"Outstanding" or "They ought to know more about computers" : A study on computer support at university libraries.The main purpose of this study is to investigate the support computer users are given at university libraries. Further, the aim is to find out if the users thought they received the support that they needed. The study is carried out at two different university libraries. The data is obtained through interviews with the librarians, observations of the daily work at the information counters and questionnaires handled out to the users.The study indicates that variables such as knowledge, time and equipment play a central role in making the computer support successive. To a great extent the computer support is synonymous with information search, but it also deals with word processing and technical support connected with computer errors.

Purpose: The purpose of the study reported in this thesis is to addto the knowledge concerning what public librarians do to meet theneeds of unaccompanied asylum-seeking minors, thereby helpingthem to develop and establish themselves in a new environment.What tasks, activities and tools do the librarians have at theirdisposal? What problems do they encounter? What values, normsand attitudes guide their work? Method: The thoughts andexperiences of six public librarians have been captured throughqualitative semi-structured interviews, the result of which has beenthematically analysed using notions of social capital and socialexclusion. Findings: Unaccompanied asylum-seeking minors facea number of challenges which the public library with its librarians,collections and various activities can assist in coping with byproviding the children with opportunities to increase their socialcapital and decrease the risk of social exclusion. Researchlimitations: It has for several reasons proven difficult to studyunaccompanied asylum-seeking children as a distinct group, whichis why this study also uses material that deals with refugees as awhole. A significant amount of the latter are undeniablyunaccompanied minors, an especially exposed and vulnerable typeof refugees.

The purpose of this master?s thesis is to describe and analyse the origin and development of the municipal library of Västervik. There have been four previous libraries and our examination starts in 1859 with the foundation of a parish library. The other forerunners were a working-class movement library and two libraries in the International Orders of Good Templars. Before the merger of the libraries there were discussions in the municipal council, among the working-class movement and in the IOGT.

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 purpose of this master's thesis is to examine how the public library communicates with young users through the library web sites. Four Swedish public library web pages for children are analysed. In the analysis the web pages are treated as a combination of semiotic resources that, communicating as a whole, hold a meaning potential. In order to identify the underlying meaning of the whole I have applied the tools of Kress' & van Leeuwen's visual social semiotics to the chosen web pages.The information value, the framing and the salience of each composition is examined and analysed, as is the size of frame, the perspective and the vertical angle of a selection of images from each web page. The results of the semiotic analysis are then discussed and related to Jochumsen et al:s four space-model and the notion of ?child perspective? and ?empowerment?.The results show that the child perspective is strongest on the web pages that represent the performative space as dominating and that empowerment is mainly represented as ?doing?, ?participating? and the ?free choice?.

The object of this master thesis is to question why the sheet music heldby libraries is not used more than it is. I have mainly studied the inc idenceof any cooperation between the music schools and libraries,whether there has been consultation on the purchase of sheet musicand whether the music schools borrowed sheet music from the libraries.For the thesis qualitative methods were used in the form of interviewswith ten leaders in music or cultural schools in Sweden. The mainstudy has been focused on the library and music school in Vänersborg.To compare my results and draw conclusions I have used the work ofSanna Taljas: Music, Culture and the Library: an analysis of Discourses.The result of the study showed that there is very little cooperation betweenthe library section for music and the music school. The greatestinterest for cooperation appears to come from the library personnel.Both the library and the music school personnel claim insufficient timeand money for their lack of cooperation..

Ever since its conceptual birth, the questioning of consequences due to the implementation of ideas from the reformation doctrine, called New Public Management, has been a common occurance among those who have dedicated themselves to research in superior methods of Public Administration. What this thesis aims to do is shed light upon what value-conflicts may occur within public administration organisations when they begin to idealize the rationalization of economic issues. The goal of this thesis will be fulfilled through the creation of two ideal types of public administration that exist in opposition to each other. These two ideal types will show two different views on how decision-making and organisation will be managed in their respective sectors. By doing this, there will be clarification as to what conflicting values arise with the implementation of ideas taken from New Public Management, as well as defining the fundamental difference between which ethical decision model is used..

The aim of this Master?s thesis is to explore the meaning of literature forliterate immigrants in regards to identity and integration. The study is based onqualitative interviews with eight Swedes of various backgrounds, but with thecommon experience of an immigration process. In addition to being migrants, therespondents are also public library users who have an interest in literature and whoread literature during their leisure time. To analyze the empirical material ananalytical framework, consisting of a number of analytical concepts from Libraryand Information Science, Literature Science, and Sociology, has been used.

This two years master?s thesis is about book circles for children, arranged by the Public libraries in Sweden. The purpose is to gain knowledge about how children experience their participation in book circles, and how they experience their own reading. It focuses on children aged 10 to 12 years, and their leisure reading. The research questions are: What are the book circles? function for the participants? How and why do the children read? What kind of literature do they like? Do the children experience that their reading has developed through their participation in the book circles? What parts of the reading process do the book circles influence?The theoretical framework is threefold.

The purpose of this essay is to investigate the construction of sexuality in Swedish school libraries through the lens of Foucault?s concept of power/knowledge. Five libraries were investigated, using two kinds of method: discourse analysis of titles, classification codes and subject headings of sex education materials, and qualitative interviews with librarians working at each of the libraries. Most sex education materials were classified within the medicine section, illustrating the continued authority of medical discourse in matters concerning sexuality. Books for younger audiences were often written for either boys or girls, reproducing a binary understanding of gender.

This study is an attempt to examine how hospital libraries should develop its activities towards their target groups in time of reductions. The method was a case study of the hospital libraries in Uddevalla and Trollhättan. An opinion poll was carried out among a selection of hospital staff, patients, medical researchers and students. In addition a patient group at some wards was observed. The libraries in the study produce an annual report, which presents a proposal for developments.

This master thesis deals with events, dynamics and problems of mediated information seeking within the context of a new information service called "Book a librarian". The study, based on a survey and interviews both in academic and Public libraries and participant observations in academic libraries, has its theoretical base in the cognitive theory of information retrieval interaction. The cognitive view is used to throw light upon the need of an ongoing dialogue during the session in order to detect the information needs of the user and to conduct a successful retrieval of information. The communicative interaction is seen as threepart interaction between the intermediary, the user and the information system, where the current cognitive states of all three participants are involved. The study shows that the cognitive obstacles for a successful mediation and information retrieval are mostly connected to participants current knowledge of the subject and of the retrieval techniques.

In this two years master's thesis a regional project, Futurum.kom, is studied through the experiences of eight librarians from two of the participating libraries. The interviewees have all attended local and regional seminars where questions about core values, target groups and the role of the public library were discussed, among others. The seminars resulted in a number of core values and target groups. During the project, a number of advertising campaigns are to be conducted. The first one of these had recently been implemented at the time of the present study. The aim of the thesis is to investigate the interviewees organizational self-perception in relation to the project.

The main question this bachelor thesis aims to answer is how the public service program Tg1?s news broadcasts may look. The following questions were used to discuss thetendencies of the result: How can the distribution of the news categories appear in Tg1?sbroadcasts? Can the main news be considered as impartial and objective in its linguisticand pictorial representation?To answer the aforementioned question I chose to do a combined study, using aquantitative content analysis and a qualitative content analysis.To lead my research, I focused on two requirements underlined by public servicebroadcasters, namely, objectivity and impartiality, and diversity. The outcome shows thatthe diversity in Tg1?s broadcast is disproportionate and that the pictorial representation isnot impartial and objective without the linguistic part.

This is a qualitative interview study of the importance of the non-verbal communication related to the reference situation at Public libraries. The experiences of both librarians and users of the reference service have been explored with regards to non-verbal communication. Eight interviews have been carried out. The results reveal that the users and librarians consider that it is important that the librarian find eye contact as well as give affirmation through nodding and smiling. To demonstrate interest and involvement in the questions through attentive listening is also of great value.