We believed that knowledge organisation of manga and manhwa with homosexual (including lesbian) themes might be a challenge for Swedish public libraries. One of the reasons for this is that these themes in manga and manhwa usually occur in genres not directed towards an LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer) audience. To see how Swedish public libraries treat such titles and why they treat them as they do, we examined a selection of public libraries, their collections, acquisitions, cataloguing and shelving of relevant titles. The theory used is mainly Grant Campbell?s binarisms, subject access to LGBTQ literature and critical analysis of knowledge organisation.

The purpose of this Masters thesis is to investigate the role of link collections in Swedish public libraries mediation of Internet resources. The study is focusing on the effects on the contents and the structure in the link collections when the target group is immigrant users. This is done through literature studies completed with an examination of two link collections containing multi-cultural and multi-lingual material and qualitative interviews with the two librarians who are in charge of the collections. The major questions raised in this study are: What function do the link collections have for the public libraries? What is the difference in working with traditional, printed material compared to the work with Internet resources? And how are the selection of Internet resources and the structure of the link collections affected when the collection is intended for immigrant users? The main results are that link collections in public libraries can give a concrete form to political guidelines.

The aim of this bachelor thesis is to investigate the lending of video games at the public libraries in Sweden. The thesis focused around a web survey, which was sent out to all public library directors, as its research material. The results were compared with those found in a master thesis by Olle Berg and Thomas Nyström from 2008. This was done to gain a better understanding of why the libraries provided video games. The other results of the survey were analyzed with a quantitative method.The results indicate that half of the responding libraries provide video games for borrowing.

The Swedish public library was founded in the years when the society in Sweden went from being a society of agriculture to industrialism. Modernism was sweeping over the country, everything was possible, which influenced the new society that was built. Now Sweden was going to be a true democracy with responsible and empathic citizens. One of the main tools in this process was to educate people, to get them to read and write and the public library fitted very well into these new ideas. It represented a place, free of charge, where everyone could go to take part of the knowledge and cultural learning that they needed in order to become the citizen that the society required.

The subject for this Master's thesis is the mission of the public library concerning target group everybody. Control documents, traditions, norms and trends influence how this is interpreted and how the library's service is being formed. The often very abstract terms used to describe the public library's mission makes it open for different interpretations. We are of the opinion that the public library's service should be formed to reflect the needs, interests, and priorities of the community it services, in order to be more attractive and useful.The aim of our study is to examine how the public librarians define and adjust to the mission to satisfy all citizens needs. Why do they choose to concentrate on certain target groups? And what does that show of how the public libraries reflect their communities? Our investigation includes examining six activities aimed at a certain target group and the six public libraries that carried these out.

The aim of this master?s thesis is to examine how managers in some public libraries are using performance measurements and to what extent decision making is based on the results. The main questions posed are:??What performance measurements and indicators are used in the libraries examined???What is the attitude towards performance measurements among library managers???How and to what extent are performance measurements and indicators used in the process of decision making???What improvement would library managers wish regarding the development of performance measurements in public libraries?The theory is based on a model of evaluation of the public sector in addition to general steps of evaluation of quality and performance measurement results. The investigation is based on qualitative interviews with seven managers of public libraries in Sweden.

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 purpose of this master thesis is to use marketing theory on the library?s activities. The marketing theory used is the 4Ps; product, price, promotion and place, as it's presented by Philip Kotler. Because the library can be seen as a service oriented organization Christian Gronroos theory of marketing in the service industry also has been used. A case study of the public library in Broby was made to illustrate how the public libraries? activities can appear in the light of marketing theory.

Our state of emergency is good - is the public library prepared for the future?Our state of emergency is good! These are the words spoken by Prime Minister Per Albin Hansson in 1939. He claimed that Sweden had nothing to fear from a future war, we were safe. Today we know it was not so. Is this the situation for Swedish public library of today? Is the public library ready to face the future, or is it only fancy words?We have to form the future, not let the future form us.

The purpose of this study is to examine if digital public libraries are serendipitous environments. Serendipity in this instance is defined as finding something unexpected and valuable, while searching for something else.A survey was conducted at two Swedish digital public libraries, where the patrons were asked to fill in a questionnaire online. The questions were based on the work on serendipitous digital environments by Lori McCay-Peet, as well as considerations of human factors that could possibly influence serendipity.The result indicate that a majority of patrons experience serendipity at the digital library, although it?s still more common to do so at the physical library or on other web sites. The result also confirms the importance of taking human factors into account when studying serendipity.

Local history collections are fairly common among the Swedish public libraries and these collections often contain older or rare material. There are no national policies concerning the preservation of rare books at the public libraries, and the librarians of public libraries may lack that knowledge. The aim of this study is to examine librarians? attitudes toward their libraries? local history collections. We interviewed five librarians in the county of Västra Götaland and also made a small observation study of their local history collections.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine which role public libraries play or could play within bibliotherapy. The study is based on qualitative interviews with five librarians who, in one way or another have experienced bibliotherapy activities. Further, we have interviewed two treatment assistants and one counsellor, who have cooperated with the librarians, to get their view. We have used the following research questions: Which bibliotherapeutic activities, if any, are pursued in public libraries in Sweden, and how do they look upon bibliotherapy? What role do public libraries play/could play within bibliotherapy? Ever since the term bibliotherapy was coined in the beginning of the twentieth century, the definition has been under debate. We have identified four main subjects of discussion.

Syftena med denna uppsats har varit flera. Dels att genomföra en undersökande genrediskussion av svensk chick-lit i stort där det som uppfattats som den huvudsakliga kritiken av genren omformulerats till frågeställningar. Huvudfrågan har därmed varit att ta reda på om svensk chick-lit är intressant, men också om den har några litterära kvaliteter och om den är en feministisk backlash. I uppsatsen arbetas även en definition av svensk chick-lit fram, samt empiriskt grundad teori ur materialet. Avsikten är att detta arbete ska kunna verka som förebild för andra utredningar av nya och marginaliserade genrer.

This thesis investigates all aspects of quality and evaluation issues concerning collections of Internet links in public libraries today and in the future. We have studied central theories concerning quality in general as well as quality aspects regarding the Internet and Internet links. In addition to this we have made three case-studies involving the development of collections of Internet links in public libraries of different sizes. The case-studies were made as interviews with professionals responsible for selection, quality assurance and evaluation of electronic information for inclusion in the libraries collections of Internet links. In addition to this we made an e-mail interview with a librarian responsible for one of the most advanced collections of Internet links among Swedish´ public libraries.

The purpose of this Master?s thesis is to describe and analyse the development of the public and the study circle libraries in the district of Kolbäck during the period of 1913-1954. The factors important for the library development described in sub-questions are: financing, locality, staffing, stock of books, book-lending level and uniting district effects. I use a hermeneutic interpretation model of interaction between the parts and the wholes, between reasons and results. This research leans mainly upon material which is sent to be deposited in archives in Hallstahammar, Västerås and Grängesberg.