This master thesis deals with events, dynamics and problems of mediated information seeking within the context of a new information service called "Book a librarian". The study, based on a survey and interviews both in academic and public libraries and participant observations in academic libraries, has its theoretical base in the cognitive theory of information retrieval interaction. The cognitive view is used to throw light upon the need of an ongoing dialogue during the session in order to detect the information needs of the user and to conduct a successful retrieval of information. The communicative interaction is seen as threepart interaction between the intermediary, the user and the information system, where the current cognitive states of all three participants are involved. The study shows that the cognitive obstacles for a successful mediation and information retrieval are mostly connected to participants current knowledge of the subject and of the retrieval techniques.

The subject of this thesis is the history of the library at The Göteborg Museum of Art. The aim of the thesis is to depict and analyze the emergence and the expansion of the library?s holdings until 1939. To fulfill the aim, two questions are asked. The first question is: Is it possible to argue that the library?s holdings were collected to document the entire world of art? The question is formulated in relation to a comment by Susan Wyngaard.

An investigation of the heat impact of laser cutting on the material properties when producing tensile and impact test specimens of different steel types of varying thickness has been performed. The purpose of the thesis project was to provide recommendations regarding how much material that needs to be milled from the laser cut edge before tensile and impact tests. The study has been performed partly by investigating the test specimens by heat camera when the specimens were cut in the laser cutting line and partly by performing hardness tests, investigation by microscopy, and tolerance and roughness measurements and tensile tests of the laser cut material and material produced in the traditional multi operation machine. The results show that the heat affected zone in the thicker materials is greater than previously thought of, and that the currently used recommendation has to be adjusted. The study clearly shows that the thicker the material, the greater the heat affected zone, independently of the steel type, since the thicker material takes longer time to cut.

This master thesis is about access to literature translated into Swedish sign language for deaf at the public libraries. It is by now a well-known fact that there is produced very little literature in sign language for deaf. This is so even though the policies for the library nationally and internationally, and the public law for libraries in Sweden says there should be literature available for all groups of disadvantaged people. People who have problem reading ordinary ink books have the right to get the book adapted into a medium accessible for them. The goal of the Swedish law for disadvantaged says that in 2010 Sweden should be accessible for all irrespective of weather you are deaf or not.

This thesis concerns waste management on construction sites and was conducted on behalf of ICA Fastigheter.Areas of concern:How can an environmentally-efficient waste management system on construction sites be defined? What potential exists for exploiting the waste resources that are generated?How can the waste management be optimised by reducing the quantity of waste and by optimal sorting?How can the client of a project influence the waste management?The purpose of the work was to investigate sustainable waste management in the building and construction sector and to highlight waste as a resource from an environmental and economic perspective.The aim of the work was to define an environmentally-efficient waste management system, to analyse the potential that exists in waste management and to draw up guidelines for optimal waste management.The method consisted of a literature study, two visits to construction sites and four interviews.An environmentally-efficient waste management system means that the waste is managed in the following order of priority:Prevention     Reuse  Recycling     Energy recoveryLandfill     The prevention of waste is an important area that has not been adequately explored by the building and construction industry. The quantities of waste could decrease with the implementation of measures such as ordering materials in the dimensions required, prefabricated components, logistics centres with Just-In-Time deliveries, less and improved packaging and less wrapping. The reuse of waste materials and temporary apparatus as well as the use of a return pallet system are examples of reuse that reduces the quantities of waste.In most cases the source sorting work is a matter of course and the proportion going to landfill is down at a low level. The source sorting can be optimised by sorting all materials that can be reused and recycled to use them as a resource.

This master's thesis reports on our investigation of how the public librarian's professional identity is formed and what it is formed of. We have considered factors such as: education, competence and daily tasks. In order to fulfil this aim we have used a literature study on concepts such as competence, education, professional identity and profession. We have also carried out an empirical study where we have interviewed nine librarians on public libraries. The method of analysis is qualitative.

The topic of this essay is information seeking for children and young people in municipal libraries. This is based in the growing need for information seeking skills in the Information Society. Policy documents on the topic are scrutinized and related to a concrete praxis. Data has been collected through two case studies; one carried out in Ronneby and one in Trandared, Borås. These cases where chosen because of the existence of a local policy for library skills and information search for 6 to 12-year-olds.

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.

During the past decade, consumer health information-centers have been developed at the hospital libraries in Sweden in order to meet the increasing demand from patients and their relatives concerning consumer health information. In 1993, the hospital libraries in Falun, Västervik and Karlstad launched a consumer health information database called PION. The aim of this Master's thesis is two-fold. My first aim is to describe and discuss the principles of user-oriented evaluation. In my attempt to convey the theoretical discussion into the everyday life of librarianship, my second and most important aim is to conduct a user-oriented evaluation of the database PION.

The web sites of libraries are to a large extent their public face and to help market their services, the web sites must have interesting and regularly renewed content. They must also be visually attractive and easily used, and thus be well structured and have a well functioning navigational system. The web masters' awareness of the ability of web sites to attract users to the site and also to the library, as well as their knowledge of suitable content and site construction, is crucial for how successful the web site actually is at marketing the library. The research question is: How do the studied web sites function as marketing sources and service providers for the libraries, and are the web masters aware of the importance of the web site? The purpose is to investigate how the library personnel looks upon the web site as a possible way to increase the popularity of the library among the public, and to study the construction and content of the library web sites to find out how well these serve their purpose.

Undersökningen vilar på två huvudfrågor: Vad är ett materialbibliotek, och varför uppstår de i så stor utsträckning idag? Frågorna besvaras genom samtal med ansvariga på materialbibliotek, främst kommersiella, i Europa och USA och redovisas i en historisk och kronologisk översikt över det senaste decenniet, en tematisk beskrivning av verksamheten samt en diskussion kring materialbiblioteket utifrån begreppen dokument och bibliotek där en allmän biblioteksmodell appliceras på materialbibliotekens verksamhet. Slutligen föreslås en definition av begreppet materialbibliotek.Undersökningen kommer fram till att materialbiblioteket är en informationstjänst som samlar och organiserar materialprover och materialkunskap, och som inte enbart fungerar som tillhandahållare av information utan även strävar efter att i mötet med sina användare skapa ny kunskap om de dokument det behandlar. Materialbiblioteken uppstår ur ett behov av en samordnande central för materialkunskap, och kan placeras inom det nya serviceparadigmet information management. Det finns även ett behov av att känna på material och att skapa en mötesplats för kreatörer och tillverkare inom designområdet.

The purpose of our thesis is to take a closer look at what lies behind the display of fiction in public libraries. Through interviewing ten librarians and analysing their statements, it examines the mechanisms behind the displaying of books. The analysis was conducted through the application of two different theories, one by Aant Elzinga and one by Douglas Raber. Elzingas theory concerns methods of working, while Rabers theory concerns the purpose of public libraries and attitudes towards power. The following conclusions were drawn from analysing the statements.

The aim of this thesis is to contribute to increased knowledge concerning students? information seeking in an electronic environment. Using a qualitative approach; focus groups interviews, a total of nine nursing students were interviewed in two groups. The interviews were transcribed and analyzed with an analysis tool based upon Lucy Kuntz?s, Gary Marchionini?s and Carol C Kuhlthau?s models of the information seeking process.

The purpose of this thesis is to study the attitude towardscomics among librarians as well as their personal image ofthe overall attitude towards comics among librarians and themanner in which the attitude of the librarians affects how thecomics are treated in the library.I have performed this study with a qualitative approach andhave interviewed a total of five librarians working in twodifferent libraries.I have founded the theoretical base for my research in anumber of historical attitudes towards comics and thencompared these attitudes towards the answers given in theinterviews as well as prior research found in three theseswritten by Magnus Johansson, Sarah Johansson and KarinEsaiasson.The results of the study is that traces of most of thehistorical attitudes can be found among all of the interviewedlibrarians but that none of them are harboring any negativeattitudes towards comics themselves. On the other hand thestudy does imply that the image of the librarian who onlythinks that comics are meant for children is still very muchalive in the collective subconscious of the librarians.The study also shows that while librarians of today tend tohave a neutral outlook in comics the historically subpartreatment of comic in the libraries and the subsequent lack ofacademic support on the subject have made it necessary forthe librarian in charge of the comic-section to have apersonal interest/liking for comics to be able to do a goodjob..

Detta arbete handlar om vad ett va?letablerat fo?retag skulle kunna go?ra med sitt restmaterial. Vi vet att det idag finns en ma?ngd fo?retag som jobbar fo?r att minska sitt restmaterial och ha?r presenteras fo?rslag pa? vad man kan go?ra med det som a?nda? uppkommer. I arbetet presenterar vi fo?rst hur vi ga?tt till va?ga fo?r att samla in va?r information, alltsa? hur va?r forskning gjorts.