The purpose of this master?s thesis is to examine virtual reading groups, and which meaning the users perceive that the virtual reading groups offer. In addition, the study inquires which details can be improved to further amend the needs and wants among the users of virtual reading groups. Through these outlines, it is discussed how libraries and librarians can make use of virtual reading groups as a resource. The study is based upon qualitative interviews, consisting of asynchronous e-mail interviews with a total of sixteen members in two different virtual reading groups.

The purpose with this master thesis is to analyze how the Swedish County Administrative Board (Länsstyrelsen) acts in an environment that changes fast with more regional actors than ever before. There are also proposals regarding new public authorities and eventually a reduction of the Swedish County Administrative Board.By studying a report issued by the Board in December 2005 the aim is to find their intentions and actions for the future. By using three diverse theoretical concepts - the public organisation, the instrumental perspective and two separate perspectives from new institutionalism - the expectation is that I will have the possibility to analyze the intentions of the organisation in many different ways.In this case study I also want to take into consideration the central discourses in the regional debate, shall we decentralize or shall we keep on having a strong state even in the future? What kind of regional policy does the Swedish County Administrative Board prefer?The result shows that the Swedish County Administrative Board struggles for a strong state even in the future, but it does not propose any huge changes. In many ways it seems like they act as they are supposed to - as an instrument for the government - but despite that it is obvious that the Swedish County Administrative Board tries to show that it has the traditions and knowledge.

The purpose of this Master?s thesis is to evaluate three general query-based web search engines. The search engines chosen are Google, Yahoo! and Live Search. The topics, which where transformed into twenty queries, are based on real users? information needs, taken from an ask-a-question service.

For organizations that handle sensitive information, IT governance and information security are necessities in order to maintain credibility and to conduct its business efficiently. There are several known processes to increase security governance ? which is a fusion of information security and IT governance.This master thesis examines if organizations use recognized processes and if it in that case would lead to higher security. The study is qualitative and conducted in the financial sector and based on Best Practice frameworks of the security governance in Swedish banks. Data collection was done through interviews and surveys that were triangulated to get a gathered picture of the quality of the security governance activities.

The aim of this Master?s thesis is to investigate how a public library should sign and organize their resources to make them as accessible as possible to the users of the library. Our theory, Paul Arthur?s and Romedi Passini?s wayfinding theory, is about how people search through information loaded environments. Our empirical material consists mainly of three parts: an inventory of the resources and guiding at Hammarö bibliotek, eight interviews with visitors at Hammarö bibliotek and observations of how visitors use and interact with the library, its resources and guiding.

The main purpose of this Master?s thesis is to examine what librarians in seven public libraries experience as major change in their work tasks. We are also interested in exploring how these changes influence librarians? ways of working. In addition to this we want to explore if librarians have experienced change in relation to user?s expectations and demands and if so, how they are met.

The purpose of this Master?s thesis is to study how the comics have been evaluated and debated in the Swedish library press from 1960 to 1999. Have they been seen as something good or something bad? What arguments have been put forward against them or in their defense? What kinds of development can be seen over time? The point of doing this, is of course that evaluation always plays a crucial part in library work. By studying how a "new" medium or art form has been evaluated in the past, we can hopefully gain a greater understanding of how today?s newcomers should best be treated.

The purpose of this master thesis is to investigate what the users/visitors do at the Filipstads Bergslags Library when they are there. The questions we asked were "What do the visitors do when they are at the library?" and "How do the visitors give priority to the librarys services?" From these two questions we asked a third "How do the visitors view the library and its functions and what function do they see as the most important to them?" The method we used was a user study and we did this at the request of the management at the library. A questionnaire was constructed and handed out in a pilot study. We made some changes in the questionnaire before we started to hand it out at the library.

Adolescence is a turbulent time in life and gives rise to new information needs for young people. Information needs related to school subjects have been relatively well researched but few studies have focused on information needs and use related to life concerns. The purpose of this Master's thesis is to examine the information needs of a number of teenage girls in relation to their life concerns and how they meet these needs. The sample consists of twenty-one girls aged thirteen and fourteen. The research is based on literature studies and qualitative interviews combined with a questionnaire.

The aim of this Master?s thesis is to identify and describe thedifferent roles that are expressed in a public library by researchingthem in the four policy documents concerning Västerås public libraryin 2010 and by interviews with three specially chosen key persons.Further studied are the discourses that can be perceived in thematerial and whether or not the roles could come in conflict witheach other. Laclau and Mouffes discursive theory constitutes themethodical frame for this thesis and by using terms from discursivetheory the analysis was made in four steps.Seven roles were identified from the policy documents concerningVästerås public library and the interviews with the key persons. Thefirst role of the public library was the intermediary of knowledge andinformation, the second was viewed as a democratic role, the third asa marketing role, the fourth as a role that handled the collaboration,the fifth role was to improve literacy, and the sixth and seventh roleswere as a culture centre and a meeting place. With the help fromkeywords five major discourses were found within the material.

This master thesis was conducted in order to investigate the effects of the browsing species Yeheb on animal tissues in Swedish landrace goats and to make a literature review in order to increase the knowledge of the importance of this plant for livestock production in Somalia. The evergreen Yeheb bush is a very important feeding source for grazing and browsing animals in Somalia during the dry period. Yeheb contains cordeauxiaquinone that stains the bones of the animals red/pink, which has been an increasing problem when exporting meat to foreign countries. In an experiment, two goats were fed dry and fresh leaves from the Yeheb bush for one and two months, respectively. The goats did not feed the intended amount of dry leaves, since the supply and palatability was not as high as estimated.

This Master Thesis describes how a concept for a new fly fishing reel has been developed. Thethesis has been an interwork with Loop Tackle Design, which is a leading company in the flyfishing industry with their high-quality products. Loop designs and develops all types of flyfishing equipment like fly fishing reels, rods, lines and clothes.The purpose of this thesis is to generate a concept for a new type of fly fishing reel. The new flyfishing reel shall be innovative and reduce the number of components in fly fishing equipment.The solution for this is to create a fly fishing reel that is collapsible and can be used for all typesof fly fishing.The thesis started with a history of fly fishing and the equipments that have been used for flyfishing in the past and what is used today, in order to get an idea how fly fishing haveprogressed. A frame of reference was then compiled to get an idea of the forces and surroundingsa fly fishing reel will be exposed to.

The purpose of this Master?s thesis is to discuss marketing as it applies to some school libraries. Today?s marketing is about relations. It involves the establishment, maintenance and development of relations with users, non-users and other library related relationships.

The purpose of this master thesis is to investigate different types of measures for making buildings more energy efficient and to estimate their profitability. The calculations were performed with the building simulation program VIP+ and the evaluation of the profitability with the life cycle cost method. Furthermore, it was examined how losses in the distribution of secondary systems of district heating can be avoided. Options to replace district heating with a local district heating system based on bio-energy have been investigated. The possibilities of achieving more efficient thermal energy consumption and production for the chosen estate were also examined.The object of the study has been a residential estate with 133 detached houses in Uppsala, built in 1974.

Several public libraries are displaying media, such as literature, on the websites of their own. The purpose of this Master?s thesis is to make a survey of the display phenomenon at Swedish public libraries. Therefore the authors of this essay seek to understand why media is being displayed on the websites of public libraries, how it is being displayed and what kind of consequences the displaying will provide according to the respondents. The theoretical framework is based on different theories where marketing and availability defines the equal summary.