This Master's thesis concerns the public library as a public meeting place. Our aim has been to find out why and how the library as a social meeting place has been discussed within the Swedish library community and if there has been a constant core in the discussions from the mid 70's and up to the present day. In order to do this we apply a place and space-perspective. The result of the study is that the core of the said discussions concerning the library as a meeting place is to create belongingness. This is the reason why the library community has an interest in the public library's function as a meeting place with the idea that people, by using the public library in that aspect, may experience a feeling of belonging to the society.

The main purpose of this master's thesis is to investigate to what extent municipal politicians govern a selected public library. This means to clarify who determines the direction of the library and its services and in what way. It also involves examining the relationship between library staff and local politicians in the decision-making process. Which decisions are made by the politicians and which are left to the employees? The study is based on an investigation of a public library in a municipality over a period of ten years the 1990s.

In this thesis, we are concerned with the many different professional roles that a public librarian, working at a small library, has. More specifically, the purpose is to find out which different roles that librarians believe they have, and which view they have upon those. Furthermore, we are exploring the tendencies that librarians discuss in relation to these professional roles. To pursue this goal, we have used the methodology of focus group interviews, with the unconventional twist that our interviews were done using web chats. This may have the advantage that the informants may present more honest views than when using ordinary interviews due to the anonymous character of chatting.

This qualitative study examines how users of boardgamegeek.com chooses which analogue game to buy. The purpose of the study is to find out which factors constitutes the choice of games and how the information of these factors reach the consumer. The investigation is executed by users of boardgamegeek.com explaining their latest game purchase in a questionnaire survey online. The results show that many of the respondents research the games they are interrested in beforehand and based on this information make their choice. Despite of this we can see that many game developers and distributors does not make this information available for the consumers, but leaves this task to the public..

The Swedish Public Relation industry has gone through a rapid growth in the recent decade. A peculiar, although perhaps not unexpected, development is that former politicians and politically employed individuals to a larger extent have been the subject of recruitment effort from the industry. Simultaneously there has been a public debate concerning the influence on Public Relations and Lobbying over the political agenda. The purpose of this thesis is to widen and deepen the discussion concerning Public Relations consultants. It centers on the individual consultants and takes their competence as the point of departure.

The purpose of this master thesis is to study sponsoring of culture. The questions asked are: What are the reasons for sponsoring? What are the advantages of sponsoring? What are the disadvantages of sponsoring? What is the relation between public grants and sponsoring? The thesis is based upon studies of literature and a case study in Malmoe. Malmoe Public Library received about a million SEK over a period of three years from the foundation of Foreningssparbanken Skane. The money finances two projects, one with new books, Nyhetstorget, and one with strengthened information for small companies, Projekt Förstärkt Näringslivsinformation.

The aim of this master?s thesis is to examine the roles ofthree different public libraries in three differentcommunities. In order to get some answers about the roles ofthe public libraries I have used the following questions: Howis the local cultural policy formulated? How is the locallibrary structured? What or which profiles has the publiclibraries in the three communities?I have made three qualitative case-studies in three differentcommunities. These three communities are somewhatlocated in the same area in order to identify any cooperationbetween them.

This thesis is the result of a questionnaire survey amongsmall businesses in the municipality of Övertorneå. Smallbusinesses need access to many different kinds of informationduring day-to-day operations. Since small businesses oftenlack resources like time, staff and money, the public librarycould provide small businesses with information.The aim of this thesis is to study information needs amongsmall businesses in Övertorneå. The study also aims to suggestwhat kind of service the library could provide accordingto the information needs and the most valued informationsources of the businesses..

The purpose of this thesis is to study to what extent the methodological theories are being reflected in the construction of user surveys at public libraries in Sweden. The study has been conducted as a qualitative literature study in two parts. The first part is an examination of literature concerning survey methodology; the second part is a study of three user surveys conducted at Swedish public libraries after 1995. Our main results indicate that the theories about methodology are followed in part, though it cannot be determined whether this is due to any actual methodological studies, common sense, or just copying other surveys. In our study we have found some areas of user survey construction that need further attention and that would benefit from more extensive methodology studies on the part of survey designers.

Outdoor advertising is not very often discussed within city planning even though the commercial messages occupy much of public space. The advertising signs affects not only the physical environment but also social life. In this report I would like to acknowledge and question the presence of advertising in our everyday environment. Outdoor advertising is not a new phenomena, technical progress however, results constantly in new expansions in the environment. Today advertising occurs in all sorts of shapes in the cities, both as free standing signs and as signs attached to facades, incorporated in city furniture such as bus shelters and on vehicles moving along the city streets. Grouping advertising into two categories; local and national, reveals that the different categories have different impact on public space.

The aim of this master's thesis is to study what attitude public libraries in Sweden show towards video games. By using critical discourse analysis as both theory and method we analyse several texts emerging from a debate mainly discussed in blogs. Main topics in the debate are video games in the library, the purpose of the public library and Library 2.0. Our analysis focus on views expressed concerning the work and purpose of the public library, the librarian and the library user - and to identify the main visible discourses in the discussion.Our findings consist of two discourses representing two different views in the debate. We call these two discourses the general educational discourse and the interactive discourse.

This essay explores how artwork in the public space can be analysed, conceptualized and described by bringing attention to site. Through an analysis of artworks in the yearly art exhibition of Fittja Open 2011, the essay draws attention to site-specific art and structures of power. The principal aim is to present not only the exhibition of Fittja Open 2011 but also other artwork in the public sphere in Fittja, a suburb to Stockholm. From this point of departure other interests evolve that concerns the "image" of Fittja. The analysis, based on research in art history, architecture, ethnology and philosophy as well as qualitative interviews, also focuses on understanding the role of site and the relations between art practice, institutions and site.The result shows that there are problems with a ruptured interface between the artwork and site.

The aim of this study is to examine how the adult students in the Adult Education Initiative called Kunskapslyftet, experience their use of the Main Public Library in Linköping and how the librarians experience the change in their working situation after Adult Education Initiative has started in July 1997. Methods used in the survey are interviews with librarians and students in the Adult Education Initiative. I have also distributed questionnaires to some of the adult students and studied literature that describe students use of libraries. The result shows that the students generally are satisfied with the service they get from the librarians at the Main Public Library. It also shows that what the students mostly asked for, are help to search information about a subject and to find literature in the library.

The breakdown of the ratification process of the EU constitution was in Sweden blamed on a lack of a debate concerning European issues. The constitution can be seen as the best and latest, but in no way the only, example of this problem. The breakdown can also been seen as proof of a larger legitimacy crises within the EU. The aim of the study is to determine whether or not there really was of lack of debate concerning the constitution in Sweden. This question is theoretic¬ally connected to EU legitimacy through Habermas idea of a public sphere.

In 1911 Valfrid Palmgren founded the Children's Library of Stockholm, the very first in Sweden.She was a well-educated woman, who believed in social and educational equality for all.During a journey to the USA in 1907, she was deeply impressed by the public libraries, andshe put many of the public library ideas to use in the Children's Library of Stockholm. Palmgrenstrongly opposed to the Swedish libraries not allowing admission to children, since shefirmly believed that educating the people had to start with the children.Other reasons for opening a children's library were to give children an alternative to roamingthe streets, to give children a quiet place to read, to give an alternative to the cheap trashliterature that flooded the market and to teach the young ones how to extract information frombooks. Of great importance was that the library should be equal to all classes in society.In 1927 the children's library was taken over by the new public library of Stockholm..