The aim of this Master's thesis is to investigate the library needs of distance students. This user study has a student perspective and concentrates on the main question of which way library needs might be expressed by distance students. Associated topics addressed by this study include; the problem of learning centres lacking their own library support, how distance students look upon library support as a concept and whether distance students prefer public libraries or university libraries, and why they make this choice. These questions may give the answer to how distance students deal with information literacy. Theories chosen by the study are in the fields of pedagogical and library science, the social cultural theory by Roger Säljö and in Tom Wilson's theories on user studies and information needs.

Master thesis work at ITN (Department of Science and Technology) in the areas of A/D-construction and RF-circuit design. Major goal of project were to research suitable possibilities for implementations of direct conversion in transceivers operating in the 160MHz band, theoretic study followed by development of components in the construction environment Cadence. Suitable A/D- converter and other important parts were selected at the end of the theoretic study. Subsampling technique was applied to make A/D sample requirements more realistic to achieve. Besides lowering requirements on A/D-converter it allows a more simple construction, which saves more components than subsampling adds.

Since 1 January 2010 it is a requirement to use the European standards, Eurocodes, in Sweden when constructing bridges. One chapter that has caused an extra amount of problems for the engineers is the one about fatigue analysis, which resulted in us doing this thesis.To do this we had to read all of the Eurocodes that direct, or indirect deals with fatigue and calculating of such. We have read the background documents for the Eurocodes and master?s thesis in the subject. We also studied the calculations of bridges constructed by different construction firms.We have chosen to limit the thesis to discuss only road bridges made of concrete due to the lack of method for verification of concrete in the national appendix.

The aim of this Master?s thesis is to examine how the lifestyle of youth between the ages of 15-17 is influenced by electronic media and also what view and opinions youth has regarding electronic media and lifestyle. We intend to examine how and when the youth use electronic media in their everyday lives, what purpose the electronic media has in the life of the youth, and finally what views and opinions regarding electronic media and questions regarding lifestyle the youth express. We as librarians and adults need more knowledge on how youth use electronic media and also what thoughts they have regarding media and lifestyle. We would like to bring some knowledge to the discussion in this area with our study to librarians as well as parents.

The purpose of this Master?s thesis is to examine the function of public libraries on the social web, focusing on reading promotion and reading stimulation. For an understanding of the larger context regarding public libraries on the social web, we conducted online interviews via email with people in the Swedish library profession, together with a content analysis of various texts on the subject found in library journals and on the Internet. Furthermore to identify the public library's practice on reading promotion and reading stimulation on the social web, we did interviews with librarians at a public library on their use of a blog for this purpose, together with a questionnaire handed out to the library's users on their use and conceptions of the blog.The conceptual framework of this study consists of four key aspects in the theoretical and empirical definition of Library 2.0 presented by Holmberg, Huvila and Widén-Wulff. The results showed that the public library can create a substantial value through its use of the social web, but it?s necessary to have a clear vision of the desired outcome.

The aim of this Master's thesis is to examine the information use among Swedish backpackers, both prior to departure and while travelling. The questions posed in this study are; which artefacts did the backpackers use, in what way were those used as tools of mediation within their social practice and how does a presumptive interaction between backpackers and information sources appear? The empirical material consists of interviews, held with eight backpackers, concerning their information use. The interviews reveal that a number of information sources are being consulted. The most commonly used sources identified in the empirical material are guide books, advice from other backpackers, fiction, TV programmes and periodicals.

The main purpose of this master thesis is to examine how high school students think when they independently are evaluating information for a school assignment. We examine what types of sources they use, and what their reasons are. Besides that we also examine what sorts of criteria they use when evaluating if a source is usable, and if there are any other factors that can have an influence for their choice of material. We have done a qualitative study with 23 students, where the students wrote down their answers in a questionnaire containing wide open questions. We have created our own tool for analysing the material by extracting the most general things in our chapter of earlier research, concerning the three questions which our study is based on.

Since the role of the libraries as merely a place for loans has decreased, the importance of giving the visitors a total experience has increased.The aim of my thesis was to investigate whether a change in the sound environment at the library of Jokkmokk could generate more satisfied visitors, whether they are borrowers or use the library for other purposes. The change in the sound environment was to be effected by means of a background sound experiment in the magazine room at the library. Action research was used as a research strategy and observations and interviews as method to collect data.The experiment was conducted with two selected sounds of nature: birdsong and a rippling brook. The observations and interviews were executeted in three stages: 1. Without any background sound.

The aim of this Master?s thesis is to investigate the meaning the reading group of the public library has to a number of users. To fulfill the aim the following three questions have been formulated: 1) What do a number of users expect from the reading group of the public library? 2) Which approach/attitude or approaches/attitudes do a number of users have to reading and to talking about reading? 3) How do a number of users experience the ongoing reading group?The research is founded on qualitative interviews with five users that take part in three different reading groups in public libraries. The theories that are used is the theory of three so called strategies - the pragmatic, the traditionalistic, the emancipatory ? and the theory of flow.

Atlas Copco Tools develops and manufactures handheld industrial tools. Heat and surface treatments are used to provide the tools with certain properties. There are no routines for the choice of treatment or for how to specify treatment on drawings. Production documents that are sent for production abroad may not be clear enough. Some treatments are known as trademarks and there are no instructions for how to specify these on drawings and in CAD-models.The purpose of this master thesis work is to create recommendations for the procedure of choosing heat and surface treatment.

This master thesis deals with the looting and destruction of the Iraqi cultural heritage in the wake of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in April 2003. My ambition is to analyse the narratives conveyed by journalists and intellectuals to see which truths that were established. Using discourse analysis methods, my aim is not to find an objective truth in the matter at hand, but rather to se which truths the writers put into view regarding the question of liability and the seriousness of the looting and destruction. This paper further discusses these truths from the perspectives of imperialism and of Edward Saids thoughts about Orientalism.

The main issue of this master is to investigate what influence the phenomenon of postmodernity has on the Swedish public library. Is it possible to talk about the Swedish public library as postmodern, and if so, is it expressed by a postmodern discourse? The concept of postmodernity is defined as an open and inclusive value system where all kind of opinions and preferences take place. According to a postmodern point of view there is no such thing as an objective or general truth. A postmodern ideology does not talk about reality but about realities.

The main subject with this master thesis is to take a closer look on how some of the university libraries of Gothenburg have evaluated their electronic services (such as search-systems, Internet-based services, CD-ROM etc.). The information technology has made its way into the library field during the past century and needs to be evaluated and quality measured to ensure the best possible service to the users. Since evaluation of electronic services is a new area in the evaluation field, some problems has arisen in terms of choosing evaluation strategies and finding the appropriate performance indicators for the evaluation process. The main questions asked in the thesis are; - Which are the most common theoretical strategies for evaluation? - How do some of the university libraries of Gothenburg perform evaluation in practice? - How does the various strategies for evaluation apply to the context of this thesis? The results show that specific strategies for evaluation aren't used in the reports discussed in this thesis.

The purpose of this master?s thesis is to examine how some university students, who are using the libraries extensively, use and experience the public and the university library and what they expect from the two different library types. I also compare their expectations with the different tasks and aims of the two library types. To answer this I have interviewed seven students at the department of history of literature at Göteborg University. I have also studied some literature and research related to this subject, for example user studies about students and libraries and the information behaviour of distance students.

The aim of this thesis is to ascertain if women are discriminated in the European Parliament, and if so, how it is expressed. Our hypothesis is that female members of the parliament suffer a kind of double discrimination. The European Parliament consists of roughly one third women, but nevertheless the discrimination does not end there. According to our hypothesis women do not have the same opportunity to influence as their male colleagues, hence the double discrimination.The results of this thesis show that women are discriminated, mainly by not gaining access to the European Union's important issues, whilst the female dominated issues are scheduled on late evening and at the end of a session week. Another unsatisfactory issue was that even though half of the reports were given by women, they only received one third of the references to their reports while men received two thirds of the references.