The main focal point of this study is about public libraries and its possible roles in today's society. Going from having had a clear educational orientation, public libraries has with time amassed several other roles, which all need to relate to the swedish law regarding libraries and other governing documents, as well as business plans. This thesis focus on a qualitative investigation, which was conducted through in-depth interviews with librarians and other staff at a public library in Stockholm, named bibliotek Plattan, to ascertain the prevailing opinions within this facility about the role of libraries and librarians. The choice of examine this particular library was based on the fact that bibliotek Plattan differs from the public library in general and only offers material for adults. Their collection of litterature is primarily based on fiction novels.

The public sector is a major purchaser of goods and services. By setting requirements for environmental and social considerations in public procurement, an authority has the possibility to use consumer power to influence the actors in a market. The purpose of this paper is to investigate public procurement of textile products in a municipality, in order to gain knowledge about factors that may be important for the use of environmental and social criteria. Håkan Hydén´s (professor in sociology of law) norm model was used as the basis of the analysis, where the conduct was investigated along three dimensions of the norm ? willingness, knowledge and system conditions ? in order to identify underlying factors that can influence the process.The results ? analyzed by using interviews and documents ? show that the procurer's willingness, motivation and knowledge are important factors in this context, as well as the political priority of the municipality.

The purpose of this masters thesis is to find out if public libraries provide new age materials or not. My research is done using the point of view of the library users. Do they think libraries hold a sufficient amount of new age literature and do the users find this literature of good quality? To find an answer to this question, interviews have been made with a number of library users interested in new age related issues. Interviews have also been made with librarians, to get their point of view on this rather controversial subject.

AbstractIn the heart of Paris, you will find Sweden?s only cultural center abroad. Since the early 70?s a wealth of cultural activities has been offered, and every year the center receives more than 100,000 visitors. The center is a branch of the Swedish Institute (Si), a public authority which promotes mutual relationships between Sweden and other countries through culture, education, science and business.

The aim of this paper is to examine how the press describes the public and private role of the Swedish monarch in texts that report about the biography Carl XVI Gustaf ? den motvillige monarken (Sjöberg et al. 2010) when it is published in November 2010. The examined period ranges between the days just before the release and a fortnight after. The analysis is limited to standard Swedish papers: a daily, Svenska Dagbladet, and an evening paper, Expressen.Questions asked in the study are: In what ways do the analysed texts raise a discussion about the monarchy?s importance or function in the society of today, that is a public debate on the monarchy? To what extension are status symbols used in the constructing of royalty, that is what Jürgen Habermas (2003) describes as representative publicity? What similarities and differences are found when comparing the news articles in the daily and in the evening paper?The method used to answer the aim and questions is the critical discourse analysis, as Norman Fairclough (1995) describes it, and the theoretical perspective of the essay is Jürgen Habermas? (2003) theory about the bourgeois public sphere.The result shows that the news articles in the daily unsurprisingly construct only a public who wants to debate on the monarchy.

The aim of this thesis is to examine how the identity of the public librarianwith regard to reading is manifested in the library field. The approaches thatare taken to reading and readers are examined as well as the consequencesdifferent approaches might have. The empirical material is based on 93articles published in Swedish library journals. The theoretical andmethodological starting point is discourse analysis. The application ofdiscourse analysis according to Michel Foucault?s hypotheses reveals threediscursive formations regarding the professional identity of public librarianswithin the framework of reading promotion: The public librarian asguarantor of democracy is related to the public library's original mission offostering, cultivating and educating citizens.

Sveriges Television kallar sig en TV i allmänhetens tjänst och har en erkänd roll som viktig aktör i den svenska demokratin. I sin roll som public service-företag har SVT en mängd uppgifter att fylla genom sitt programutbud. Public service uppgifter som alla tillsammans skall främja ett demokratiskt samhälle. I takt med att medielandskapet och samhället har förändrats så står SVT:s ar-bete med dessa uppgifter och mål inför nya utmaningar. Vi har i denna upp-sats anammat teorin om att TV-utbudet för public service idag börjat efterlikna de mer nöjesanpassade TV-kanalerna i fråga om programutbud.

Eslöv received its city privileges in the year 1911 and to celebrate the city?s 100th jubilee it has been decided, among many other things, to reinvigorate the City park. This master thesis presents a new proposal for the design of the City park. As a basis for the new proposal a study of the public park is made in a social and structural context as well as a study of the history of the Eslöv City park. The history of the Eslöv City park is somewhat unclear, especially if there has ever been a one design for the whole park? To create a picture of the public park in general, a study of literature has been made and to describe the history of the City park I Have researched the city archive in Eslöv.

Syftet med vår uppsats har varit att utreda om revisorns roll har förskjutits från ?client focus? mot ?public interest?. Vi har också tagit reda på vad revisorerna tycker om sin nya roll. ?Client focus? innebär att revisorerna utför tjänstejobb, de måste vara måna om sina klienter, dessa har rätt att byta revisor vid missnöje.

The aim of this Master's thesis is to study what place public libraries have in local politics, particularly from the point of view of the politicians. To answer this, I have interviewed politicians, participated as a silent observer of a public debate, and studied articles on library politics in newspapers and other press. The results show that politicians in general have a positive view of libraries and good co-operation with library professionals, and that they have a fairly up-to-date view of libraries. They are, however, less interested in library issues in general, and are often complacent with the way things are already running. The newspaper studies show that library issues are usually only discussed when a specific library is somehow in danger.

Little attention has been paid in the literature to libraryassistants in Swedish public libraries. In this bachelor thesis,the professional role, work duties, career prospects and statusof library assistants are examined at two public libraries.Because of a scarcity of published information on thedevelopment of this profession in Swedish public libraries,retired library assistants, as well as currently employedlibrary assistants, librarians and a library head wereinterviewed.Since the ?80s, work duties of library assistants havechanged, with a reduction in some of the more manualaspects of library work, the development of new duties and,overall, an increasing similarity in the duties performed bylibrary assistants and librarians.Additionally, the public perception of library assistants as acategory distinct from librarians was investigated bydistributing questionnaires to library patrons. Contrary toexpectations prompted by statements in the literature, asubstantial portion of visitors was found to be aware of thetwo separate categories.Library assistants at Swedish libraries have no careerprospects, unless they undertake studies in their own freetime and at their own cost, and obtain a librarian degree. Adifference between the situation of library assistants inSweden and corresponding professional categories in a fewother countries is that, at present and for several years, noformal education for library assistants has been available inSweden.

This master thesis aims to examine how public libraries in Sweden are practically and ideologically equipped to deal with e-books, outside of the dominant distributor Elib. The study also aims to find out what?s required of the book market and the public libraries to make further progress in the question of e-books. In Sweden e-books are still representing only a small amount of all the library loans and an even smaller amount of the commercial book market.The methodological and theoretical ground for the thesis is Grounded Theory, and the survey is based on interviews with publishers, librarians and distributors.The conclusions of this thesis are that the public libraries lack resources to invest in e-books, and that they also lack in knowledge about the media and its readers. It also exposes that both internal and external collaboration efforts need to be further developed.

The aim of this master?s thesis is to investigate the value and impact that reading groups organized by Swedish Public Libraries, have on its participants, role of the librarian and the Library as whole, according to librarian?s conceptions. In literature and earlier research reading groups are described to represent an important reader pro-motion tool for Public Libraries. At the same time the typical reading group member is often described as a per-son with a familiarity of reading. Another purpose is therefore to investigate the contribution of reading groups in promoting reading, according to librarian?s conceptions.

This master thesis is an attempt to study the joint-use solutions between the public library and the public preschool in the local district Kristineberg in the community of Borås. The two main questions are; what kind of joint-use library is the activity at Kristineberg? What kind of advantages and disadvantages do the actors experience from the joint-use activity at Kristineberg? The analysis is based upon the interviews with eight informants with different connections to the joint-use library and public preschool. I also use documental analysis and literature studies. Relevant theories, such as Andersson´s and Skot-Hansen´s analysis of the role of the public library and Bundys, Imhoff´s and Dornseif´s theories about joint-use libraries are presented and later used in the analysis.

Hur samverkar de nationella folkhälsomålen med fysisk planering, och på vilket sätt kan folkhälsomålen beaktas för att förbättra förutsättningarna för ökad fysisk aktivitet hos barn? Denna studie är en fallstudie i Hjo kommun. Studien tar utgångspunkt i kommunens folkhälsoproblematik som visar att det finns en hög förekomst av övervikt hos barn. Intentionen är att undersöka vilka organisatoriska processer som kan underbygga det kommunala arbetet med folkhälsomålen, liksom att ta reda på vilka faktorer i den fysiska miljön som skapar förutsättningar för barns fysiska aktivitet. Avsikten med studien har varit att skapa ett underlag för Hjo kommuns översiktliga planering.