The aim of this master thesis is to describe some general trends and important steps in the Swedish university libraries user-orientation from the implementation of the university college reform 1977 until today. The aim gave rise to four further questions. Literature studies and empirical studies in the form of focusing interviews have been carried out, in order to answer the questions. Of the entire background material I have made a simple form of general analysis. I found that the libraries, during the years have interacted with the following four interested parties, the government, the mother organization, other libraries and the library users.

The focus of this thesis is the library at the Swedish school in Berlin, Germany. Being a school in a foreign country, and playing a role also as a public library, the conditions for the library are somewhat unusual. Considering those conditions, how should the library be organised and developed to meet the users' needs in the best way possible? To put the library in Berlin into a greater perspective, the first chapters of the thesis are dedicated to the issue of school libraries in Sweden; their historical development, their importance in the school curriculum and their present situation. Swedish research in the field of school libraries is presented and includes descriptions of theoretical analysing models.

The main purpose of this Master?s thesis is to develop an understanding of why non-users do not use public libraries by studying their information and culture habits and their relationship to public libraries. One of the motivating factors behind this choice is the lack of earlier research on the subject, particularly qualitative research. The theoretical framework is stratified into three associated levels with Brenda Dervin?s sense-making theory on an individual level, Marianne Andersson?s and Dorte Skot-Hansen?s model of the roles of public libraries on an institutional level and Pierre Bourdieu?s theoretical apparatus on a social level.

The purpose of this Master thesis is to examine whether the term elasticity is relevant and functional to apply to public library organisations. Another aim of the thesis is to relate the term elasticity to public library organisations in a network society. Sociologist Manuel Castells provide the theoretical framework on the network society. Three investigations (meant to complement each other) in two Swedish public libraries seek to give answers to these questions.To be able to examine which areas of public library activity are elastic, I make a rough definition of what public library organisations consist of ? nine activity fields are identified using IFLA?s guidelines in combination with Swedish law of public libraries.

Public libraries have an important roll of making information accessible to all people. This democratic right supports the cultural development in our society. When public libraries build websites offering information and services it can sometimes cause obstacles for impaired users. It is therefore our purpose to evaluate a selection of websites and library plans to examine how the libraries work with accessibility for these users. This thesis is based on theories of cognitive and human computer interaction, and information architecture.

The aim of this thesis is to study different aspects of the public libraries' investment in public access computers connected to the Internet. What level of accessibility can be found at the surveyed libraries concerning the number of computers open to the public, as well as chat and email services? What activities have been taking place with the computers in focus, and what have the goals of these activities been? Is there any control of content, and what aspects of the Internet are, if that is the case, subject to censorship. And how do the governmental policies relate to the surveyed libraries' intentions and activities regarding the Internet? In order to answer these questions, each main library in the 42 largest towns of Sweden was surveyed response rate: 100 %.

The focus of the thesis is to examine the regional branding ofpublic libraries in Norrbotten, with the main focus on Piteå public library, in order to find trends that indicate a successful branding based on Hariff & Rowley?s (2011) identified key factors.The empirical data has been collected through a triangulation of interviews and documents. The findings show that they have done a proficient preparatory work prior to the regional branding of the public libraries, and that the libraries have worked together with a communication bureau in their marketing strategies since the beginning of the public library cooperation. The results also show that Piteå public library, through branding efforts, received another relationship with the media where the media now occasionally contact the library.The conclusion of the thesis is that Piteå public library promoted the library through campaigns that provide the opportunity for activities and experiences, and that they want to convey the image of itself as a venue for social interaction. The marketing of the libraries fulfill the most of the criteria, but there are still areas of branding that needs to be further explored..

Bioinformatics is an interdisciplinary scientific subject which connects biology, biomedicine and information science. Bioinformatics generates new biological knowledge by using computer methods and biological databases and can thereby play an important role for the understanding of diseases and be used for development of new medicines. The appearance of bioinformatics has thereby had a big impact on biomedical research.In this study, I have examined bioscientists' use of bibliographical databases, bioinformatic databases/web sites and bioinformatic tools and their needs of support concerning these resources. I have also examined which support the scientific libraries offer their users concerning bibliographical databases, bioinformatic databases/web sites and bioinformatic tools and have compared it with the needs the libraries think that the users have and the needs the users state that they have.The results from the study show that there is a wish for library support concerning bibliographical databases, bioinformatic databases/web sites and bioinformatic tools. The wishes of the respondents are in contrast to the libraries' view about bioscientists interest concerning bioinformatic databases/web sites and bioinformatic tools.

The topic of this bachelor thesis is the promotion of easy-to-read fiction for 10-12 year old children in public libraries. The number of easy-to-read fiction books is increasing on the book market. This can be expected to affect the public library. The hypotheses for the study are: 1) Public libraries expose easy-to-read fiction and use it in their reading promotion activities and, 2) The acquisition of easy-to-read books and the use of easy-to-read books in reading promotion activities have increased over the last five years. A self-completion questionnaire was distributed to 44 public libraries in Sweden.

This study examines the cultural place and status of video and computer games in the Swedish public library. Using works on popular culture and the theories of Pierre Bourdieu, this study employs quantitative methods, as well as textual analysis, to analyze the results of an online questionnaire with 19 questions focusing on selection criteria, shelf placement, perceived competence, as well as reasoning for having or not having these games in the library. 286 out of the 440 libraries contacted is participating in the study, and the libraries consist exclusively of public libraries in Sweden that are found in the database of the Royal Library.The results of this study show that a larger number of libraries than previously indicated have started to provide electronic games to their patrons. At the same time, patterns in the data and comments suggests that these games in many cases still do not enjoy the same level of cultural recognition as other media. Indicative of this is the way most libraries seem to focus on the medium being exclusively for their young patrons, with seem-ingly very little in the way of investment for adults.

The aim of this master's degree dissertation is to compile examples of different ways of planning, implementing and following up the organisation of two integrated libraries, which serve both the general public and the school. In order to respond to this, we formulated the all-embracing question: How best can the integration of libraries for schools and the general public be planned, implemented and followed up? This formulation gave rise to four further questions. In order to answer these questions, the problem formulated and our basic aim, we have studied the relevant literature on school libraries, libraries for the general public, and integrated libraries. These sources comprise official reports on this theme, dissertations, and more topical articles.

The purpose of this thesis is to study to what extent the methodological theories are being reflected in the construction of user surveys at public libraries in Sweden. The study has been conducted as a qualitative literature study in two parts. The first part is an examination of literature concerning survey methodology; the second part is a study of three user surveys conducted at Swedish public libraries after 1995. Our main results indicate that the theories about methodology are followed in part, though it cannot be determined whether this is due to any actual methodological studies, common sense, or just copying other surveys. In our study we have found some areas of user survey construction that need further attention and that would benefit from more extensive methodology studies on the part of survey designers.

The aim of this masters thesis is to examine what intentions handbooks, laws and regulations have had about children and childrens literature, as we think that they can serve as guiding principles for childrens libraries in Sweden. The questions are: what signals have the childrens libraries got from the documents concerning the view of children and childrens literature during the 20th century? What has the social opinion about children been during the 20th century? How have children been seen during the 20th century? The method we used is a qualitative source analysis of mention above documents seen from a hermeneutical point of view. This analysis is woven together with the social opinion on children during the 20th century. Our results show that the aim of childrens literature before 1945 was a pedagogic and moral one.

The purpose of this bachelor thesis is to examine how public libraries use socialmedia for marketing purposes, and what librarians think about this. My focus of this thesislies on what librarians think about marketing of libraries through social media and if theythink that marketing through social media can create a better relationship between the libraryand its users. The questions I wanted to answer were:? Libraries using social media, for what purpose do they use them? ? Do the libraries choose to use social media to market their organization? Why? ? What attitudes exist among librarians about marketing through social media?The theoretical framework for this thesis is Evert Gummessons model off Relationshipmarketing and the process of Internet marketing, which both are based on relationalperspective. The methodology used for this study was structured interviews.

The aim of this two years master's thesis is to examine public librarians? views of their pedagogical role towards school children, and to illustrate the relationship between public libraries and schools as a background for the role of the public librarians. The theoretical framework is Carol Cullier Kuhlthau?s theory of the roles of librarians as mediators in reference work (Levels of Mediation) and in education (Levels of Education). The main question of the study is: How do public librarians view their pedagogical role towards elementary school pupils and high school students? Related questions regarding the use of the public library for school purposes, the communication and cooperation between the public library and the schools, the difference between public libraries and school libraries and the librarians? view of pedagogical work are also made.The method used is qualitative interviews.