Libraries exist around us and for most of us they are a part of our every day life. But how often do we stop and think about their meaning?Libraries in fiction are usually not the center of the narrative, they play a role quietly in the background and offer a backcloth to the story. Yet they are a vital part of the story. Without them a big part of the magic in the stories would be lost.And what is their role in our lives? What do the libraries mean to the books they harbor, the readers who seek them out and society in which they have their axiomatic role?This essay?s focus is my story ?Between the shelves?, which is about the young girl Julia and the mysterious passageway she discovers in her local library.

While almost 23 percent of the students in the Swedish upper secondary school are foreigners, only a fraction of the school libraries? collections consists of literature written in other languages than Swedish or English. This study examines how five school librarians experience the task of working with literature composed in foreign languages in the multicultural and multilingual school of today. The results of the qualitative interviews are analyzed in relation to the legislation and policy documents that the school libraries are working by, and also in relation to the theoretical framework of sociocultural theory and the theories on second language acquisition developed by linguist Jim Cummins.The study shows that while multilingualism is discussed as an important matter in the legislation and policy documents that the school libraries work by, the librarians in this study largely view the question of foreign literature as peripheral. Most part of the librarians connects first language reading to leisure-time activities rather than curricular activities, and stresses that the Swedish language should be prioritized in Swedish schools.

Less diversity and more homogenization in the media`s news range is the subject for our bachelor thesis. By analyzing and comparing three separate weeks in two of Sweden's largest evening newspapers Aftonbladet and Expressen we wanted to discoverhow the diversity between the two newspapers had changed over the years, more precisely from 1993 until now. Had there been a homogenization or not? We wanted to study this because it is a long going debate about the news stories becoming more and more the same. An important debate because less diversity in news events and news presentation may lead to less diversity in public opinions and knowledge.

The purpose of our essay is to investigate and compare the general and operational risk management in the private and public sector. As an introduction to the subject we describe the differences and similarities between the two sectors. Our survey is based on the term risk, the definitions of risk management, its development and finally the process of risk management. Since our survey is focusing on operational risks we also describe the operational process and the specific operational risks.The method we used to investigate the subject is a quantitative method. A survey was sent to 100 companies in Sweden, of which 50 were private companies and 50 were public companies.

This master?s thesis aims at examining and structuring different viewpoints concerning the assignments of the Swedish public library system. The method used is ideology analysis.The main questions are: what are the overriding goals connected to each of the different assignments? How are these goals motivated? By which means are the goals to be reached? And how does our analysis relate to earlier research on the assignments of the Swedish public library? The thesis can be said to consist of three main parts. Part one is a theoretical framework introducing the concept ?ideology analysis? and the concept ?schools of thought?.

The main issue of this master is to investigate what influence the phenomenon of postmodernity has on the Swedish public library. Is it possible to talk about the Swedish public library as postmodern, and if so, is it expressed by a postmodern discourse? The concept of postmodernity is defined as an open and inclusive value system where all kind of opinions and preferences take place. According to a postmodern point of view there is no such thing as an objective or general truth. A postmodern ideology does not talk about reality but about realities.

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.

The aim of this master´s thesis is to analyse what factors have an impact on the quality of school libraries. The research questions are: How do some school principals, school librarians and school inspectors view quality in school libraries and what has an impact on quality?How do they view some existing quality criteria?How important do they think the integration of the school library into the curriculum is?The theoretical approach is derived from research about school libraries by David Loertscher and by Sharon Markless and David Streatfield. The empirical material has been collected through half structured qualitative interviews. The informants chosen are principals and school librarians from three Swedish primary schools (6-15 years).

The purpose of this master thesis is to examine different factors that may influence the librarian in the selection of popular music. The study is conducted through a qualitative method, influenced by grounded theory. The results are based on patterns drawn from both interviews with six libraries and from literature. The literature review concerns foremost cultural politics, music aesthetics, the sphere of popular music in Sweden today and the impact of commercialism. Also the purposes of popular music in a library, aspects of values of popular music and assortment policies are being discussed.

This Master thesis aims to study the relation between Swedish governmental cultural policy and cultural events at two Swedish public libraries. The Masters thesis demonstrates how national cultural policy regulates every part of the public library. This demonstration is a result based upon national cultural policy documents and interviews with employees at two public libraries in Sweden. The conclusion that national cultural policy regulates this part of the public library is drawn with help of the circle of culture as applied in Culture Studies and Michel Foucault theories of power. The thesis contains the answer of four questions, two involving cultural policy and the other two events at the library.

The first aim of this study is to examine what the differences are between the Classic directive (directive 2004/18/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 31 March 2004 on the coordination of procedures for the award of public works contracts, public supply contracts and public service contracts) and the Revised Classic directive (directive 2014/24/EU of the European Parliament and of the council of 26 February 2014 on public procurement and repealing Directive 2004/18/EC) when it comes to social considerations in public procurement. The second aim is to examine if the revision of the directive has solved the prior existing problems regarding social considerations in public procurement. In this paper a traditional European legal method is used. The examinations show a number of things, including the Revised Classic directive involving codification of case law, references to other sources of law and some clarified rules as well as new provisions. The regulations regarding reserved contracts, technical specifications, and selection criterion are satisfied in the Revised Classic directive.

This Master?s thesis is about the public library development in a rural district, in this case Bergunda, a large rural district in Kronoberg?s County in Småland in Sweden, existing 1952 ? 1970. The main question is; how the public library develops in Bergunda large rural district 1951-1970. The main question is divided up in sub-questions: the district uniting in 1952 and 1971; personnel; lending; library housing and the public library structure. In 1952, there is one public library, Bergunda public library, and four study circle libraries.

AbstractAttitudes towards the reference situation and the meetings between library users and librarians have become the subject of much debate in the library setting today. The aim of this two years master´s thesis has been to examine six librarian?s attitudes and apprehensions concerning the interactions between the librarian and the users in the library setting. We were also interested in knowing how a library can work to become more service oriented and customer centred. We conducted six interviews with librarians located at three different libraries in Sweden.

The purpose of this bachelor's thesis is to see how public libraries have adopted the new e-book readers and how the libraries think the e-readers will affect them in the future. There are three different theories in this study which are used to see how the e-book reader influences the libraries as an innovation and as a remediation from the paper book as well as its evolution. The authors have used four qualitative interviews where they have tried to find the most relevant librarians for the purpose. It was found that all the libraries in the study think that they need to learn about the e-reader and its functions to be able to understand users? needs, but they haven´t agreed if they should have the e-reader as a library loan.

This Master's thesis discusses the freedom of speech, the right to freedom of opinion and expression, freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas in the context of public libraries in Sweden. The scope of this thesis is to examine the acquisition and maintenance of the literature about the killing of Sweden's Prime Minister Olof Palme 1986. This literature will serve as an instrument to measure the extent to which Swedish public libraries adhere to the rules set by the Swedish parliament, United Nations' universal declaration of human rights article 19, UNESCO's public library manifesto and the principles of the Federation of Library Associations and Institutions..