The aim of this Masters thesis is to understand how librarians develop their reference service. The purpose was to find patterns in how librarians work with reference questions. As a theoretical framework we have used research in the reference field. Where do the skills of the search process come from: education or experience? Answers were sought to the following questions: - How different are the search process in practice compared to theory? - Which similarities and differences are there among the informants? - How important was the education in comparison to the knowledge about the libraries collections? - How did the changes in the school system in 1993 influence reference education and what could the consequences be to the reference knowledge among librarians? We sent out a question form and a search question which was answered by 12 librarians in university and university college libraries.

This essay is about possible causes to the female dominance in public libraries. We have focusedon the 20th century in Sweden and the development of public libraries during this time. Forthis purpose we have done a survey of three different cities, Uppsala, Jönköping and Skara,during three different years, 1938, 1958 and 1978. We have studied salaries, gender and titlesfor the employed at the head library in each city and then made comparisons between them.In conjunction, we have also studied how women were looked upon by the rest of society,regarding their education and work opportunities.To achieve a comprehension of the society's view of women we have, in the essay, put threedifferent theories of the so called "female nature" in center. The genderization in the labourmarket has also been set to discussion.A comparison between librarians, teachers at different levels, and postoffice employees, hasalso been made regarding their salaries during the years (1938, 1958 and 1978)..

The public libraries in Sweden has an obligation to serve all of its citizens, but despite of this they often fail to include their LGBTQ-patrons. Since the year of 2008 RFSL (the Swedish Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights) have arranged a specially designed certification-process based on normcritical criterias that a chosen institution should fulfill to make their work more inclusive for LGBTQ-people. Sollentuna is the first municipal in Sweden to certificate all of their libraries. This study aims to examine what the certification have meant for the public library in Sollentuna and how a normcritical view can contribute to include LGBTQ-patrons at the library. As a method we used a qualitative interview-study to get a full picture of the certification-process and its influence on the public library of Sollentuna.

The digital era has led to technical advances that have transformed the role of the public library from being a place that is used only through physical visits and material, into also being a virtual space that can be accessed by users from outside the library through Internet-based access to e-media such as e-books and streamed or downloadable audiobooks.The aim of this study is to examine how the role of public libraries in Stockholm County has changed in the process of developing into digital libraries: how this has affected their organisation, work methods and strate- gies, as well as their accessibility. The theoretical framework of the study draws on Michael K. Bucklands theory of information accessibility, which is based on six factors of access that are determined by different types of barriers. The methodology is based on a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods. Primary data was gathered through an empirical survey, which consisted of a structured questionnaire distributed to most of the public libraries in Stockholm County and semi-structured interviews with selected librarians and experts for further in-depth understanding.

The aim of this study is to examine the roles of the children?s librarian in a reading aloud context. To reach understanding in this subject, we have conducted interviews with four Swedish librarians working in public libraries whom are involved with reading aloud practices. Previous research shows that the reasons for reading aloud in libraries are diverse and plentiful. Such reasons can be to spread cultural experiences, help children develop their language skills and promote the library to the public.

The purpose of this paper is to examine different attitudes regarding freedom of information and how libraries should fulfil their information-task represented by four organisations. The organisations are important in shaping the Swedish public libraries in different ways. The purpose is to examine in what ways their definition of information freedom may differ from one another and what that means in defining the public library. For the survey the qualitative textual analysis has been used for examining the documents and websites that are part of the debate about the public library and information freedom. We chose to interview representatives of four organisations that in different ways influence the shaping of the public library.

This thesis is an investigation of Iranian immigrants and their use of libraries in Sweden. It isbased on a combination of a qualitative and a·quantitative method.Using a qualitative method, I give an outline of the history of lran from ancient times up to the present, as well as the different ethnological groups in Iran and their cultures. The main objective of this part is to clarify the contrasts between Iranian and Swedish cultural, social, linguistic and family structures, and also the characteristics of the crisis that most immigrants go through on their arrival in the new country. The qualitative method also involves structured telephone interviews with eight highly educated Iranians.This method was supplemented by a quantitative study through questionnaires of the attitudes· of lranian immigrants to libraries and reading. Iranians in Sweden turned out to be frequent Iibrary users.

Previous studies have shown that there exists a gap between purchase intention and behavior in consumption situations. This gap is especially prevalent for sustainable or green products and even more so in terms of sustainable apparel consumption. Therefore, the adoption of sustainable fashion remains low as fast fashion dominates the industry. A counter-movement for mass consumption - access-based consumption - has reached the apparel industry and in Sweden we see it in the form of clothing libraries. This qualitative thesis uses in-depth interviews to uncover the feelings of seven consumers towards the idea of accessing rather than owning their clothing as a more sustainable consumption form, factoring in the strong identity connection that we have to our clothes and how this affects their perceptions.

Contemporary libraries face challenges in transforming their organization to meet the digitalized society. To develop the process of digitization of literature is a natural way for libraries to go when they already have more visitors online than physically. Since the demand for digital material is so sought after, we feel challenged to address the challenges of the Internet as an emerging functional medium for distributing knowledge. These developments will be able to significantly modify the nature of literature as well as the existing system of quality assurance. In this study, we explored and analyzed a digitization project at a research library.

The purpose of this thesis is to construct a marketing model to be used both theoretically and practically when working with marketing in Swedish public libraries. This objective is achieved by first making a literature review of the written works on the marketing of libraries, and then studying the marketing activities at the public library in Bollebygd, Sweden. The theory is based on the marketing mix model the 7 ps, which serves as a framework for the presentation of the empirical result and the analysis. One of the questions posed in the beginning of the paper is how the library has worked with marketing over the past ten years. Through a combination of methods observation, textual studies and interviews the marketing activities employed at Bollebygds library are noted.

The aim of this master?s thesis is to examine how users at four public libraries experience the alternative shelf arrangement in their library. The purpose of introducing an alternative shelf arrangement in a public library is often to facilitate for its users. In each of our chosen libraries, the librarians have arranged the books in the non-fiction section in broad themes, with the Swedish Library Association Classification System as subsections. Using qualitative interviews, we examined a total of 26 users? experience of the shelf arrangement and its accessibility, their methods for seeking information and their opinion about the presentation of the books.

In 1911 Valfrid Palmgren founded the Children's Library of Stockholm, the very first in Sweden.She was a well-educated woman, who believed in social and educational equality for all.During a journey to the USA in 1907, she was deeply impressed by the public libraries, andshe put many of the public library ideas to use in the Children's Library of Stockholm. Palmgrenstrongly opposed to the Swedish libraries not allowing admission to children, since shefirmly believed that educating the people had to start with the children.Other reasons for opening a children's library were to give children an alternative to roamingthe streets, to give children a quiet place to read, to give an alternative to the cheap trashliterature that flooded the market and to teach the young ones how to extract information frombooks. Of great importance was that the library should be equal to all classes in society.In 1927 the children's library was taken over by the new public library of Stockholm..

The purpose of this master thesis is to study the correlation and meaning of current ideas and practice at the public library of Gothenburg. This was done by comparing the visions and ideas expressed by the library through the library plan, with how the daily practice looks. For the theoretical framework organizational theory is used and research data was collected both from public documents and through observations. The public library of Gothenburg were chosen for the study because of it's newly renovated facilities. The idea is that these facilities make a suitable study object of the current ideas and priorities of the public Swedish library in general.The results show that the public library practice in Sweden still rests on the original public library ideas such as offering information for free and treating every user as equal.

Electronic availability of information resources has increasingly become an important part of academic libraries everyday vocation. This is a fact that puts impetus on the libraries to know more about the way in which electronic information is being dispersed and handled. This thesis aims to comparatively evaluate Uppsala university library´s own metadata system Summon with the publicly available equivalent Google scholar. The evaluation is based on Péter Jacsó´s theories on database evaluation which concretely puts focus on Summon and Google scholar via the use and application of ten different criteria. The uses of precision and relevance criteria were also implemented as additional evaluation tools.

Purpose: This thesis aims to study how students in upper secondary school evaluate sources in their everyday school work and how the role of the school library and librarian officiate in this context.Methodology: A web questionnaire was conducted and 155 students from different schools, with or without school library and school librarian, participated. We coded and aggregated the questionnaires according to the strategies that are used when evaluating sources, identified by Francke, Sundin and Limberg. Cognitive authority, a theory by Patrick Wilson, was also a part of our analysis. Conclusions: The study shows that students use different strategies, separately or combined, as a way to evaluate sources. The teacher is regarded as a cognitive authority and is the main influence concerning source evaluation. It also shows that the role of school libraries and school librarians, in this context, seem to be non-existent.