The objective of this bachelor thesis is to examine how some larger Swedish public libraries reason about the use of social media as part of their activities and outreach. To attain the purpose three research-questions were established; why does the Public Library use social media? How does the Public Library utilize social media? What extra value do librarians believe that use of social media can add to the libraries? function? The methodology used in the thesis is qualitative interviews. Six interviews were conducted with librarians in charge of social media at their respective libraries. Five of the interviews were conducted by telephone and one by email.

The aim of this study is to show how some persons with one of the Swedish national minority languages as mother tongue use a library with regard to their mother tongue and culture. The research questions are: How do Sami-speaking, Finnish-speaking and Meänkieli-speaking (Tornedalen Finnish-speaking) persons use a library with regard to their mother tongue and their culture? What aspects do they find important in this use? As a theoretical frame I have used Marianne Andersson and Dorte Skot-Hansen?s model of the functions of the local library and Will Kymlicka?s theory of the value of maintenance of minority cultures. The study is a qualitative user study. Deep interviews have been conducted with 9 persons with Finnish, Meänkieli or Sami as mother tongue.The results show that the main use of the library is as a cultural centre and the most frequently used service is borrowing of literature.

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.

In writing this study, I wanted to examine which principles of organization that are possible for Swedish public libraries to use, and what these principles mean for the libraries customerorientation. This is done by examining a number of written sources, as well as studying the organization of six public libraries. I found several possible principles, but a number of principles have been more commonly used than others. Historically most public libraries were organized according to the functions needed to be carried out within the organization, but today it is much more common to use subject-based organizations, with some examples of organizing according to user-groups and needs. I have also encountered the possibility of organizing according to the sources that are to be handled, or the way in which these sources are used by the customers.

The aim of this qualitative study is to examine how users of talking books perceive the possibility of downloading talking books from home without visiting the library and how this affects them. Three research questions were formulated:How do talking book users reflect on their library usage?Have the subject's' library usage changed since introduction to the download service?How have users experienced the service?To answer these questions, five semi structured interviews were conducted with five different users of talking books in Sweden. All subjects were currently using download services which they had gained access to from their local public libraries. In analyzing the interviews, a theory established by Henrik Jochumsen and Casper Hvenegaard Rasmussen in Gør biblioteket en forskel (2000) was used.

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.

This Master s thesis deals with the display of library media, whether it is conceivable and desirable to draw inspiration from the retail business when displaying articles. The questions asked are: are there, in the retail sector, well established display ideas and - if so - what do they look like? Are the similarities in conditions, between the branches, sufficient? In conveying the ideas to libraries, are the potential differences not obstructive? Is there, among librarians, a positive attitude towards further development of library display techniques? The results were achieved by interviewing shop window dressers and librarians. In addition, a survey was sent to the library managers of 65 public libraries in southern Sweden. The results show that there are established ideas and methods of displaying materials, and that the ideas are manifested in frequently used techniques.

The purpose of this master thesis is to find out if library activities in civil society may be seen as a complement to public activities. The incitement lies in a discussion in the research activities of social sciences and among politicians, where the opinion is that civil society may function as a complement to governmental policy. The NGO-library Föreningen Miljöbiblioteket i Lund and the municipality of Malmö stad where chosen as units for examination. The common feature of the two units is the global task introduced by the UN, to create a sustainable development. The material used is exclusively concerning domestic information activities.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the function of the museum library. The methodused consisted partly of literary studies, and partly of field investigations, conducted mainlyin the form of interviews.Two different sets of field studies have been conducted. The first one is an investigation ofthe museum libraries in Goteborg. After a preliminary study, three of these have been selectedfor further investigation. These are the libraries of Göteborgs Konstmuseum, GöteborgsStadsmuseum and Röhsska museet.

Information technology has become an integral part of our everyday lives. The Web is an important part of this development, however, web pages can be inaccessible to many groups of users. The purpose of this thesis is to examine the accessibility of Swedish Public Library websites. Besides examining the general accessibility, this study also covers whether any specific aspect of accessibility is particularly poor and if so which groups may be affected. In addition, this study also examines whether a correlation can be found between the degree of accessibility and the size of the website.

The aim of this study is to examine the significance of having a music department at the Public Library in Enköping, and how the organization of the phonograms is handled. The different areas examined are the reason of the reintroduction of a music department, its budget, its users, the work with selection, the marketing, statistical data concerning loans, the work with classification, indexing, and organization of the phonograms and the future of the music department. The empirical material consists of qualitative interviews with staff connected to the music department at the Public Library in Enköping. For the theoretical frame, Sanna Taljas discourse analysis of music libraries in Finland is used. Talja presents three discourses which all show different views on what kind of material a music library should contain.

This Masters thesis examines the position of films in Swedish public libraries. We have, by way of comparing various statistical data, determined that the status of film in public libraries is week. We have completed earlier research by mapping what genealogical, discursive patterns that could be outlined in the Swedish government reports from 1949 until today, focussing on the activity goals and media policy of the Public Library. We have, on the basis of Foucaults theories on genealogy and archaeology, where text documents are considered to be meta-descriptions giving each other authority, analyzed if there any discursive excluding or contextual formulations exist in the usage of the language concerning the goals and the media attitude of public libraries. We have mapped contextual discursive formulations that to the commissioners have become neutral starting points for their assumptions and conclusions.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine which role public libraries play or could play within bibliotherapy. The study is based on qualitative interviews with five librarians who, in one way or another have experienced bibliotherapy activities. Further, we have interviewed two treatment assistants and one counsellor, who have cooperated with the librarians, to get their view. We have used the following research questions: Which bibliotherapeutic activities, if any, are pursued in public libraries in Sweden, and how do they look upon bibliotherapy? What role do public libraries play/could play within bibliotherapy? Ever since the term bibliotherapy was coined in the beginning of the twentieth century, the definition has been under debate. We have identified four main subjects of discussion.

Public libraries are mainly employing women and have female managers. According to theories based upon so-cial construction we create our roles together in our society. The role of a manager has for a long time been viewed as the role of a man. The objective of my thesis is to gain knowledge on how a few women that work as managers in public libraries perceive and describe their roles. A parallel aim is to let a few future librarians de-scribe their managers and their own views on leadership, with a focus on gender issues.

In the library community there is a continuous discussion about enhancing user interactivity on library websites, according to the principles of Web 2.0, called Library 2.0. The purpose of this thesis is to study how librarians conceive Library 2.0. The focus is on the study of the librarians? conceptions of user interactivity on the website, and if the librarians conceive that their professional role is affected by Library 2.0. The study is implemented methodologically by interviewing six librarians and using phenomenography as an approach.