There is an ongoing evolution in scholarly communication. The traditional way of communicating scholarly results through scientific journals is beginning to be replaced by other means of dissemination. One new channel for scholars to communicate their results is digital publication in so-called open archives. An open archive is a kind of full text database, where a scholar may archive/publish his or her articles, as a complement or a substitute to publishing in scientific journals. There are discipline-oriented archives and institutional archives.

Hans Olof Alsén, born 16 august 1926, is a Swedish Social Democrat politician who served as the County Governor of Uppsala from 1986 to 1992. During the 1960s, -70s and -80s he had several political commissions including Member of Parliament and government Undersecretary. In addition he had numerous Board of Directors assignments in different business corporations as well as in non commercial associations both prior to, during and after the County Governor period.This paper describes the organizing and cataloguing of Hans Alsén's personal archives. The documents at hand were deposited at the regional state archives (Landsarkivet) in Uppsala in 2008 and 2009 by Alsén himself. The documents almost exclusively cover the County Governor years 1986-1992.

The Swedish public inquiries and most of the political science advocate reforms in the spirit of participatory democracy to strengthen the democracy. Although it is striking how limited and narrow the scientific documentation is in analysing the effects of participatory democratic reforms. Still, many of the local governments in Sweden are reshaping their organisations according to the participatory democracy model. Is it a trend and a symbolic action or a veritable action of good-will of the politicians?The paper argues that the idea of participatory democracy has become popular and widely spread.

The purpose of this study has been to examine the archival management at the 14 Student Nations in Uppsala. This may be relevant to study to extend the research in the field that Berndt Frediksson calls ?empirical archival science?. Another reason is that the Student Nations hold a unique position as organisations and their archivists holds a unique position from a professional point of view as they mostly consist of students without professional archivist training. I have mainly focused on why the archival management at the Nations looked as they did.

Personal archives are a largely neglected subject in archival theory. Among the consequences of this is the absenceof any general established or formalized practices when it comes to arrangement and description. Thisstudy opposes the notion that an archival institution without formal systems of arrangement and description doesnot order and describe archives in accordance with a general conceptual framework of a correct order. Supportingitself on the anthropological theory of Mary Douglas on dirt and cleanliness, it studies the implicit notions oforder that can be found in the archival descriptions of the personal archives kept by the Swedish national archives.Several patterns where revealed by the study: among them the primacy of quantity stood out. The vaguesystem of categories based on Martin Grass description model appears only to be employed loyally where quantitiesof the particular categories are such that they constitute complete volumes, which seem to be the cardinaljustifier of categorical division within the archive.

In the democratic process, of discussion and decision making, there is a need of reliable and authentic information. Archives are authentic and reliable information and also provides long term accessibility. But the public archives potential isn´t utilized enough at a societal level. The public archives are organized in a decentralised manner, and there are no common accesspoint at a national level. In the thesis this issue of accessibility and use at a societal level, is discussed in terms of collective memory.

On the 17th of January 2002 the Swedish government presented a bill to theSwedish parliament, proposing ways of strengthening the Swedish democracythrough reforms for increased elements of participatory democracy. A publicreport on the state of the Swedish democracy had been released two years earlierwith similar enthusiasm for participatory democracy. However, the participatoryideals of these two documents were strongly criticised by a group of scholars.The aim of this thesis is to analyze and compare the arguments articulatedbetween the years 2000 and 2002 by the actors mentioned above, and to examinetheir relation to arguments concerning political participation, articulated bythinkers from previous times. By classifying the arguments into different groupsdepending on their content I find that both parties in the Swedish argumentationfocus on the effects of participatory democracy on political equality, on theefficiency of the political decision-making and the quality of the decisions beingmade, and finally on the personal character of the citizens. Among the argumentsarticulated by thinkers from previous times, similarities with the Swedishargumentation can be seen as well as important differences.

This study aims to examine how heritage archives in Sweden create oral history by the conduction of interviews. Though previous research have shown that this is a task suitable for archives, there have been a lack of knowledge of how this is actually beeing done. Also, oral history have not earlier been studied in relation to the archives larger objectives. The heritage institutions that have been examined are Sjöhistoriska museet, Visarkivet and Dialekt- och folkminnesarkivet I Uppsala. They are all part of public authoritys and use oral history to create more pluralistic and diverse archive collections.

Participation, public art and participatory public art as phenomenons and subjects have been studied and discussed. With interviews and observations as a base, we have studied projects and discussed participation, effect and quality in relation to these. Furthermore we have looked at how the participatory art processes work in Sweden and England. This essay seeks to discuss the process of participatory public art and to emphasize the elements contributing to the quality of this process. It is up to us as planners to recognize the possibilities for a qualitative place. To mediate between different interests, for example between politicians and stakeholders, between economics and quality, between the place and its users, between individuals and the community, and in our case between artists, users and the municipality. Public art has gone from being about the product, an art piece, to becoming more of a process, from non interactive to interactive. Participation ranges from receiving information to play an active part in the process. Four cases have been studied, taken both from Sweden and England, showing the diversity of processes connected to Participatory Public Art. From interviews conducted in Sweden and England information and thoughts have been received and they show a higher degree of use of participatory public art in England, and also a higher consciousness.

The aim and research questions of this study are concerned about how, and what kind of, problems and subjects that citizens raise during verbal interaction with politicians and officials in the field of participatory democracy. The theoretical framework of the study dominates by theories with a positive approach towards participatory democracy, but there is also a broader discussion on the phenomenon?s strengths and weaknesses.The case in focus of the study is a specific phenomenon of participatory democracy created by the municipality of Växjö. The empirical material that is analysed is consisted of written text based on the verbal interaction from these meetings between citizens and politicians/officials.The outcome of the study shows that most of the verbal interaction was held between citizens and politicians/officials in a vertical direction and that a major part of the responsibility concerning the raised subjects is estimated to be in the hands of the latter part. In the light of under what circumstances the meetings are practised, the democratic and collective minded performance of the citizens is argued to be in good condition, despite the dominating vertical interaction and estimation of trust..

The purpose of this study is to explore the Swedish site Funbeat which is a space dedicated to people who share an interest in exercising in general, and running in particular. By applying a netnographic analysis, I will investigate if Funbeat matches the criteria of a participatory culture and how the members manage to establish a collective intelligence within the community. In order to achieve this, I will analyze the interactivity between the participants which occurs in discussion threads concerning injuries related to running, in the sites discussion forum. The results will then be discussed in relation to previous research within the field for participatory culture, collective intelligence and interactivity.The outcome of the study revealed that Funbeat can be regarded as very good example of a participatory culture. By each member sharing their individual knowledge in matters regarding injuries, a collective intelligence was established.

This thesis is using the theory of participatory democracy to show how one can work to increase the participation in the society, between elections as well as during elections. For a couple of years now many traditional democratic countries have been struggling with low voting rates. Hence this, I find it interesting to study what has been done to cope with this problem. The government in Sweden had a project working on how to make more people involved in the democratic process, especially people that to a lesser extent participate in this process. In this thesis two projects will be studied, Möllevångsgruppen and Unga väljer Miljö i Malmö.

This examination paper is an account for the author?s work to arrange and registrate the business archive and business records of court jeweller W. A. Bolin AB from 1916 until present day, and a part of the one-year Masters Programme in Archival Science at the University of Uppsala. Problems that have been encountered are treated, as well as motivations of the decisions made during the process.

How can I make art that face people in their everyday lives, which is integrated into their lives, becoming a part of the discussions both in the mundane and in the room of society? Can I do this by working with performative interpretations that are participatory driven? I have explored how artists and participants can create spaces that are both open and confiden- ce-building, and how they at the same time enable us to question established norms. How to engage in dialogues concerning social, political and existential issues like; What is freedom for me - What is freedom to you? What is it that is important? Which topics are never upraised for discussion?The project is about putting thoughts, experiences and bodies (my own, the participants and the viewer?s) in relation to each other and to the location and context they are in. It ?s about creating a broader perspective where everyone?s voice is important and can take place.

The organized and controlled form of collecting consumption taxes and toll from the import and export trade goes back to the 17th century in Sweden. The customs administration and procedure were regulated by royal announcements, and the majority of the documents found in the customs archives represent thus records stipulated by such notifications. The customs archives can be used for research on several levels; the announcements reflect currents within both the domestic and foreign politics, while the account lists for financial statistics portray the extent of the trade. The various lists of compilation can be further used to follow for instance the development of different units of measurement, the expansion of tax rates, the value of trade goods or the changes in monetary units or systems. The diaries, architectural plans of the customs offices and maps of the toll areas place the customs officials and their work within the local scenery.The thesis focuses on archives deriving from customs located at harbors and on the Swedish-Norwegian border in the county of Dalarna.