This master thesis was written in the purpose to study how the location and access to computers in the physical realm of the public library reflects the undergoing changes in the public libraries role in Swedish society. This study is done in a form of a case study of three small public libraries. All of them were in the process of transforming both their physical and virtual space. The thesis focuses on where in the library the computers are placed and how their location interacts with the libraries main tasks. It also focuses on the analysis of the relationship between these two elements and how that relationship reflects the alteration of the public libraries place in society.

The aim of this Master?s thesis is to examine seven public librarians? attitudes towards manga as a new kind of literature in public libraries. Manga is an art form, originally from Japan, but in recent years manga has become very popular in the Western societies. The main issue of this thesis is how the librarians? look at manga and what they think about manga.

This master thesis aims to examine the process of indexing fiction when it comes to area of sexuality and gender identity. The empiric work that forms the basis of the thesis are three investigations:(a) examining the current status of indexing fiction within the catalogues of six Swedish medium-sized libraries;(b) interviewing librarians who allocate the subject headings; and(c) an analysis of the Swedish subject heading system Att indexera skönlitteratur.This will be concluded with an analysis of the gathered material through queer theoretic standpoint with the help of critical classification and its inclusion through separation, and marginalization where subjects that differs from the norm is included but only by being separated from the norm, or ignored totally. This will show that there are similarities with how different groups get treated within the classification systems and how they are treated in subject heading indexing. An example of this in Att indexera skönlitteratur is that heterosexuality never is mentioned in the subject heading but is always present as the silent norm, while gender identity is marginalized through exclusion of the subject heading, and related words are instead being included under sexual identity..

The aim of this Master?s thesis is to investigate the factors of children?s voluntarily reading in their spare time. We also want to know if the children choose non-fiction books for their voluntarily reading. The method as well as the empirical basis of this study is qualitative, with interviews of twenty-eight children in ages between 9 and 12 years. We conducted nine interviews with 3?4 children in each group.

The goal with this master thesis has been to evaluate and to examine the stationary resistance bridge. The resistance bridge uses a 4-point measuring to determinate the resistance, which is used in the manufacturing of the conductor. It is then used when the resistance is to be decided for coarser aluminium conductors. A conductor has to fulfil certain demands to be able to move forward in the process. One of these demands is the resistance in ohm/km, which has demands that the measure values of the resistance bridge are as true and precise as possible.

The subject of this master thesis is to identify discourses regarding children?s literature in one of Sweden?s largest library magazines, Biblioteksbladet. The subject is furthermore to look at how the child is portrayed within these discourses and if the discourses change over time. The theoretical and methodological background is Norman Fairclough´s critical discourse analysis (CDA). A selection of 62 texts, published in Biblioteksbladet between the years of 1945-2009, was analyzed.

The purpose of this master thesis is to examine some pre-school teacher's and parent's perceptions about communication within the pre-school context and how this can be described in terms of conceptual dichotomy.The empirical investigation consists of a qualitative study, where data have been collected by interviewing two focus groups and one single parent.The main theoretical tools which the study uses as its premiss is Derridas' theory of hospitality and Habermas' theory of deliberative dialogues. The study also considers the conception of the intermediate domain as an arena for communication between parents and pre-school teachers, and further more the conception of stereotyping in social and cultural contexts.In order to explore these processes I have used the qualitative method of interpretation; Hermeneutic, also with a narrative approach to the analysis.The results and the analysis of the data show that the interviewed parent and pre-school teachers have a poor sense of knowing how much influence to give to each other. The parents were not satisfied with the level of open communication and how the pre-school teachers share information of the activities..

In this master thesis, which is made in a qualitative manner, we have as purpose to investigate the nurses' estimation of the hospital welfare officer. We find it interesting to take a closer look at their opinion, because of our earlier, bachelor thesis, based on the same subject, only then in the welfare officer´s perspective on themselves. We have interviewed ten nurses and our questions at issue were the following four: Where in the hospital´s hierarchy do the nurses place the welfare officer? In what way do the nurses look at themselves and on the fact that they are leagally authorized? How do the nurses define the welfare officer´s occupational sphere and his part of the medical care? Which opinion do the nurses have on the co-operation with the hospital welfare officer? The primary information, together with two maintheories and a collection of litterature on the subject have helped us to answer the four questions of issue. We have found that the results we see, in some ways are compareable to our first investigation.

The study set out to find how artists organize and use their personal collections from a Personal Information Management (PIM) perspective, and how that use affects their practice and their art production. A secondary object of the study was to articulate the ways that personal collections are utilized as tools by creative users.  The empirical data consisted of five qualitative, semi-structured interviews with Swedish and Norwegian sound artists. The constant comparative method was used for analysis, and Activity Theory was used as a theore- tical framework for the study. The study concluded that artists? personal collections, while diverse in content and structure, serve the same functions as tools in creative processes, and that attention to the uses of personal collections highlight needs that could be better met by integrated PIM-functionality.

This Master s thesis deals with the display of library media, whether it is conceivable and desirable to draw inspiration from the retail business when displaying articles. The questions asked are: are there, in the retail sector, well established display ideas and - if so - what do they look like? Are the similarities in conditions, between the branches, sufficient? In conveying the ideas to libraries, are the potential differences not obstructive? Is there, among librarians, a positive attitude towards further development of library display techniques? The results were achieved by interviewing shop window dressers and librarians. In addition, a survey was sent to the library managers of 65 public libraries in southern Sweden. The results show that there are established ideas and methods of displaying materials, and that the ideas are manifested in frequently used techniques.

In this Master's thesis we investigate the collection management regarding fiction for adults. The apprehension of fiction has changed over the years. From the beginning it was considered to be mostly educational rather than being the purpose of entertainment. As for today these views are not opposites to each other. Regarding this we discuss the problem concerning terms of quality.

This master's essay is about seasonality in Bristols slave trade until the American Revolution 1776. The essay uses the Voyages database as the primary material. The essay's method is to study monthly distribution at different points of the slave trade ? the departure from Bristol and the arrival at the American destination. The seasonality of slave purchases in Africa is primarly studied through the monthly distribution of departures from Bristol for a specific region in Africa.

The master's thesis investigates how the concept traditional knowledge is represented by international organizations that are influential in development work and policy making. Departing from a theoretical framework drawing on Michel Foucault, constructed aspects of knowledge and the power relations knowledge production implies are highlighted.A recent interest within library and information science and practice to document this kind of knowledge raises questions about how traditional knowledge differs from other forms of knowledge and how knowledge organizational tools can be applied. Investigations, which critically explore the concept traditional knowledge, the power relations the concept creates as well as the interests and purposes it serves, have been surprisingly absent within the discipline. The focus in this master's thesis is how traditional knowledge is conceptualized by international organizations. A discourse analytical approach reveals the power relations that are inherent in their descriptions of traditional knowledge and how they describe the relevance of the concept for their work.

The aim of this Master?s thesis is to examine and understand how teachers of younger children view the concept of critical evaluation of information and how their interpretations of the concept relate to their teaching. The need for the development of children?s ability to critically evaluate has been emphasized through research as well as the need for collaboration between teachers and librarians in order to help pupil?s process information into knowledgeThe study has a socio-cultural perspective and the material was collected through observations and qualitative interviews with teachers. The results of the study indicate that many teachers experience uncertainty when it comes to the area of critical evaluation and that they do not teach the subject to any substantial extent.

The goal of this master thesis project was to develop computer models of some plausiblepretreatment techniques and to assess the potential benefits/costs of using pretreatment andanaerobic digestion for waste management of organic waste from a system perspective. Forthis purpose a computer program called ORWARE has been used. ORWARE (organic wasteresearch) is a program for making life cycle assessments of waste management. As the mainpart of the project work the ORWARE system has been provided with three new models ofpretreatment techniques. The additions consist of: One model of pretreatment with ultrasound,one model of thermal hydrolysis and one model of a screw press.