The aim of this two-year masters thesis is to look for the Swedish public library´s core business, using theories about competence. The approach is qualitative. It is done by studying the Unesco Public Library Manifesto, the Swedish library legislation, the education in library and information science, two important Swedish library related journals and by asking public librarians about their work and point of view regarding competence.The research shows mainly two sides of the core competence of public librarians: information technology competence and literature knowledge. The conclusion is that the two meet in the idea of mass education, which could therefore be called the Swedish public library´s core business..

The purpose of this thesis is to describe and analyse the development of the public library in the district of Österåker during a period of 1958-1983. The main goals have been to identify the crucial events in the history of the library within their historical context and to analyse the factors that have been important for the development: financing, location, staffing, stock of books, book-lending level and different activities for children, youngsters and adults. The consideration has been taken to reasons and consequences of these events. The hermeneutic interpretation model of interaction between parts and wholes, between reasons and results is the basic method in this research which leans mainly upon local archives in Österåker. The public library in Österåker was established in 1952 as a fusion of previously existing small libraries: the parish library in Östra Ryd, the Labour Movement?s library and the temperance movement?s library.

A tough working climate and the lack of extrinsic motivation at workplaces within health care raise the question of what instead drives employees within this industry. A possible answer to this is Public Service Motivation (PSM) - a type of motivation that is based on the desire to do good for society and its individuals. In order to investigate this further we have performed a qualitative study consisting of ten interviews with people working with institutional care, where the purpose has been to identify the sources of motivation and determine the impact of PSM. The results show that the compassion dimension of PSM appears to be one of the most salient motivational factors. While the rest of the PSM dimensions fail to explain the level of motivation to the same extent as compassion, other factors are recognized, such as relatedness and aspects of the nature of the work itself.

Public Service är ett svårdefinierat begrepp. De gamla idealen handlar mycket om enmedieideologi som baseras på etermediernas möjligheter och begränsningar, vilket har skapatsvårigheter när Public Service har letat sig ut på Internet. Kritik från bland annatbranschorganisationen Tidningsutgivarna ifrågasätter Public Service-företagens breddning påwebben. De anser att gränserna för vad Public Service-företagen får och inte får göra äralltför otydliga.Med hjälp av fyra kvalitativa samtalsintervjuer (tre personer från Sveriges Television samt enfrån Tidningsutgivarna), och med kvalitativa textanalyser av statliga propositioner ochutredningar angående Public Service-uppdraget undersöks hur Public Service-uppdraget ochdess medieföretag påverkas av medieutvecklingen.I uppsatsen jämförs resultaten med Anna Maria Jönssons tankar kring Public Service och denmedieideologiska inriktningen ?Social ansvarsideologi?.

This paper deals with the use of Internet at Swedish public libraries. The author asks whether public libraries should or should not limit access to information available on the Internet. Starting from the American discussion, concerning Internet at public libraries, the author shows the Swedish attitudes. The paper demonstrates that many Swedish public libraries have adopted rules forbidding retrieval of certain kinds of information, such as hard-core pornography and racist propaganda. The persons in charge of such actions claim that public libraries should provide high-quality educational literature and should not spread mass-produced, provocative information.

Episodic gaming is a relatively new phenomenon, that hasn?t been as extensively explored as other areas in game research. In this paper we research how episodic narratives and gameplay engage players compared to regular continuous storytelling. By exploring this we get a better understanding of how to design games that captivate players to the point of them wanting to play the next episode.  A user study is conducted where ten players play two episodes each of an episodic game. We apply observations and interviews to capture a large amount of empirical data.

This Master thesis is performed at the request of the forest company Mellanskog and the local municipality of Borlänge in Sweden and aims to establish recreational adjusted forest management plan for the areas of Mellsta and Skräddarbacken in Borlänge. In all types of urban forestry it is very important that the management plan are accepted by the general public. To make sure that also these plans of future measures, pass in the public, interview studies have been performed in which the public wishes and interests have been examined and applied in the management plan. To make sure that future measures in the forest may be accepted by the public when the forest harvester enters the woods, it is very important that a well functional work of information has been made. The people living close by the forest shall have been informed a couple of weeks before the time of measures and it must also be good information available that explains what is to be done and why.

This essay is about the use of narrative in video games, and the discussion surrounding it. For years ludologists (game researchers) and narratologists (narrativity researchers) have been arguing about how to analyze narrativity in games. While ludologists have chosen to see games as a product by itself, and therefore something to be analyzed separately, narratologists instead see games as a narrative medium alongside film, theater and books. This essay starts by taking a look at the arguments from both sides, and then introduces three questions regarding narrative in games, and how this phenomenon has changed over the past 13 years. To answer these questions, five case studies are carried out, analyzing games with the help of a new framework built on narrative theory.

This Master?s thesis concerns the public librarian?s professional identity. The complexity of the mandates of the public librarian, and the public library, raises questions on how librarians understand their professional identities. The empirical material consists of qualitative in-depth interviews with librarians. Two theoretical approaches are used in the analysis of the material with a focus on the public librarians? knowledge and professional role.

The purpose of this ideology critical study is to investigate the hidden content in the reform Gy11 and compare it with the concept new public management. After the clarification of the hidden content, we compare the structure of the organization in Swedish high schools with the structure in public sector called new public management. The main questions of this study are the following: Is it possible to see the foundation of new public management in the Swedish high schools when it comes to the views of knowledge and the formation of goals? Which similarities can we find when we look at the organization new public management and the Swedish high school?The result showed many similarities, both regarding the views of knowledge and the formations of goals. The structure of new public management has been largely implemented in the Swedish high schools and the schools now focus more on instrumental knowledge rather than universal knowledge based on understanding.This is not surprising due to the social progress.

The values politicians relate with public administration are likely to affect the way that they want the public administration to be organised. The purpose of this study is therefore to examine which values Swedish parliamentary parties relate with public administration and more particularly how they emphasise these values.The study is conducted as an analysis of theoretically relevant bills that the government party and the parliamentary parties have introduced to the Riksdag, and reports and statements of opinion from the parliamentary committees. The documents are from the Riksdag´s sessions from 2000/01 to 2005/06. After examining the documents the conclusion can be drawn that the value that is most emphasised during the period is legal security. This might mean that legal security will have more influence on the decisions taken about the organisation of Swedish public administration..

This essay intends to provide an understanding of the developments in the right of public access and recreational activities in the forests of Sweden, and which factors and prerequisites that have affected this development. The forest and its history, along with recreational development has in many ways shaped today?s rights of public access, but there is also an age-old tradition of public access that has affected how we have used the forest, and that also has enabled the development of outdoor recreation. Many are unaware of this, which causes misunderstanding to appear around the rights of public access and how it is supposed to be used.The essay opens with historical descriptions of public access, the Swedish forest and outdoor recreation, to thereby provide a picture of how these three fields have influenced each other over the centuries. This is followed by a description of the current access rights and the problems associated with those, and a description of other countries' equivalent of the right of public access.

This study is about female leadership. The purpose was to gain a better insight to qualities female managers in public sector assume they need to make an enjoyable leadership. We were also interested in finding out what they think is the joy and amusement in the leadership and how they consider responsibility and authority. We used a qualitative method interviewing female leaders at their work. In our analysis of the data we have looked for pattern and key words in a qualitative way.

The aim of this thesis is to investigate librarians? experiences and opinions about a system for fiction retrieval based on the subject headings list Att indexera skönlitteratur. I want to know if librarians experience that subject headings searches for fiction literature are a good working tool, if there according to librarians are other resources and means that makes fiction available and searchable, and how they estimate the possibility of non-professionals to use subject headings for fiction retrieval. Six librarians at public libraries in Göteborg where interviewed. The interviews dealt with their work with fiction literature, their experiences of subject headings as a fiction retrieval tool, and with their contacts with patrons.

This study deals with the Swedish public library in our changeable time. New technology, an altered media situation with a growing digitalization, globalization and a society focusing on the individual and the market have put the public library in a new, indistinct position. It is described as facing an identity crisis. The aim of this thesis is to, by interviewing a group of young people ages 15-16, find out what the public library is for this user group and what it ought to be according to them. How do they value the services provided by the public library? Are there services they miss? The thesis also aims at relating the opinions of the young people to earlier research.