The purpose of this Master?s thesis is to examine the function of public libraries on the social web, focusing on reading promotion and reading stimulation. For an understanding of the larger context regarding public libraries on the social web, we conducted online interviews via email with people in the Swedish library profession, together with a content analysis of various texts on the subject found in library journals and on the Internet. Furthermore to identify the public library's practice on reading promotion and reading stimulation on the social web, we did interviews with librarians at a public library on their use of a blog for this purpose, together with a questionnaire handed out to the library's users on their use and conceptions of the blog.The conceptual framework of this study consists of four key aspects in the theoretical and empirical definition of Library 2.0 presented by Holmberg, Huvila and Widén-Wulff. The results showed that the public library can create a substantial value through its use of the social web, but it?s necessary to have a clear vision of the desired outcome.

This Masters thesis examines the position of films in Swedish public libraries. We have, by way of comparing various statistical data, determined that the status of film in public libraries is week. We have completed earlier research by mapping what genealogical, discursive patterns that could be outlined in the Swedish government reports from 1949 until today, focussing on the activity goals and media policy of the public library. We have, on the basis of Foucaults theories on genealogy and archaeology, where text documents are considered to be meta-descriptions giving each other authority, analyzed if there any discursive excluding or contextual formulations exist in the usage of the language concerning the goals and the media attitude of public libraries. We have mapped contextual discursive formulations that to the commissioners have become neutral starting points for their assumptions and conclusions.

This Master thesis aims to study the relation between Swedish governmental cultural policy and cultural events at two Swedish public libraries. The Masters thesis demonstrates how national cultural policy regulates every part of the public library. This demonstration is a result based upon national cultural policy documents and interviews with employees at two public libraries in Sweden. The conclusion that national cultural policy regulates this part of the public library is drawn with help of the circle of culture as applied in Culture Studies and Michel Foucault theories of power. The thesis contains the answer of four questions, two involving cultural policy and the other two events at the library.

This master?s thesis aims to study the practice of separating popular genres of fiction from the rest of the fiction stock, often seen at public libraries. The method being used is critical discourse analysis according to Norman Fairclough?s three-dimensional conception of discourse. The textual dimension of this analysis is the book shelf itself and the sociocultural practice is the everyday practice at a public library of supplying and mediating books to the visitors.

In 1994 a new Forestry Act was accepted in Sweden. One of the aims of the law is to raise consideration forpreservation of biodiversity. Since the new law got accepted and some time has passed, there now lie someinterest in examining whether the law has been effective towards its purpose. Methods suitable for analysishave been examined during this study. The content of this pilot study is based around five parameters whichcan be used to validate the effects of the new law.

The aim of this master thesis is to examine the attitudes among library staff regarding a music downloading service called Musikwebb, which is available in many Swedish public libraries. It focuses on the impact of Musikwebb on the process of music selection, the relationship between Musikwebb and the digital development in public libraries and what service Musikwebb offers its users. The gathering of material was executed through focus group interviews with library staff in four libraries. This empirical material we divided in three categories: Music selection, The Library and its digital services, and Library services. We use the results of Sanna Talja?s discourse analysis regarding the relationship between Music, Culture and the Library to analyze our material.

This study is an attempt to shed light on problems and possibilities of the school library of the Swedish comprehensive school concerning library law and goals of the school and the school library. Many investigations about the role of the school library of the comprehensive school have been carried through. They have all more or less come to the same conclusions. In spite of Swedish library law and goal documents of the school library, the school libraries are often neglected, if not will and commitment are to be found among teachers. Using a model of the school organisation by Gunnar Berg, three cases of school libraries are presented and analysed in a larger organisational and political perspective.

The aim of this work is to gain understanding of how predictions and images of future are created and maintained and how they are changed in society. An interdisciplinary approach to cultural and social aspects is used to examine how collective images about future are created. The distinction between collective images and private images is problematised. The subject matter is extracted from a previous explorative examination about Do It Yourself and OpenSource culture which are concepts of collective learning. That work is described in the foreword.The question ?How is a collective image about the future created?? is central for this paper.The interdisciplinary approach is a cross reference synthesis of philosophies, educational studies, film studies, strategicstudies and future studies.

The technical evolution has a great influence on the public libraries. Electronic media becomes more and more common. This Master´s thesis is based upon the Swedish Library law 9§ (SFS 1996:1596) which says: Public- and school libraries should pay special attention to children and teenagers by offering books, information technology and other media, adapted to their needs, to encourage development of language and stimulate reading. From this point of view we have examined why the children´s departments in public libraries offer CD-ROM games which are based upon characters from the literature, how they are used in the daily activity and how they can contribute to the development of the children´s department.We have made literary studies and empirical investigations including interviews, observation studies etc. The results from this studies shows that both young and adults appreciate the CD-ROM games.

This master's thesis is about alternative career opportunities for library and information science graduates. Ever since the beginning of our education we have been interested in working outside of the traditional libraries. Now that we are about to receive our degrees in library and information science we are doubtful if the competence we have obtained is enough to meet the demands of the labour market. The employment field we have been studying in this master's thesis is information management, since this is a field that we find comparable to library and information science. Our study involves a qualitative survey amongst recruiting companies to investigate how the recruiters value different educations, competences and personal skills when they employ staff within the field of information management.

The aim of this Master?s thesis is to examine three library weblogs to evaluate how they are used and what type of information the libraries publish in these specific weblogs.The following three questions are the basis of this study:? What is the content of the weblogs?? How is the weblog used as a tool by the libraries?? How is the interaction between the library and the readers of the weblogs presented regarding the comment function?The method that has been used in this study is content analysis and the code units have been created during the process. It is mainly a qualitative analysis but it does also contain quantitative elements. With the content analysis, 21 different themes where cut from the three weblogs. These themes where then put into the model of the local library profiles worked out by Marianne Andersson and Dorte Skot-Hansen.

This thesis deals with questions about competences and qualities that librarians inpublic libraries find that they need to be qualified suppliers of literature (books andmagazines).Our aim is to problematize the competence of the profession in relation to promotingliterature, knowledge in literature and reading habits. We want to know what librariansthemselves think about their own competences when it comes to supplying andpromoting literature. Does it have to be a leisure interest or do they get the possibility toread during working hours?What do librarians think it means to be a qualified promotor of literature and how dothey acquire the right competence? Do they believe that their competence correspondswith the occupational requirements? How much of their knowledge about literature andpromoting literature comes from personal interest and commitment?We primarily used the theories about competence by Per-Erik Ellström. One of thetheories is the one of implicit and explicit knowledge.

The aim of this master?s study is to examine the function of the public library in the local community at present. I have searched for the answers to the following questions: Which position has the public library in the local cultural policy? What characterizes each library and which are the priorities? What is the local profile of the public library? What cooperation partners does the public library have and what do they mean to the library? Does the public library intensify the local community in any way? To answer this, I have made three qualitative case studies. Interviews and collection of documents were carried out in three different communities.

The aim of this Masters thesis is to examine ideas used to legitimate Swedish digital libraries, with a focus on the cultural heritage, their relation to cultural policy and an eventual crisis within the latter. Which ideas are linked to digitalisation? How do the arguments for creating digital libraries differ between central actors? How do the digital libraries relate to cultural policy and an eventual legitimacy crisis? These are the questions this thesis seeks to answer. The theoretical starting-point consists of a legitimacy discussion and its connection to Swedish cultural policy. The method used is idea analysis.

The accounting scandals that have attracted attention in recent years have led to internal control becoming a more central part of business activity. Doubts about what firms actually do have increased, all caused by the attention of accounting scandals. To counter this, frameworks and laws evolved and gained a significant role in the organization and its surroundings. The aim of the present study is to find out how four companies in the Kristianstad region are working to ensure its internal control and how they work to minimize risk and reduce uncertainty. We have used a qualitative method and interviewed a person in a senior position in each company.