to 2010, Sweden now joins the rest of the Western-European countries in having an anti-immigrations party in the parliament.This paper has tested three theories on a Municipality that has shown evident support for the Sweden democrats, both in the local and the national election. This is done with a qualitative approach, made up from interviews with the local established parties.

This essay will try to explain and compare the different development steps which Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina have taken after the war. How could countries with such similar backgrounds develop in such different ways? By analyzing and comparing the two countries the purpose was to examine how these countries which had so much in common could develop in so different ways. My two questions are: What similarities and differences are there between the development which Bosnia and Croatia have taken after the war? Why have Croatia succeeded and not Bosnia?My analysis showed that the main reason to the difference between these countries was that Bosnia is divided; all ethnic groups in Bosnia only consider what's best for their own ethnic group and not what's best for the country. Croatia however has expelled the Serbs which made it easier for them to have a succesfull democratic development. .

I wrote this essay with the aim to explore, understand and get some insights into what it is that effects the possibilities to plan for ecological sustainability and make it happen. There is no clear definition of sustainable development but world top meetings and reports have developed goals and strategies. I will present some of the theory at hand but most of this essay is based on six interviews with planners at local governments from around the country. Several of the local governments are using the goals issued by the state government by putting them into their large scale plans. During the interviews some obstacles were identified, like a lack of resourses, disadvantaging powerstruktures, conflicts with marketeconomy and simply different meenings about what ecological sustainability is in practice. My method of getting information through interviews and documenting them by taking notes had, as all methods, it?s weakneses.

The transformed municipality ? Economic and social growth in Örnsköldsvik 1997-2007Author: Kristina HanssonThis thesis focuses on the economic and social growth in the municipality of Örnsköldsvik. It is a single case study and the municipality is studied through economic theories concerning regional growth in the period of 1997-2007. The aim is to analyse whether these theories, such as Åke E. Anderssons and Ulf Strömquists K-society, and other more or less microeconomic assumptions, also are applicable in smaller local contexts.

Local charges may induce people to change their pattern of consumption by influencing investments and acts in certain directions. Some charges could for example give people incentives to use less natural resources. This study investigates four different local charges and whether they benefit an economical management with natural resources or not. This is carried out by investigating whether there is a polarity between local charges that may influence environmental actions or goods, and effective pollution control set to achieve certain nationally determined environmental goals. The study includes two economic perspectives and investigates on the one hand whether local charges counteract governmental subsidies and on the other hand whether the charges vary between the different municipalities since large differences may lead to cost inefficiency.

The aim of this two years master thesis in Library and Information Science is to examine how librarians and library managers in the three Stockholm suburbs of Alby, Fisksätra and Rinkeby think and reason about the role of public libraries in the integration process. The aim is also to examine whether their perception differ from that of local politicians at the municipal level. The theoretical framework is Marianne Andersson and Dorte Skot-Hanses model for analysis of the local library profile, and Jose Alberto Diaz theory on the integration process. The method used is qualitative interviews. The interviews were recorded and the content was analyzed using qualitative content analysis. The results of this study show that the library services in the three suburbs, rather than being stipulated by the legal demand for special services towards immigrants, are based on the needs of the local population.

High technology companies in Sweden spend a huge amount of money on research and product development in proportion to what they get back in earnings from their inventions. Product development has traditionally been regarded as much more important than business development. This thesis aims to point out the critical factors behind successful business development processes for high technology companies. We have chosen to make a case study of Hexagon, a highly successful and innovative company within the measurement technology business. Internal and external actors that are important for business development have been identified and interviewed in order to understand how ideas are developed and executed.