The aim of this Masters thesis is to examine librarians opinions about media. Four questions are asked: What kind of different attitudes to new media has librarians had? How is new media discussed in relationship to each other in the debate? What mechanisms and underlying causes control the discourse for new media in public libraries? Does the discourse change over time, in that case, how? The theoretical background is theory about moral- and media panic and popular adult education. The media panic theory includes the idea that the same reaction occurs every time a new media is introduced. The theory about popular adult education is that the public need to be cultivated.

The aim of this master's thesis is to examine whether librarians working in public libraries see fiction as a source of knowledge, and what role this plays in the educational mission of the public library. This investigation, which consists of a literary study and an empirical section, shows that the concept of phronesis denotes practical wisdom and moral thinking, and that it can be applied to that form of knowledge to which reading can contribute. An important issue in this context is the reader's motivation to learn. The interviews show that librarians see literature as a source from which knowledge can be drawn. When they mediate literature, they believe that they are conveying something of value and they set great store in mediating literature which could have a not inconsiderable import to the borrowers.

The aims were to investigate the public awareness of aphasia in a Swedish sample and examine if knowledge of aphasia relates to gender, education or age. Participant?s sources of knowledge of aphasia were examined. A total of 153 individuals, aged 18-90, were surveyed. Participants were categorized into three groups; heard of, knowledge of and not heard of aphasia.

This masters thesis aims at a discussion about whether the public library will be an educating and cultivating society institution in the future. The method used is a combination of interviews with library staff in leading position and studies of the public librarys relationship to cultivation and adult education in a changeable society. The work concentrates on two main questions. One is about what, and in which way, changes, that are important for the public library and that take place in society now or within the next ten years, affect the future activities of the library. The other is about the public librarys relationship to cultivation in general and in the future.

The purpose of this master thesis is to investigate how the public library can support adult learning through collaboration with other actors in the community. This is done by examining the activity of Linköping municipal library towards the user group adult students. The questions raised consider; the political view of supporting adult learning, the role of the public library, who are the actors in Linköping, the experiences of collaboration and finally what promotes and restrains collaboration. The investigation is done as a case study with qualitative methods. The qualitative methods was found to be the most appropriate for this study, since the majority of the empirical material has been collected through interviews.

This paper aims to broaden the discussion on how press freedom can be a powerful tool in the war on corruption. Previous studies have shown a significant relationship between more press freedom and less corruption, it also shows that the causal link runs from press freedom to corruption and not the other way around. There are quite a few studies on the impact of a free press on corruption and therefore there is a lot more to be published on this issue.This paper looks at press freedom as one of the most important parts of a democratic society and that it plays a vital role in reducing corruption as both an informant on key issues and also as a ?watchdog? on society. But press freedom cannot be seen as an ?easy fix? in a country or the international community's struggle to reduce corruption.

The aim of this Master's thesis is to study the public library identity from a brand perspective, how the public library brand identitity is communicated through blogs and what is communicated in them.The authors analyse the public library identity through selected concepts and a model within Aaker´s and Kapferer´s branding theories. These theories have been applied on literature and blogs as a method. The authors have examined literature about the public library identity in different works within Library and Information Science and political documents that applied to public libraries. An empirical study has been carried out on blogs published by public libraries in Sweden.The result of this study has lead to the identification of different core and extended identities for the public library brand. The core identities have been identified as democracy, adult education (the swedish word ?folkbildning? has no correct translation in english, adult education is the recommended related term) and lifelong learning.

Recent papers and bills from the Swedish Government deal with the possibilities  of giving all Swedish citizens the possibility of their own creative actlvities in the cultural sector. This work is about where such actlvities shall be placed in order to make them obtainable  for all. As an example of creative work this work takes computer-based music-making. At the public library in Odense, Denmark there is a weil functioning sound workshop where the public gets the opportunity of making music with some assistance from the staff. This work shows  that also in Sweden  the public libraries are the most suitable  institutions  for placing studies for computer-based music-making  for the public depending  on the public libraries'  traditions in adult education.

The aim of this Master?s thesis is to analyse how adult students in Swedish adult education seek information for school tasks. The focus is on how they use the public library and electronic information sources and their reflection on information and sources in this process. Also of interest in the study is the help they receive from staff in the public library and their teacher. Methods used in collecting and analysing data for this study were of qualitative nature.

Public opinion can be shaped as well as transformed in a number of ways. Government authorities occasionally make use of public information campaigns to educate and steer the public. In this thesis the balance between public and private, the individual and the society is analysed in terms of dimensions of individualism and communitarianism. These dissimilar theories on how the society ought to be constructed can be used when analysing many different policy areas, however, they also pinpoint the controversies seen in the public debate regarding Swedish information policy. Based on this analysis an empirical study identifies what kind of knowledge the state wants the citizens to possess and public information campaigns can be problematic.

The public service within health and care has changed remarkably during the last 30 years. It has been inspired by management ideas from profit-making businesses. Those thoughts are an umbrella term called Nex public management. In what way has New public management influenced the public service in Sweden? Important concepts in the change of public service are quality, effektivity and goals.

The aim of this Masters thesis is to examine the importance of public libraries for individuals in their everyday life and to study the differences in views between the individuals. Questions posed in this study are: What do public libraries mean to individuals? Which differences between individuals views of the public library are to be found? What is the reason for differences to occur? The analysis is based upon qualitative interviews with six persons, four women and two men between 31 and 55 years of age. The theoretical starting points are Anderson and Skot-Hansens theory of four different roles of public libraries and Bourdieus theory of lifestyle. The study acts on a hermeneutic attitude.

The purpose of zoos has changed over the decades. From being menageries where wealthy people showed their collections of exotic animals to today?s zoos where science, conservation and education has become a central part of their work. Education in zoos gives them the opportunity to spread the knowledge about ecology, biology and biodiversity to the general public. Their aim is to change the public?s attitudes towards our wildlife and raise awareness about the threats that exists against our planets biodiversity.

AbstractThe purpose of this essay was to study the parental education for adoptive parents. It´s provided by law since 1/1-2005 that parents have to participate in this education-program before they adopt. We wanted to look at what caused the change and made the education compulsory and to find out where the initiative came from, what purpose the education is supposed to fulfil, if it can facilitate for adopted children during their growth and whether the parental education can support the idea of what is best for a certain child always has to come first, according to the UN convention on the Rights of the child and the Haag-convention.The study was based on eight qualitative interviews, four with social workers, three with representatives of adoption-organisations and one with a representative of the public authority of international adoption (MIA). The conclusions of our study are that there is a risk that the education can not fulfil its purpose to prepare parents for their task, that it looses the idea of what´s best for the child and focuses on the parent instead. It seems to be more of a try out to not violate conventions signed and thereby fulfil a symbolic purpose..

The state of health in Sweden demonstrates a high average length of life at the same time as diseases, due to luxurious living, grew into more and more widespread public health problems. Finding out that information is not enough to get man to live healthy has been conducive to a pedagogic based health education. An illustration of such an education is Public health pedagogy at the University of Kristianstad. The question is, does this education correspond to the new claims that society lays to health work? Our purpose was to throw light upon how individuals, qualified as public health pedagogues, look upon their work on one hand and how different clusters of thought from their study programme are conceived as activated in their professional exercise on the other.