The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the view on the personal encounter between staff and visitors in public libraries in order to detect possible differences between the two groups in order to see if the personal encounter as such could be used in order to market libraries. We believe that social competence must interact with the initial personal encounter in order for the visitor to experience the visit as positive. We have based the theoretical framework on Erving Goffman?s theory on social interaction, as well as on Christian Grönroos? theory on quality of service and marketing. We use the following questions: How do library staff view the personal encounter? How do library visitors view the personal encounter? How does the library staff?s treatment affect the visitor?s view of the library?Are there any differences in view between visitors and staff concerning the personal encounter? If so, what kind of differences are they? Using qualitative interviews, we have interviewed nine visitors and six staff members at two public libraries.

The aim of this thesis is to examine how librarians are workingwith the selection and purchase of feature films in Swedish publiclibraries. I was interested in examining the underlying reasonsbehind the selections. I chose to focus on how librarians areworking and reason about the library´s film collection.The purpose of my study is to answer the following questions:? How are librarians working with selection and purchase offeature films in the Public Library?? What factors motivate librarians´ selection of featurefilms?? What do librarians reason about the Public Library filmcollection?To answer these questions I performed interviews with sevenlibrarians in five different public libraries. The results of theinterviews have been analyzed on the basis of the theories andtheoretical model of Sanna Talja.

The aim of this study is to examine how work at music departments in public libraries has changed with time. To analyze this, the role of music libraries as well as music library users, selection, holdings, acquisition and technological development have been examined. The examined data consists of qualitative interviews with music librarians and library assistants at public libraries in Sweden. To get a time perspective, handbooks and articles about music departments in libraries have also been analyzed.This study emanates from Sanna Talja?s discourse analysis of music libraries in Finland.

The aim of this two years master thesis in Library and Information Science is to examine how librarians and library managers in the three Stockholm suburbs of Alby, Fisksätra and Rinkeby think and reason about the role of public libraries in the integration process. The aim is also to examine whether their perception differ from that of local politicians at the municipal level. The theoretical framework is Marianne Andersson and Dorte Skot-Hanses model for analysis of the local library profile, and Jose Alberto Diaz theory on the integration process. The method used is qualitative interviews. The interviews were recorded and the content was analyzed using qualitative content analysis. The results of this study show that the library services in the three suburbs, rather than being stipulated by the legal demand for special services towards immigrants, are based on the needs of the local population.

The purpose of this master thesis is to investigate whether exhibitions and silent pedagogy can be used to develop more inspiring environments in the Public Library. Silent pedagogy is a term from the field of museum education describing the silent communication with visitors that takes place in exhibitions through introduction and orientation, layout and installation, as well as signage. In the 1980s, articles in a Swedish library magazine discussed the pedagogical importance of library exhibits and how they make the patrons aware of the library?s resources. This led us to museum education and a desire to investigate whether its theories were transferrable to the library context.

The purpose of this thesis is to see how the Swedish public libraries present e-books on their website. This study has tried to answer the following questions:1. How do the public libraries construct their definitions of the word e-book, and what patterns are there in the definitions?2. How is the e-book definition presented in the context of the Public Library websites?This study has formulated its own theoretical framework in regards to how you can categorize definitions in four different categories to help see the way a definition is constructed.

The aim of this thesis is to investigate what chief librarians in Sweden know about the present education in Library and Information Science and what opinions they have of it. We have used the following four questions as a starting point for our work: + How much do the chief librarians know about the education in Library and Information Science? + What are their opinions of the education? + What emphasis do they put on academic degrees and practical experience? + Are there any differences between various kinds of libraries regarding these issues? We decided to use questionnaires to gather our information. These were sent to 200 chief librarians on both public and research libraries all over Sweden. 151 of the questionnaires were answered.

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 aim of this Master thesis is to describe why and how public librariesuse the social networks Facebook and Twitter. The focus is to study whatbrought about their use, how the work is carried out, ideas and objectivesbehind the use and what libraries actually convey on the networks. Themethodology is twofold: semi-structured interviews with responsiblepersonnel at four Swedish public libraries, and an ethnographic contentanalysis of four months of the libraries' status updates and tweets onFacebook and Twitter. The theoretical framework consists of a model forthe roles of the Public Library in society, and of discourses about thePublic Library in media.Results indicate that social networks are used to market, make accessibleand inform of the library's resources and services. Furthermore, networksare used to communicate/interact with followers and to inspire people toread.

This thesis is an evaluation of the campaign [The digitally curious] that is part of the regional marketing campaign Futurum.kom. Its purpose was to strengthen the library's role in society. The campaign includes Regionbibliotek Kalmar, Länsbibliotek Sydost and also 25 public libraries in Kronoberg, Kalmar and Blekinge. The campaign [The digitally curious] is one of several cluster campaigns targeting their marketing to a specific audience and aims to promote awareness of what libraries have to offer and provide information on digital media and services. The target group for the campaign is a man between 45-65 years old, who is interested in digital technology.

The majority of managers of public libraries in Sweden also work as librarians on an operative level within the organisation. This thesis discusses how the manager role is affected by his/her specific assignments and multiple tasks. Seven Public Library managers, who work in districts with around 10 000 25 000 inhabitants, have been interviewed. They reflect upon their experience of leadership and different assignments. The main focus lies on: - leadership - communication - decision making - organisational development The interviews show some positive effects, the manager is present most of the time, has a great knowledge about everyday work and daily routines, and is also able to represent the library successfully in the local community.

This Masters thesis is concerned with the complex planning process of setting up a citizen bureau in a Public Library. The aim is to find out how citizen bureaux are designed and to suggest a simplified model of strategic planning. The planning process is studied from a business perspective in the library context, and this perspective is also used to study citizen bureaux and their written plans elsewhere. A combination of qualitative methods are used: observations, focus group discussions and interviews. Observations in the Public Library showed a great need for an environmental analysis as well as structure to the planning process.

The purpose of this study is to examine the role social media canplay in a school library context, based on a theoretical model,called ?A new model for the Public Library in a knowledge andexperienced society? by Henrik Jochumsen, Dorte Skot-Hansenand Casper Hvegaard Rasmussen.The bachelor thesis aim to answer three research questions, theyare as follow: Which request of social media is there by teachersand pupils at a high school library? Which social media is the mostrequested by teachers and pupils at a high school library? Andshould the library services for teachers and students be improved ifsocial media were used at a high school library?The methodology used for this study was an inquiry investigation.My findings are presented in a context of previous, relatedresearch and the study shows that teachers and pupils are wellinformed of what social media is and they use social media whenthey are at school.The thesis also shows that the unit I study, a vocational trainingunit, is more or less interested in what the school library can do forthem with social media.They seldom are at the school library and they seldom use theteach platform were they can find library services.This result can open up for the school library to meet the users at anew arena with for example social media..

The aim of this master's thesis is to study how gender equity is discussed and worked with at a Swedish Public Library, and what potential consequences these discussions will bring. By analysing different types of documents and interviews with library staff using discourse psychological theories and methods we show that two dominating discourses coexist and determine the direction of how gender equity is discussed. These discourses are argued to create and uphold gender and gender roles within the organisation as well as in society at large.In our study we find that one of the identified discourses has, as one of its consequences, that it preserves and regenerates traditional gender roles. This discourse is mainly used when discussing personnel policies and when recruiting. We call this the discourse of gender role preservation.The second discourse is mainly seen when discussing the public dimension of the library's functions.

The aim of this master?s thesis is to examine how managers in some public libraries are using performance measurements and to what extent decision making is based on the results. The main questions posed are:??What performance measurements and indicators are used in the libraries examined???What is the attitude towards performance measurements among library managers???How and to what extent are performance measurements and indicators used in the process of decision making???What improvement would library managers wish regarding the development of performance measurements in public libraries?The theory is based on a model of evaluation of the public sector in addition to general steps of evaluation of quality and performance measurement results. The investigation is based on qualitative interviews with seven managers of public libraries in Sweden.