The aim of this master thesis is to find out if young people and librarians think that reference groups can support public libraries to meet the needs of young people, and if the reference groups, which the librarians describe, differentiates from the young peoples requirements. I have made a qualitative study with a questionnaire to six librarians who have experience from reference groups and ten interviews with teenagers. The result showed that young people have many interests and needs which can be met from the library. The teenagers were positive to the library and many of them showed interest in having more influence on the library. Many would like to join a reference group, but on the condition that they would be offered real influence.

The structure of the Swedish public library field has been evolving during the last decades. The traditional mission of educating the citizens to become responsible, democratic and knowledgeable members of society has in a way led to the integration between public and school libraries. Lately new co-operational models have been under debate and a sense of resistance has arisen because of the economical and market influences. In parallel with closure of library branches new libraries have evolved in malls and wash houses and some with self-service with no use of librarians. This work shows how co-operation in rural areas finds the common goals for the people living there who are concerned about keeping the service needed including the public library and thus using existing means and crossing borders of commercial thinking.

Swedish university libraries traditionally collect recreational readingmaterial only to support the teaching and research interests of theirinstitutions. However many university libraries hold a substantial yetunspecified collection of popular fiction. This thesis investigates theextent of these collections and examines academic librarians' viewsabout students' recreational reading in the academic context and theirattitudes towards the role of fiction and of readers' advisory inacademic libraries. The theoretical framework includes literature andresearch about the benefits of reading for pleasure, collections' rolesand readers' advisory strategies. The empirical material was gatheredthrough quantitative surveys sent to academic librarians in Sweden.The results show that academic librarians are positive about thebenefits of recreational reading for university students.

This Masters thesis investigates user education at academic libraries. The increased demand on students to keep themselves updated in the information society of today urges libraries to develop their user education, concerning both content and teaching strategies. The aim of this study is to examine user education at academic libraries, and the approach of librarians in their teaching. The research questions address how librarians implement the user education and what they focus on. We also want to explore what differences and similarities there are between the user educations, and if anything could be further developed within them.

The purpose with this study is to examine school-leaders?, school-librarians? and teachers? expectations and aims for their school-libraries at two different schools in the city of Växjö. The study is based on these five questions:· How do school-leaders, school-librarians and teachers think about learning?· What function does the school-library have?· What roles do school-leaders, school-librarians and teachers have in the school-library?· How do school-leaders, school-librarians and teachers experience the co-operation in the school-library?· How would school-leaders, school-librarians and teachers wish that the co-operation should be?To be able to answer these questions I have done thirteen qualitative interviews and studied literature relevant to the subject. Three different theories are used as a theoretical framework; the traditional perspective, individual constructivism and social constructivism.

In this report two Sustainability Life Cycle Assessments are carried out for two types of tiles for Riksbyggen, to contribute to a sustainable urban transition. Sustainability Life Cycle Assessment involves performing a life cycle assessment based on four principles based on scientific research and presented by the non- governmental, non-profit organization, The Natural Step. The principles concern raw materials, chemically produced substances, degeneration of nature and social conditions.Origin of products, manufacturing sites and manufacturing procedures were initially completely unknown and much of the work has consisted of finding the entire cycles, understand manufacturing processes of ceramic tiles and evaluating what materials and what type of energy sources that are required for the production. A socially sustainable perspective has been of high relevance alongside an ecologically sustainable perspective.The report begins with the basic underlying facts and the purposes of this investigation and that the reasons why Sustainability Life Cycle Assessments are carried out are to provide Riksbyggen and the own workers with documents presenting Riksbyggens ideas regarding sustainability and to hopefully get the ideas further down in the supply chain. The methods used to fulfill the investigation are presented and scientific facts about LCA and ceramic building materials are reviewed.

Research indicates that a more hands-on education in mathematics could improve how students relate to mathematics. Laboratory mathematics is a way of making mathematics more concrete.  How is the purpose of laboratory mathematics perceived? This thesis has its focus on the pupils? perceptions of the purpose of laboratory mathematics, but the intention of the teacher involved is also investigated. The main research questions asked were:What is the teacher's definition of laboratory mathematics?Which is the teacher's purpose in using laboratory education?How do the students perceive the purpose of the laboratory teaching of mathematics?To answer the questions, I conducted a series of qualitative interviews.

This report is introduced with a presentation of fundamental electromagnetic theories, which have helped a lot in the achievement of methods for calculation and design of microstrip transmission lines and circulators. The used software for the work is also based on these theories. General considerations when designing microstrip solutions, such as different types of transmission lines and circulators, are then presented. Especially the design steps for microstrip lines, which have been used in this project, are described. Discontinuities, like bends of microstrip lines, are treated and simulated.

This paper follows an analytical and critical line of reasoning concerningindexing and retrieval of music in Swedish public libraries. The focus ofthe discussion is based on the terms included in the subject heading list ofthe Swedish Classification System. The empirical study is performed inthe context of online catalogues in the public libraries of Örebro andGävle. The theoretical background relies on the indexing theory ofProfessor Frederick W. Lancaster.

The focus of this two year master?s thesis in Library- and Information science is the study of two Swedish Public Library buildings with the examples Lomma and Halmstad. The main goal and purpose of the thesis is to try to uncover which views and values of the public library are expressed in the examined libraries; and to what extent these views manifests are shown in its architecture.The theoretical framework is based on Raymond Williams?s cultural concepts of effective, dominant culture and the two extremities of this culture, called residual and emergent cultures. A second aspect is Yi-Fu Tuans concepts of Space and Place.

The environmental assessment system Miljöbyggnad is a Swedish system initiated by Bygga-Bo-Dialogen to assess buildings with regards to three main areas; ?Energy?, ?Indoor climate? and ?Materials?. A building can obtain three different classifications depending on how well it manages to meet the demands. GOLD is the highest classification and is followed by SILVER and BRONZE. The majority of the measures needed to comply with the demands are done during the design phase.

The purpose of this paper was to investigate the special services for immigrants which are offered by Swedish libraries on their different levels regional, local and school as well as immigrants experiences of the library services and how these services and experiences conduct themselves to the development of the harmonic multicultural society. The methods used were interpreting reflexive interviews with immigrants and librarians. The guiding theory in this study was a three-phase model by Gillis Herlitz according to which a newcomer goes through three stages in an adaptation period. Phase 1 is a positive honeymoon phase, that later is replaced by phase 2, a critical disappointment period, which then ideally should be resolved in phase 3, where the individual reaches a balancing stage of cultural adaptation. The results of my observations indicate that the performances of the different libraries seem to operate in a way that corresponds to the different phases in this model.

The purpose of this thesis is to discuss the possibilities of, and interest in, a digital download service at the music departments of the libraries. I chose to conduct my study at the city library of Gothenburg. I studied the legal download services that exist today and I did a statistical survey among the users of the music department, followed up by interviews to see how they took to the idea. From the inquiry I learned that a majority of the users was negative to having a digital service replacing the physical department, although a majority was positive to try a digital service. I also used the inquiry to compare the reasons for downloading music to the reasons for borrowing records from the library, but there was no significant difference.

The aim of this thesis is to describe digitization of images in two Swedish museums. We want to examine their reasons to digitalize; the administrative and organizational aspects of their work and how they handle the problems of preservation and access to the digitalized images. These problems will be examined through our main questions: Why do the museums choose to digitize their image collections? How are their work organized in terms of staff and economical matters? What kind of software do they use, and which technical solutions do they choose? Which preservation and access strategies for ensuring long-term preservation and access of the digital images do the museums work with? How do the museums select material for digitization? How do they handle the matter of discarding of materials? The study was conducted both by reading text material and interviewing personnel at the two museums. The museums? main reasons for digitization seem to be to protect fragile materials from deterioration and provide greater access to the collections.

The paper is a research of"The Library project", a three-year collaboration project betweenArbetarnas Bildningsforbund, Studieförbundet Vuxenskolan, Sveriges Författarförbund and public libraries at 14 places in Sweden.The goal of the project is to find new forms for collaboration between libraries, authors and organisations for adult eduacation under the motto "two branches of the same education tree".The purpose of this research is to make a close description of the project and also look at the goals anf purposes of the different actors in the project. The main thought is that the different goals and purposes have caused at least some of the problems in the project..