In this Masters thesis the image of the public library in the local press and in the eyes of the public is examined. The questions posed to examine this are: - What activities of the public library are described in the local press? - What activities does the public associate with the public library? - What functions and roles of the public library can be found in the articles and interviews and how are they expressed? - What opinions of the public library and hereto related activities can be found in the articles and interviews? This study is based on an analysis of 127 articles, published in Borås Tidning during a period of six months, and of interviews with 35 people from Sjuhäradsbygden. To analyse the articles and the interviews Marianne Andersson and Dorte Skot-Hansen´s model of roles for the library has been used. The model includes four roles for the library: the library as a cultural centre, a knowledge centre, an information centre and a social centre.

The aim of this bachelor thesis is to study how libraries handle metadata in institutional repositories. The methodology of the study is semi-structured interviews with librarians from all Swedish libraries that currently use the institutional repository system DSpace. Metadata schemes from the different libraries have also been studied. As analytical tools the study uses the user tasks presented in Functional Requirement for Bibliographic Records, as well as a study of metadata quality made by Jung-Ran Park. The study shows a rather big difference between the ways the libraries use institutional repositories.

The main purpose of this thesis is to investigate how books are weeded in some Swedish public libraries today. It tries to shed light on some of the problems and obstacles that may arise, and on the criteria used by staff for weeding. I also hope to build a model for weeding, based on the results of my investigation. The method I have chosen for my work is qualitative interviews. The results of my thesis indicate that weeding is not the top priority of the staff at the investigated libraries.

Sweden is today often defined as a multicultural society. The implications on organizing and providing information in public libraries are many, since the systems presently used in the western hemisphere are not adapted to multi-cultural information. This thesis aims to outline ethical and practical problems that arise when organising and providing information concerning cultures other than western, and not least, when dealing with material in other scripts. With this theoretical framework the thesis examines the website of the International Library in Stockholm, a website built to serve users of different languages and scripts than Swedish. The research questions in this thesis are: 1, what specific problems can be distinguished within library work in a multicultural and multilingual environment? 2, what problems and needs were considered in the creation and design of the International Library?s website? And 3, can examples of problems and possible solutions of these be seen in the information and it?s organisation on the International Library?s website? The empiric material consists of the International Library?s website, and interviews with three informants involved in developing it.

The purpose of this bachelor thesis is to examine how public libraries use socialmedia for marketing purposes, and what librarians think about this. My focus of this thesislies on what librarians think about marketing of libraries through social media and if theythink that marketing through social media can create a better relationship between the libraryand its users. The questions I wanted to answer were:? Libraries using social media, for what purpose do they use them? ? Do the libraries choose to use social media to market their organization? Why? ? What attitudes exist among librarians about marketing through social media?The theoretical framework for this thesis is Evert Gummessons model off Relationshipmarketing and the process of Internet marketing, which both are based on relationalperspective. The methodology used for this study was structured interviews.

The purpose of this Master thesis is to examine whether there is a connection between distance to the schoollibrary and the extent to which teachers are using it as an integral part of their teaching. The study aims to answerif the physical distance to the school library is affecting teachers' ways of working with the library, if it affects thecollaboration between teachers and librarians and finally if teachers that are using a school library outside theschool premises are doing so less as an integral part of their teaching compared to teachers that have access to aschool library within the schools premises.The study is based on qualitative interviews with six teachers in the intermediate stage of the nine-yearcompulsory school, of which three have access to a school library within the school premises and three haveaccess to a school library outside the school premises. The two groups of teachers are compared in order to findout if there is a connection between distance to the school library and the usage of it. Loertscher's school librarymedia program and teacher taxonomy have been used as a theoretical framework.The study shows that the teachers who use a school library within the school premises have a bettercollaboration with the librarians than the ones who use a school library outside the school premises. The studyalso show that theese libraries are an integral part of the teaching to a higher degree.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how a public library, as an information center and a meeting place, may contribute to bring Swedes and immigrants closer to one another, which is a prerequisite for integration. To realize this purpose, I have asked three questions. Which conditions and demands are stated in central documents for libraries immigrant activities? What do the library called Biblioteket Västers multicultural activities contain? How does the library conceive its object to strengthen immigrants identity so that its activities, contribute to integration? As method, I have used hermeneutics, which means that I have interpreted the thesis material. In the theory I have described relevant literature and confirmed the importance of identity, language and the majoritys acknowledgement for integration.

This dissertation discusses head librarians in Swedish public libraries and the stress factors which affect them. The aim is to map out potential stress factors which head librarians come across in their day-to-day work. The purpose of the dissertation is to answer the following question: what stress factors affect library managers in Swedish public libraries? The dissertation was conducted through a literature study, informal interviews and a quantitative questionnaire. The results of the quantitative questionnaires show that the factor that produces the highest level of stress is having too many different tasks.

The aim of this master thesis is to investigate the ideas about functions that public libraries have in the local society. We have used the method idea analysis on four municipal library plans, to find out which ideas about library functions that frequented each plan, and what similarities and differences there were between the ideas about functions in each plan. As a theoretic base, we have used a theory about three dynamic spheres in modern society: the state market and civil society, and examined how these three spheres influence and control the library functions. We have extracted six different ideas about library functions: educational, social, economical, entertaining, serving and democratic functions. The most dominating ideas in this study are ideas that the public library should be an educating and formative institution.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the view on the personal encounter between staff and visitors in public libraries in order to detect possible differences between the two groups in order to see if the personal encounter as such could be used in order to market libraries. We believe that social competence must interact with the initial personal encounter in order for the visitor to experience the visit as positive. We have based the theoretical framework on Erving Goffman?s theory on social interaction, as well as on Christian Grönroos? theory on quality of service and marketing. We use the following questions: How do library staff view the personal encounter? How do library visitors view the personal encounter? How does the library staff?s treatment affect the visitor?s view of the library?Are there any differences in view between visitors and staff concerning the personal encounter? If so, what kind of differences are they? Using qualitative interviews, we have interviewed nine visitors and six staff members at two public libraries.

Web Services är en av de mest populära utvecklingstrenderna som finns idag. Inom litteraturen tas en mycket positiv bild fram av Web Services som är en relativt ny teknik och är därmed inte helt färdigutvecklad. Enligt Deitel et al. (2003) kan det därför vara svårt för företag att utnyttja tekniken för att kunna uppnå alla fördelar som teoretiskt sägs finnas med interna och externa Web Services.Syftet med undersökningen är att undersöka i vilken omfattning som Web Services finns idag på svenska företag när det gäller interna och externa Web Services, och hur företagen anser att tekniken fungerar med avseende på fördelar, jämfört med vad som sägs inom litteraturen.För att besvara problemställningen har litteraturstudier och intervjuer genomförts. Resultatet visade att svenska företag har mestadels interna Web Services men att omfattningen även innefattar externa Web Services, vilka för tillfället växer.

In Sweden, many children in compulsory school attend after-school recreation centres. All children are offered local after-school recreation centre attendance in the age 6-12 during their parents? work hours. Our aim with this Master thesis is to investigate how after-school recreation centres can use libraries to stimulate children?s own interest to read.

The focus of this thesis is the library at the Swedish school in Berlin, Germany. Being a school in a foreign country, and playing a role also as a public library, the conditions for the library are somewhat unusual. Considering those conditions, how should the library be organised and developed to meet the users' needs in the best way possible? To put the library in Berlin into a greater perspective, the first chapters of the thesis are dedicated to the issue of school libraries in Sweden; their historical development, their importance in the school curriculum and their present situation. Swedish research in the field of school libraries is presented and includes descriptions of theoretical analysing models.

Har ni någon bra kärleksroman? : en studie av indexering av skönlitteratur vid stadsbiblioteken i Malmö och Mölndal. Have you got a good love story? : a study of fiction indexing at the public libraries of Malmö and Mölndal.The thesis analyses interviews with users of two Swedish public libraries to find aspectsof fiction important to users and consequently to be considered when indexing fiction.Descriptions of a novel by 50 users at each library are compared to the index terms usedfor these novels. For the analysis, the authors propose a model of their own based onAnnelise Mark Pejtesen's AMP system for fiction indexing.

The purpose of this study is to investigate librarian?s opinions concerning literature with state supported distribution and how to mediate and market these in the library. The types of mediation and marketing that have been studied are positioning, labeling and oral mediation.The study is qualitative with interviews at seven main public libraries in central Sweden. The respondents of the study were responsible for the literature with state supported distribution within the library.The study is based on a theoretical frame of reference containing theories from Jofrid Karner Smidt, regarding librarian?s mediation in libraries, and François Colbert?s theory on marketing planning for arts and culture.The results of our study showed that librarians have both positive and negative opinions when it comes to the literature with state supported distribution.