The aim of this thesis is to mediate to the reader an image of Chinese classification systems and in what way the methods of classification have progressed during time. The tradition of classification in China is very old and dates back more than two thousand years, but it wasnt until the downfall of the dynastic era in the beginning of the 20th century, that Chinese libraries and methods of classification were modernized. This thesis also identifies the development of Chinese librarianship which is of old age since Chinese literature stretches three thousand years back. The main question is in what way the values of three different philosophies are reflected in five classification systems compiled between 1953-1975. The three philosophies are Daoism, Confucianism and Maoism/Mao Zedong Thought.

The purpose of this master?s thesis is to examine virtual reading groups, and which meaning the users perceive that the virtual reading groups offer. In addition, the study inquires which details can be improved to further amend the needs and wants among the users of virtual reading groups. Through these outlines, it is discussed how libraries and librarians can make use of virtual reading groups as a resource. The study is based upon qualitative interviews, consisting of asynchronous e-mail interviews with a total of sixteen members in two different virtual reading groups.

Librarians like to think that libraries contribute substantially to the progress of research. However, libraries still seem to have serious problems getting integrated in their parent organization on equal terms with other parts of that organization. The degree of integration of the library is thus the main topic of this thesis and the purpose is to examine how the interaction between librarians and scientists is formed and can be developed. That issue leads to concrete questions concerning what part librarians play in the scientists work and which factors influence the cooperation or lack of cooperation. We have chosen, for reasons of comparison, to make two case studies; one is a branch of a university library and the other is a library in a large pharmaceutical company.

This Masters thesis concerns feature film services in Swedish public libraries. We have investigated the opinion of eight librarians concerning values and criteria for selection as regards film. The theory chosen comes from varied disciplines, for example sociology, adapted to our subject. The most important theories are Antonio Gramscis idea of hegemony, Herbert J. Gans concept of taste cultures and Carl Gustav Johannsens discussion about quality.

The title of this Master´s thesis is Multicultural librarian competence - a literature study and interwievs with librarians and managers in Malmö Public Library.Every fifth Swede is born abroad or has at least one parent who are. The migration flows of today reach out longer, there are more efficent ways of communication and travel. This has made previously ethnic homogeneous populations as the swedish more and more hetergeneous. Library services to inmigrant users started out as a specially directed activities. The political view of migration has changed over the years and the current perspective is the one of mutual integration and cultural diversity.

In the paper we bring up and analyse the attitudes librarianshave towards youth and youth programs in the public library.The purpose is to raise awareness among librarians and tomake the process of change and development. We have usedsemi structured interviews in order to answer our researchquestions and conducted the interviews with five librarians incharge of the youth programs in different public libraries. Inthese interviews we asked about their views on youth as auser group, youth programs and how this affects theiropinions on the roles of the public library. We have also triedto see how the librarian?s opinions differ from how thelibrary runs their youth programs today.We have used two different models as theoretic framework.One of them has defined three different roles of the publiclibrarian and is constructed by Maj Klasson and the other is adeveloped version of Andersson & Skot-Hansen?s classicmodel of the roles of the public library made by Jochumsen,Rasmussen & Skot-Hansen.

The aim of this bachelor?s thesis is to gain deeper knowledge about how librarians in public libraries in Sweden view theirprofessional role with regard to the last decades of change in the library field. Especially concerning the technical evolution and towards a higher user orientation and market mindset, and in which ways this has influenced the librarians everyday working tasks. A particular focus has been placed towards the reference transaction, the use of computers and e-media, and the stock development. We believe that there currently is a changeover, from the libraries traditional line of function, towards them as more of service institutions.The method used in this study for answering the research questions and to gather empirical information is semi-structuredinterviews.

The purpose of this master thesis is to investigate the understanding of children's librari-ans regarding children's needs and preconditions in a library context and based on devel-opmental psychology and information seeking theories. The children's perspective is said to be the guiding star in the children's library and the thesis also aims to study the chil-dren's perspective as defined by children's librarians.The master thesis is a qualitative study based on interviews with children's librarians working at major public libraries. Observations of the children's libraries in the study have to some extent been performed.The study reveals that children's librarians are fairly knowledgeable about children but do not to a full extent use that knowledge into adapting the library to children and their needs. The children are not contributing to the adaptation of the library to any extent as there are few routines for that matter. In society in general children are on a regular basis represented by adults and their perspective on children and children's needs, which may differ from the perspective children have on their own lives, and the same is applicable for the children's library.

In Sweden most public libraries give users access to databases. These databases are sometimes possible to reach outside the library by internet at any time and this provides a change for the library and the society. Librarians function as change agents when they give access to databases and when databases are introduced to users. However, reports show that the use of databases, especially those in English, is not high in reference work. This study aims at analysing attitudes of librarians to access and use of databases on and by public libraries.

This study conducts a qualitative examination based on five interviews with children?s librarians. The aim is to bring up and analyse the attitudes of the librarians towards reading promotion activities for children outside of school and investigate their experiences of participation in a summer reading challenge project.The first theory used to analyse is Jofrid Karner Smidt?s thesis of five different roles that a librarian can have on literary preferences. The second is her theory of how librarians view their promotion of literature.My interviews shows that the librarians in the study have a common opinion and enthusiasm regarding children's pleasure reading.

AbstractIn this master´s thesis I primarily investigate librarians´ and teachers´ conceptions of collaboration between libraries and schools and their conceptions of childrens´reading. Secondary I investigate the contents of laws concerning libraries and schools and also the school curriculums concerning the subject field of the Swedish language. My theoretical point of departure is that of social constructionism. I use two models in my analysis. One is a model of collaboration created by Patricia Montiel-Overall, called TLC (Teacher Librarian Collaboration), which grades collaboration from the lowest level (A) to the highest (D).

The aim of this master thesis is to investigate the design of the reference service and its development that Internet has caused in college/university libraries when it comes to the service provided to the user. I want to examine the quality of this development from the view of the librarians, and also investigate their attitude and how they deal with this development.The following questions were asked:? How has Internet changed the reference service at college/university libraries?? How do the librarians look upon the possible change of quality in the reference service when the Internet is involved?? What attitude do the librarians hold toward this development where Internet is used in the reference service and how do they deal with it?The method used was qualitative interviews. A total of six librarians from Blekinge tekniska högskola, Halmstad högskola, Lunds universitet and Växjö universitet have been interviewed.The theories and models used were ?media richness?, a quality framework including ?quality aspects of a service?, and social psychology and its ?reasons for a positive/negative attitude on an organisations change?.The result shows that Internet has brought more sources of information and additional ways to contact the library.

The National Libraries task to save and preserve the national cultural heritage has turned to a new challenge in a digital world. The preservation of born-digital material for future use requires not only saving the digital object itself but also information about the object, preservation metadata. This is a relatively new issue and the library community has very little experience in this area. It has become evident that international cooperation is necessary to solve the task and that the development of international standards is of fundamental significance. This thesis investigates what has been done to meet the problems with the fast obsolescence of digital material with the focus on metadata.

The aim of this Masters thesis is to examine how five childrens librarians in Ireland and five in Sweden interpret and implement the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in public libraries. This study is hermeneutic. Using a qualitative method consisting of ten interviews with childrens librarians and structural factors such as; library policies and laws; together with an insight into Irelands political, social and economical history and the historical development of childrens public libraries in Sweden and Ireland, has enabled us to create an understanding for the interviewees statements. Anthony Giddens structuration theory has been used for the analysis, helping us to determine how the duality between the structure, the actors and their action effect the interpretation and implementation of the Convention in librarian work. The result of the analysis clearly shows that in comparison to Irish librarians, the Swedish interviewees are more aware and have a better understanding of the Convention and how to put it into practice.

The aim of this Master?s thesis is to investigate and increase the understanding of Swedish Public Library Websites and to determinate which activity they mediate. To analyse the Public Library Websites Andersson and Skot-Hansen?s model of roles for the Public Library has been used. This model in¬cludes four roles for the library: the library as a cultural centre, a knowledge centre, as an information centre and as a social centre.