The aim of this thesis is to examine how four decision makers at a University College and a library director at the same University College perceive the profile, image and identity of their library. This University College library is used as our main example. We have evaluated the main example in relation to two other University College libraries, in order to obtain a deeper understanding of how these library directors view their own libraries and to attain a more multi-dimensional view of the main example of our study. Our intention is to analyse the current situation, not the past nor the future. Qualitative semi-structured interviews with decision makers and library directors have been conducted.

The purpose of this study is to illustrate how some teachers in multicultural school environments reflecton and experience the educational work with national tests in the third grade for students who do not have Swedish as their native language. The research questions I have chosen to work with are:How do teachers experience working with national tests in groups of students where there are children with Swedish as a second language?How do the teachers reflect on the students linguistic preconditions relating to the national tests in these groups of students?What strategies in their teaching on national tests do the teachers use when it comes to students with Swedish as a second language?In this study I have chosen to use a qualitative interview method. Since the purpose of the study is to understand how teachers reflect on students with Swedish as a second language the obvious choice was to interview teachers who work in a multicultural school. In my thesis I have chosen to use sociocultural theory, Cummins four quadrant model and context for theoretical approach.

The purpose of this Masters thesis is to investigate the reasons for public libraries to have story-time today and also the reasons for story-time at the public library historically in Sweden. Why is the phenomenon of story-time still existing at public libraries today? The study is based on a questionnaire that was sent to childrens librarians in the Västra Götaland region. The material collected in this questionnaire was put together and resulted in six different categories showing the libraries purposes and thoughts of their story-time activities. The categories were: cultural heritage/tradition, joy of reading, language and imagination, library visits, storytelling and mutual experience.

The aim of this Bachelor?s thesis is to find out what librarians think about the public libraries? collections. How do they want to develop their collection and what do they want the collection to offer society?Sanna Talja has developed a theory about different attitudes regarding collection development. These are named ?the general education repertoire?, ?the alternative repertoire? and ?the demand repertoire?.

This thesis studies if public libraries in Sweden have taken part ofinformation regarding the Swedish government policy that publicareas are to be made accessible by 2010. Also studied is thesignificance of information and resources on the execution ofaccessibility adaptations at public libraries.The analysis uses Lennart Lundquist?s theory of implementation ofpublic policies, that the person executing the policy needs tounderstand, be able to and want to in order for the policy to besuccessfully executed. The study was carried out through a surveyand the thesis focuses on the factors of understanding and beingable to.The survey was sent by email to all 290 municipal libraries inSweden with an answering frequency of 65%. The results arepresented in table format with explanations.The thesis finds that a clear majority of respondents have hadaccess to information about accessibility adaptations, but thatmuch fewer consider the information clear enough.

Title: Development and continuity: A new institutional case study of a Danish public library in changeAbstract: The purpose of this master's thesis is to discuss and analyse the relationship between the traditional core values belonging to the institution of the public library, and the development work that takes place at the institution. The thesis also investigates the relationships that influence the development work.By investigating a library that is considered progressive in its development work, our purpose is also to unveil alternative values that compete with the traditional core values. By illustrating the perception among seven staff members and the director at Aarhus Public Libraries, we want to illuminate the terms for development among public libraries. In addition to our interviews, an activity plan is studied.We base our study on new institutional theory which focuses on norms and values in an organisation. This focus helps us to understand the development work from a comprehensive view.Our study shows that the development work at Aarhus Public Libraries is taking place in a complex environment that consists of several different actors and different interpretationsof the traditional core values of public libraries.

The aim of this essay has been to find out if children can identify themselves in childrens literature describing children who have immigrated. We wanted to investigate if the interest in reading books about children who have immigrated was the same whether the investigated childrens origin was Swedish or not. We chose two books for this purpose. We also wanted to see what the access to books about children who have immigrated was at three libraries. The locations for the libraries were; in the investigated children´s school, at the main library in the municipality and at a smaller library also located in the municipality.

Total amount of words: 15 269.In this essay, the purpose is to examine the personalization of Swedish national coaches during international championships in the Swedish tabloids. Research shows that a leader nowadays is representative for her organization. Therefore it could be assumed that the way the national coach is portrayed can have some kind of effect on the public opinion about the team as a unit and their sport federation in total. This essay is a quantitative study of the sport tabloids Sportbladet och SPORT-Expressen during three international championships: Euro 2012 in football, WC 2013 in ice hockey and Euro 2014 in handball. We have studied the coverage of the national coaches Erik Hamrén, Pär Mårts and Ola Lindgren/Staffan Olsson in contrast to the coverage of their teams in total.The main results are that the national coaches are mentioned in every second article that is written about the national teams during the championships. They are mainly portrayed in a neutral way, even though the coverage of them is affected by the results in the matches.

The purpose of this essay is to examine what happens with library e-resources after implementing the discovery tool Summon. Summon provides a Google-like experience and uses multiple facet options when users need to narrow their discovery. Observations of change in the libraries e-resources with regards to database searches, click-throughs in linkresolvers and full text downloads are examined through looking at earlier reports and statistics from libraries in America and England. This provides a way to compare with Chalmers University of Technology?s Library.

The aim of this study is to examine how librarians experience implementations of changes in the physical space of the public library. The study seeks to answer the following questions from the librarians? perspective: What are the underlying reasons for changes in the physical space of the library? What are the important functions of the public library to the community residents? What reactions do librarians get from community residents after changes in the physical space of the public library? The study is based on semi-structured interviews with librarians working at seven small public libraries in Sweden. A model of four library spaces, which was developed by Andersson and Skot-Hansen in 1994 and refined in 2012, is used as a theoretical framework to help analyzing the results. The majority of the libraries are structured according to the older version of the model.

The purpose of this qualitative study is to investigate how some teachers make use of the results of the national tests in mathematics to plan their teaching. The questions are how they plan their teaching in mathematics and if they use the results of the national tests to compare with their own teaching.   Five teachers in mathematics has been interviewed. I have used unstructured interviews with open-ended questions, and I have been able to ask follow-up questions based on their answers. The analysis of the survey is made from a systems theory approach.  The result of the survey shows that teachers make use of student performance to look at their own teaching of the current group of students. However, there is not enough time to rehearse and repair the deficiencies discovered in the national tests, which for some is perceived as a stress factor.

User-centred acquisitions at three academic librariesA new way of developing collections has been adopted at a number of small academic libraries, user-centred acquisitions. The method implies that the main way of building the collection is by means of receiving suggestions of titles from library users. The main purpose of this thesis is to investigate changes in acquisitions of monographs. At a more detailed level it seeks a deeper understanding of what user-centred acquisitions is and how the method effects the acquisitions process. Changes in stock management and the reason why the libraries have chosen the method is investigated as well.

The aim of this study is to investigate librarians? opinions about books supported by the government and delivered for free to the main public libraries in every community. The study is also investigating how the governmentally supported books affect the process of buying books for the public libraries and how the librarians think about quality and mediation in the acquisition. The analysis is based upon interviews with six librarians that are responsible for the purchasing at five main libraries in small communities in the South of Sweden. The results from the interviews are discussed and analyzed from the perspective of mediation.

The study of culture is specifically relevant to libraries confronting changes. A variety of conditions makes it beneficial for libraries to understand the strengths as well as the weaknesses of the underlying culture. Such an understanding can help libraries in adjusting to changes easier, without losing the cultural values that they hold important to their identity and strategic strengths.Taking this as a starting point the purpose of this essay is to examine and describe what aspects in prevailing library cultures are important to pay attention to when meeting changes. To accomplish this we will explore the concept of library culture, its substance, meaning and expression.Culture is reflected in the artifacts, values and underlying assumptions of formal and informal groups. Culture can be found at various levels.

The aim of this thesis is to investigate and increase the understanding of a present function of today´s public library, namely the function of meeting place; here called the social function or social space. Two small town libraries are included in the study, and the questions examined are:How is this function described at the two libraries and what similarities and differences are there between the two? How can one describe the relation between how the library as social space is described in research and at the libraries? The theoretical framework used in examining these questions, consists of three different discourses in culture policy (the discourse of state, market and civil society) and theories on civil society and the public library. A summary of current research makes visible eight different aspects of the public library as a social space. These aspects functions as parts of the theoretical framework as well.