The aim of this thesis is to study the conditions three Public libraries have to be a resource for university students. The libraries are all situated at a distance from universities that allow the students to commute between the university and their homes. These students often make the same demands on the public library as they do on the university library. In order to conduct this study the frame factor theory has been used. This theory was developed by pedagogic scholars during the 1960s and focuses on how the framework surrounding the school affects the learning results.

The main purpose of this Master thesis is to illuminate the understanding of local politicians regarding the Public libraries and the librarians. We argue that the local politicians´ opinions regarding Public libraries and librarians influence the way they act and react in their roles as politicians.In order to achieve the aim of this thesis we focused on following questions:What are the opinions of the politicians:- regarding themselves in relation to the public library?- concerning Public libraries in general and its functions especially in the municipalities of their own?- concerning the librarians and their work in a public function?What are the conclusions to be drawn regarding the politicians´ interest and commitment to Public libraries in the politic daily-life of the municipalities? Our empiric material consists of qualitative interviews with six politicians elected in two municipalities in the interior of Västerbotten, a northern sparsely populated district. In order to distinguish the various opinions that emerge from the material, we apply a phenomenographic approach. The analysis result we present in three conceivable categories in order to express the different opinions.In general our study points at a positive and favourable attitude to the public library, and all the respondents assume that the municipality ought to offer this service.

The aim of this thesis was to examine how role players experiences libraries and if the libraries are or can be an arena for activities that involves role play. A public library exists for everyone, but could nevertheless be viewed as a female sphere where women both borrow more books and visit the libraries program activities to a larger extent, compared to men. I asked the question whether men?s reason for choosing a different venue for information and culture was related to the libraries not being able to satisfy their needs. The theory of the thesis was Dorte Skot-Hansen, Casper Rasmussen Hvenegaard and Henrik Jochumsens model that states that the libraries can have four different functions and act as a venue for meetings, knowledge, inspiration and experiences.

The purpose of this Master`s thesis is to examine if the pur-chase of media in Public libraries reflects the library's role in society. Two questions have been posed: ? What view of public library's role in society is reflected in the purchase of media? ? What principles guide the selection of media in public li-braries in Sweden? In order to investigate these questions, we used a question-naire that we sent out to a sample of 120 Public libraries in Sweden. The analysis is based on a theory of three ap-proaches to the role of the library developed by Douglas Raber. The three approaches are the conservative approach, the populist approach and the social approach.

The focus of the thesis is to examine the regional branding ofPublic libraries in Norrbotten, with the main focus on Piteå public library, in order to find trends that indicate a successful branding based on Hariff & Rowley?s (2011) identified key factors.The empirical data has been collected through a triangulation of interviews and documents. The findings show that they have done a proficient preparatory work prior to the regional branding of the Public libraries, and that the libraries have worked together with a communication bureau in their marketing strategies since the beginning of the public library cooperation. The results also show that Piteå public library, through branding efforts, received another relationship with the media where the media now occasionally contact the library.The conclusion of the thesis is that Piteå public library promoted the library through campaigns that provide the opportunity for activities and experiences, and that they want to convey the image of itself as a venue for social interaction. The marketing of the libraries fulfill the most of the criteria, but there are still areas of branding that needs to be further explored..

The topic of this bachelor thesis is the promotion of easy-to-read fiction for 10-12 year old children in Public libraries. The number of easy-to-read fiction books is increasing on the book market. This can be expected to affect the public library. The hypotheses for the study are: 1) Public libraries expose easy-to-read fiction and use it in their reading promotion activities and, 2) The acquisition of easy-to-read books and the use of easy-to-read books in reading promotion activities have increased over the last five years. A self-completion questionnaire was distributed to 44 Public libraries in Sweden.

The main purpose of this thesis is to investigate how the societysystem in Austria has influenced the library system. The aim is toanalyse in what way these influences have changed during thegrowth and development of the public library system and how it isdisplayed in each separate library branch. The focus of myinvestigation has been the municipality Public libraries in Vienna,and mainly the three libraries in the third district of the city. Themethod I have used is literature studies, examining and analysingsource material from the internal archive of the Public libraries inVienna. I have also used the qualitative interview method in orderto examine the situation in the selected libraries Rabengasse,Erdbergstraße and Fasangasse.As there is no common library law, there are significantdifferences in the library structure in different parts of Austria andeach municipality decides how they want to prioritize the libraries.Since the Public libraries of Vienna are well organized together inBüchereien Wien, the library structure in the separate librarybranches is coordinated.

The aim of this study is to look at censorship and attempted censorship of books about gay, lesbian, bisexual and transsexual (GLBT) people in Public libraries in the USA. People from the public can submit formal challenges to a book at the library when they find the material offensive which can lead to those books being taken away from the library shelves. The questions asked are why GLBT- literature is being challenged, and sometimes banned, and how do the libraries deal with the challenges to the books.It is nowadays the people from the public, rather than the government or the librarians that are behind many cases of removal of books with homosexual themes. The study presents some of the fictional GLBT- literature that has been cause for much controversy in the USA. All the five examples mentioned are children?s books concerning GLBT- themes and are among the most challenged books in American libraries in the past twenty years.

The aim of this thesis is to examine the term balanced collection in relation to Swedish laws and the democratic assignment. The Unesco Public Library Manifesto states that libraries are to formulate a policy defining objectives, priorities and services in relation to local community needs. The Swedish Libraries Act, paragraph 7, states that municipalities and counties shall adopt plans for library services. To fulfil our aim we will answer the following questions. By which terms is the democratic assignment visible in Swedish Public libraries collection development policies? Is the term balanced collection used in Swedish Public libraries collection development policies? If not, are there categories describing balanced collection? Do the terms in Swedish collection development policies differ to the six categories found by Farooq M.

The aim of this issue is to study how Swedish Public libraries deal with the principles of freedom of speech and freedom of information in connection with public use of the Internet. The authors intention has been to find out whether the public use of the Internet has caused ethical problems for library workers and how the libraries solve situations when they consider their principles violated by library users. The authors study the debate on the issue in a couple of Swedish library magazines published during the late 1990s and they also give a few examples from the USA during the same period. They study the ethical principles and directives for schools published by the Swedish Board of Education as they claim that many of the public library users are students who bring along their ethical conceptions and thereby affect the ethical climate of the libraries. In their study the authors refer to ethical rules given to librarians by their trade union DIK and to the conclusions drawn from the hearing Good Ethics on the Net held by the Swedish IT Commission in 1998.

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..

The point of departure for this thesis was an article written by Christer Hermansson (2008). He thinks that librarians, following the development of Library 2.0 and the change of Public libraries, have strayed away from what he believes should be the focus of the library: Literature. The aim of this thesis is to study how librarians in six Swedish libraries perceive their occupational roles. How does the increased user control, which is seen as part of Library 2.0, affect the tasks of libraries and librarians? The material used in this study was acquired using a qualitative interview technique in which six librarians working in Public libraries with experience of IT, mediation and purchase of literature partook.

The aim of this Master?s thesis is to examine how librarians in two Swedish Public libraries view the subject of face-front marketing and literary hierarchy. The questions posed in this thesis are: How do two Public libraries in Sweden market fictional literature? Which literature does get marketed? How do the librarians view fictional literature? How do the librarians view marketing? and Does Herbert Gans? literary scale work to examine the marketing of fictional literature in two Swedish Public libraries? The theoretical starting-points are Niels Ole Pors? thoughts on stock development, Philip Kotler?s thoughts on the responsible non-profit organisation and Herbert Gans? thoughts on taste-publics and taste-cultures. The empirical material was gathered through qualitative interviews with library staff in two Public libraries in the south of Sweden, and by reading a sample of the fictional literature exposed in these libraries.

In our thesis we investigate how Public libraries are working with external marketing via social media. The study aims to found out what the reasons are and how Public libraries are using social media to market themselves. Furthermore, how they evaluate the success of these marketing efforts. We limit ourselves to Public libraries and its staff. The theory that we have chosen to use to analyze our data is the marketing mix of the 4 P'S (product, place, price and promotion), but we have replaced the ?price? with ?staff? because ?staff? is more relevant for library management.

This bachelor thesis examines the library as a public sphere in the notion of Jürgen Habermas? theory from 1962. The questions asked concerns how the public sphere is discussed in relation to Swedish Public libraries today in our late modern society. The analyzed material consists of the Swedish Cultural Bill of 2009 and five qualitative interviews with librarians. The material is analyzed with two of the four social actions presented by the sociologist Maw Weber: value-rational and instrumental.