A growing need to strengthen ones position on the market, even as a city in competition with other cities, has resulted in an increasing number of municipalities developing brand platforms. When the city of Umeå developed their platform, they identified decision makers and investors as one of four important target groups.The aim of this study is to explore the portrayed image of the city of Umeå in two Swedish trade journals which addresses the specific target group decition makers and investors in both public and private sector. The aim is also to compare the image of Umeå in the two papers, to the ambition of the municipality, expressed in the brand platform.In order to make the observations as firmly established as possible, the method of the study is a combination of a quantitative content analysis and a qualitative text analysis. The study draws on the theories of Eli Avraham and Philip Kotler, concerning how to improve city images and how to market a specific city among others. The study shows that the city of Umeå in large extent is portrayed in accordance to the ambition which the municipality expressed in the brand platform.Umeå is displayed as an expanding city.

 AbstractAttractiveness may be defined by a variety of factors but you should see it in the public planning as it is to have a positive population growth and economic growth, through working with communications, service, housing, to name a few. This is done primarily through direct projects both within the municipality and through various partnerships between local and regional level. The progress we have seen in recent years has gone more towards a clear shell level, particularly a regional level where these have had a much greater freedom with clear geographical boundaries in between each other. Within these regions there are also clear regional groupings that have common interests and competing between each other. In my thesis, we have been distinguished including three levels of scale levels.

Participation, public art and participatory public art as phenomenons and subjects have been studied and discussed. With interviews and observations as a base, we have studied projects and discussed participation, effect and quality in relation to these. Furthermore we have looked at how the participatory art processes work in Sweden and England. This essay seeks to discuss the process of participatory public art and to emphasize the elements contributing to the quality of this process. It is up to us as planners to recognize the possibilities for a qualitative place. To mediate between different interests, for example between politicians and stakeholders, between economics and quality, between the place and its users, between individuals and the community, and in our case between artists, users and the municipality. Public art has gone from being about the product, an art piece, to becoming more of a process, from non interactive to interactive. Participation ranges from receiving information to play an active part in the process. Four cases have been studied, taken both from Sweden and England, showing the diversity of processes connected to Participatory Public Art. From interviews conducted in Sweden and England information and thoughts have been received and they show a higher degree of use of participatory public art in England, and also a higher consciousness.

A general topic underlying this master thesis is how the public library is being transformed through the subversion and re-articualtion of meaning according to different discourses. The aim of the study can be divided in to levels of analysis. At the first level, the aim is to investigate how categories such as users, needs and vision are articulated in a specific case ?the visionary project Garaget in Malmö, a project which in part include a public library inspired by Idea Store. The next level of analysis sets out to explore how the case of Garaget is related to a totalizing discursive struggle over meaning within the element the public library.

In 1995, the World Trade Organization WTO was established. Today WTO has nearly 150 member countries, accounting for over 97 percent of the world trade. WTO has a number of agreements and one of them is the General Agreement on Trade in Services GATS. GATS control the service sector, and the public library is a small part of this sector. The purpose of this study is to examine the Swedish debate about GATSs possibility to affect the public library.

The purpose of this study was to examine how small-scale private forest ownersmake decisions regarding pre-commercial thinning. In 2015 it is ten years agosince the storm Gudrun hit the southern parts of Sweden and now large areas arein need of pre-commercial thinning. This study is built upon qualitativeinterviews with seven small-scale private forest owners with forest properties inthe county Kronoberg. The respondents were chosen by the modelSKOGSÄGARPROFILENTM (forest owner profile).The results of the interviews showed that five categories: ownership, the stormGudrun´s impact, silviculture, forestry contacts and driving force was important.How will their purpose and aim affect the pre-commercial thinning? Personalinterests, and expectations of the next generation to take over, are purposes thisstudy has found.

The project is a practical and theoretical test of IP telephony with Skype in order to form a base for a comparison between IP-Telephony with Skype and the Public Switched Telephony Network (PSTN). PSTN is the common standard that most of us use for telephony today. The objective for the study is to simplify the choice between PSTN and IP-Telephony for the Swedish private customer user group. The project is supposed to answer the following questions. - How easy is it to start using IP-telephony with Skype? - How is the quality of IP-telephony compared to PSTN? - Are all services provided by PSTN available and accessible using the IP-solution? - How are the usability and the availability of support with IP telephony? - Is IP-telephony a cheaper solution and in that case under which circumstances? Within the project a collection of practical and theoretical tests have been performed to be able to form an opinion on the IP-solution in the following areas, installation, function, quality, usability, costs, accessibility and security. In order to study usability, a test group of ten persons have been used to evaluate the usability of the system.

This Masters thesis concerns computer games in Swedish public libraries. We have investigated the opinions of public librarians concerning what they think about computer games, and to what extent they believe it should be a part of the public library. The method we have chosen is qualitative interviews. The theory we have used is a pedagogical literature strategy, which we have reformulated so that it fits our investigation. The results show that the interviewed public librarians think that the library should offer computer games for children and youths to use at the library, and that they should offer computer games for lending, to all the library users.

Title: Development and continuity: A new institutional case study of a Danish public library in changeAbstract: The purpose of this master's thesis is to discuss and analyse the relationship between the traditional core values belonging to the institution of the public library, and the development work that takes place at the institution. The thesis also investigates the relationships that influence the development work.By investigating a library that is considered progressive in its development work, our purpose is also to unveil alternative values that compete with the traditional core values. By illustrating the perception among seven staff members and the director at Aarhus Public Libraries, we want to illuminate the terms for development among public libraries. In addition to our interviews, an activity plan is studied.We base our study on new institutional theory which focuses on norms and values in an organisation. This focus helps us to understand the development work from a comprehensive view.Our study shows that the development work at Aarhus Public Libraries is taking place in a complex environment that consists of several different actors and different interpretationsof the traditional core values of public libraries.

Camera surveillance can provide good protection against certain types of crime, but it can also invade our privacy. The County Administrative Board monitors compliance with the rules by visiting those places to which the general public has access. They have to issue permits before general camera surveillance to those places which the general public has access. In certain cases, in stores for example, general camera surveillance is permitted only if the Country Administrative Board is notified in advance. The Data Inspection Board is a public authority and responsible for the camera surveillance for those places to which the public not has access.

The aim of this bachelor thesis is to examine what expectations young adults have of the public library andthereby determine the relevance of the library guidelines, Påbarns och ungdomars villkor (2003), for young adults. The empirical data is gathered through focus group interviews consisting of 18 participants between the ages of 16 and 17. The conceptual framework for this study is based on Lee´s motivation model for customers in the public library (2007). The model focuses on three conditions for motivation: expectation, instrumentality and valence.The results reveal that young adults in this study have low expectations of the public library. They express little need for public library services because they see the possibility of finding the same things that the library offers through other alternatives, such as the Internet.

The purpose of this thesis is, from a self directed learning perspective, to investigate the support of public libraries and genealogy associations of genealogists' own research, i.e. their search for ancestors as well as their possibilities to broaden their history outlook. Accordingly, five public librarians and five genealogy representatives in the west of Sweden have been interviewed regarding the support that can be offered to genealogists. The investigated support to genealogists in their own research is about working environment, literature and material, activities and the cooperation between public libraries and genealogy associations. In this thesis conclusions are merely drawn from a self-directed learning perspective, a perspective where also different forms of support are being recommended by scientists.

The purpose of this Master thesis is to investigate issues concerning the role of the public librarian and their work with adult learners. This is done by examining Studiebibliotek Halland, a project initiated and financed by Kulturrådet, with the aim of improving for adult learners to use the public libraries in Halland. The major questions raised in this study are: How do the librarians interviewed experience their role as public librarian since the number of adult learners at the public library has increased? In what way do the librarians think they have to change their work in order to meet the demands of the adult learners? How do they feel about the change? Do they think their work will change more as a result of the project? Data was collected through interviews and the study is a qualitative study. The main results are that the librarians have a very positive attitude towards adult learners using the public library.

Uppsatsen är en studie av hur förvaltningsideal påverkar vid rekrytering av chefer till den offentliga förvaltningen och hur förvaltningsidealet är under förändring. Den ger också en kort genomgång av de två vanligaste förvaltningsidealen, Weber och New Public Management, men presenterar även ett tredje alternativ kallat New Public Service.Genom att studera vilka typer av chefer som kommuner önskar rekrytera har vi härigenom observerat vilket förvaltningsideal som styr vid rekryteringsprocessen och om detta ideal är under förändring.Vår metod är huvudsakligen baserad på kvalitativa intervjuer med personalchefer i den kommunala förvaltningen.I uppsatsen stärks vår hypotes om att den kommunala förvaltningen rör sig ifrån ett New Public Management inriktat ideal, som under 1980-talet och 1990-talet haft stor inverkan på kommuner, och att förvaltningen inte strävar mot ett weberianskt ideal utan istället söker sig mot ett mera individ- och medborgarcentrerat ideal som kan liknas vid New Public Service..

The process of European Integration and creation of the single market revealed many questions and boundaries on the development and improvement of the European Social Policy. Pension?s sustainability has become the priority issue especially during the EU enlargement processes. Different policy instruments and institutions available to governments of Member States in realization of social objectives resulted in a growing diversity of pension polices which produced different combinations of public and private provisions - ?private-public hybrids? , with the state exercising different degrees of influence in their development.