The aim of this study is to examine the services offered by the public libraries in the context of distance learning students. I wanted to examine if there has been any discussion among the public libraries on how the new needs and demands affect them. To get a premonition on the development in Sweden I have focused on the public libraries in the province of Blekinge, which in many ways can be looked upon as precursors. Interviews have taken place with the distance learning students contacts at the local public libraries, the responsible librarian and a distance learning organiser at the local university college, the county library consultant and one of the chief librarians. I have reached the conclusion that no thorough discussion on the far-reaching aspects has taken place.

This bachelor?s thesis examines the ideas behind the phenomenon art exhibitions in public libraries. My interest is to see if and how the art exhibitions can support the libraries in being a public sphere in Jürgen Habermas? sense, open for all citizens and their opinions. My study therefore has two purposes.

During the late twentieth century, political and societal changes gave rise to an increased interest in performance evaluation in public organizations. This development also affected libraries in the public sector. The main concern for this master thesis is performance measurement in libraries. In this study two different types of libraries are investigated, one public and the other academic. My aim is to find out if and how performance measurement appears in the libraries annual activity reports.

This thesis is an attempt to study computer games and playful computer programs for childrenand youth at Swedish public libraries. The main method used, is qualitative interviews.The main reason the libraries in the study offer computer games and playful computer programsto their users, is that every member of the society shall have opportunity to use newtechnology such as computers and computer programs. The users of this media are for themost part boys. The librarians in our study wish to have pedagogical games and programswithout violent themes at their libraries. Lending computer games and computer programs isnot of any priority for the libraries..

The purpose of this study is to examine the physical space of children?s libraries in Sweden, and also to see which influences there are in the literature about the same subject. What ideas exist in the literature about the physical room of children?s libraries? We have studied how and if these influences can be seen in a selected number of children?s libraries. Our theoretical perspective is based on Anthony Gidden?s theory of construction.

The aim of this master thesis has been to investigate discussions about public access to Internet in public libraries. Areas of interest were the debate in Sweden as well as in the United States. The approach was qualitative and questionnaires were distributed by e-mail to a number of Swedish public libraries. The results from the survey were then supplemented with a theoretical background and a literature study. The usable questionnaires obtained from 20 libraries showed a rather uniform approach among the Swedish librarians of how the Internet is best provided by public libraries.

Today, "the digital library" is the common way of describing a managed collection of information, with associated services, stored in digital formats and accessible over a network. Digital libraries have mainly been developed at research libraries, but during the last few years public libraries have started to offer similar services.The aim of this Master's thesis is to study how the Swedish public libraries plan to develop their digital libraries according to their mission statements, and in what way they have implemented them at their web sites. 21 public libraries, the largest in each Swedish county, were investigated.The library mission statements are investigated to find out in what terms the digital libraries are described and to what extent. The library websites are examined with respect to what kind of digital services are offered, to what extent they supplement or replace the physical library, and if there are new digital services not found in the physical library.In most mission statements the digital library is referred to in sweeping terms like "IT activities" and "new media". However, a few of the libraries clearly regard the digital library as an important part of the future operations, speaking of it in well defined and extensive terms.The public library websites are relatively homogeneous when it comes to services supplementing physical library activities, like web access to the library catalogue and links to other library catalogues.

The purpose for this Masters thesis is to describe childrens librarians work in supplying literature to children with emphasis on easy-reader materials. Our main questions are: · What do librarians believe characterizes an easy-reader book, and what do they base their decision on when classifying a book as easy-to-read? · How have the libraries in our study solved the hands-on difficulties associated with easy readers childrens literature? · Which factors do librarians consider to be important when supplying literature to children that are not used to reading or are not good readers? The theories we have used are Aidan Chambers Reading Circle and Karner Smidts view on the librarians professional roles when supplying literature. We have used a case study method, which means that we have gathered information through observation, objective papers and interviews. This has been done at six libraries.

The purpose of this master?s thesis is to investigate children?s access to specific children?s activities at Swedish public libraries 2005. The thesis is based on literature studies and qualitative interviews with children?s librarians, library directors and local politicians at two demographically different libraries in Gothenburg.The sub questions are: What measures exist to promote children?s access to public libraries and children?s activities when it comes to: law and other political statements: different efforts on the state level and different efforts on the municipal level in the direct activity with children at public libraries? What driving forces and needs justify activities for children at public libraries? How will the responsible persons judge that the efforts are sufficient? The result of the study shows that children?s access to library activity has increased in the last couple of years due to reorganization, economic savings with closing down of library affiliates and because libraries have given priority to other things, like IT and new media. Children?s librarians have got new assignments and less time for children?s activity.The conclusion of our investigation is that children?s librarians are ambitious in their work, but unfortunately don?t give children?s library activity adequate resources.

The purpose of our research was to examine whether the acceptance and diffusion of RFID technology among the employees at public libraries in Sweden, follow the classic diffusion of innovation model. RFID or Radio Frequency Identification, is a technology that uses radio frequency and microchip technology to track items, in our case, library books and other library materials. Diffusion is the process by which, in our case, the RFID technology is adopted by the library staff. The purpose of this study was to examine what factors influenced the acceptance and adoption of RFID among the library staff. We used Everett Rogers' Diffusion of innovation theory as our framework.

The purpose of this masters thesis is to examine the arguments that are being used when closing and establishing peoples libraries. During the 90:ies, in the community of Gothenburg, 4 public libraries were closed and another 3 public libraries were opened. A possible reason for this change lies in the reform from the city Committee that split the community of Gothenburg into 21 pieces; all with one centrally appointed political Committee. The library activity has since the reform was implemented got worse in some areas, foremost in the already neglected city sections, and better in some areas, which where able to establish new libraries. Argumentation analysis indicates that the arguments used at closure where mainly economical and neither the number nor relevance and validity of the arguments where good.

The aim of this master's thesis is to describe the visibility of the university libraries in the strategic documents from the actual universities to which they belong. And also, the image of themselves they send out, are examined. By examining different kinds of descriptions we want to get a clearer picture of how and in what amount the libraries are mentioned in highest level strategies. By doing this we expect to find out the libraries' strategic role in higher education and research. The research questions are: What role and function are assigned to the university libraries in strategies created by the schools' highest administrative levels? How do the libraries present themselves in their own strategies? The approach is cross sectional and the time frame is year 2008.

This paper is about employees' opinion towards libraries. The target group consists of employees at industrial research institutes in Sweden. Libraries offer several more services today than they have done before. I think many people do not recognise all of them and I also think the knowledge and the opinion about libraries have to do with use of them. Since I am curious about if this is true or not the purpose of this essay is to find out, through an attitude research, the employees', at industrial research institutes, opinion about library service.

The purpose of this master?s thesis is to study resource allocation among district libraries within Stockholm?s City Library (SSB) on three different occasions ? 1996, 2001 and 2005 ? and to examine whether there exist any inconsistency between the state of the allocation of resources and what might be considered reasonable. During the course of the study, it became apparent that some measurements are more relevant than others when determining whether the allocation of resources is reasonably fair. The most relevant ratio is the share of net cost per capita in relation to population and the population?s composition of children, youngsters and persons with foreign background as a result of relevant political governing documents giving priority to these three groups.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the ancient library organisation in the Mediterranean area. The focus of the study is if they used catalogues, marked their material and their methods for shelving. During the ancient period the people used to write on clay tablets, parchment- or papyrusrolls and codex, which was significant for the organisation. The method, which I use, for the examination is based on criticism of the sources, how the modern scholars has interpreted ancient remains and texts. The study shows that the first evidence for library organisation is from Mesopotamia 2350 BC.