The purpose of this thesis is to research public librarians view ofthe public library as a meeting place and how it may contribute tofacilitate social integration. To study this we have asked thefollowing research questions: How do public librarians work withthe public library as a meeting place? And how do they contributeconditions for ?soft inclusion??The method we have used for this study is semi-structuredinterviews. Seven public librarians from the Gothenburg areawere interviewed and the empirical material was analyzed usingqualitative content analysis.As a theoretical foundation we have used Dorte Skot-Hansensmodel of the public library as a third place and Mikael Stigendalstheory on social inclusion. Furthermore have we used research onthe public library as a meeting place and social integration as acomplement to the model and the theory.Conclusions from the material gathered is that public librarianssee the public library as a meeting place with potential tocontribute to integrating individuals and groups with one another.The librarians? foremost method was to attract visitors withactivities aimed at certain target groups.

In this master thesis I investigate different views on literary quality in two quite different library journals; Biblioteksbladet and Bibliotek i Samhälle. One aim of the study is to see whether the ambiguity of the term literary quality is considered. Since there is no universally accepted definition of literary quality to be found the analysis is inspired by discourse analysis. This theoretical frame work starts off in the assumption that our views of the world are much dependent the way we describe it. The work of Finnish scholar Sanna Talja is presented and the results of this thesis are compared with the three perspectives on music culture that are presented in her book.

The aim of our study is to gain understanding of how parentsperceive their own, the preschool's, and the library's efforts to stimulate preschoolers' enjoyment and yearning to read, as well as what types of collaborative efforts the parents seek.The study is based upon qualitative interviews with parents, both mothers and fathers, to preschool children (aged 1.5 to 6 years old). The analysis does not offer any generalizations. We have chosen to use a sociocultural perspective as the theoretical starting-point of our study, our thoughts being that we learn together with and by the help of others. We consider this perspective to be closely related to Aidan Chambers's "The Reading Circle", which we have chosen to use as our tool of analysis.It turned out that the parents perceived their own reading stimulating role as crucial, even if they did not consider all they did as reading stimulative. Some things, such as discussing the book while reading, occurred naturally but is also an important part to stimulate reading.

This Master Thesis aims to study and discuss the occurence of three concepts in some influential cultural policy documents which includes the UNESCO public library manifesto, the Swedish libraries act, the Swedish cultural policy objectives, and a study from the mid nineties which deals with the cultural policy. The questions asked are: -Do the documents mention democracy? In what way? -Do the documents mention the public sphere? In what way? -Do the documents mention information? In what way? -How can we understand the content of the documents through relevant theories about democracy, the public sphere and information? Theories about the information society are used, as well as theories from Jürgen Habermas, Herbert Schiller and Robert Dahl. The way of method is document studies and abduktion, with influences from hermeneutic theory. The analysis deals with the documents through these concepts: democracy, the public sphere and information and puts forward the content, or lack of content, about democracy in the analysed material.

In this work a new design for S:t Erik?s square in Uppsala is being proposed. The square is situated in the middle of the city, surrounded by historical buildings. Today the square is a parking lot. The aim of the design proposal is to promote life and activity of pedestrians and cyclists.

Recent years there has been discussed how the critical situation in the housing market threatens the Stockholm region's growth. The thesis objective is to examine whether there is a scientific link between the lack of housing supply and growth. The thesis also intends to identify solutions for increased housing construction, for instance by examining the conditions for a greater regional perspective and influence on the region's housing supply. The thesis empirical study is based on semi-structured interviews with representatives from the Government, municipalities and the housing industry.In Sweden, research on the relationship between housing shortages and growth has not been conducted to that extent it can be said to exist scientific evidence regarding the growth threat. However, in Britain and the U.S, empirical studies show that a lack of housing supply has hindered growth through negative impact on countries' gross domestic product.

This master's thesis studies Utländska biblioteket, a 19th century foreign literature subscription library in Karlskrona, Sweden. The aim of the thesis is to investigate Utländska biblioteket between 1835?1864.The material consists primarily of primary sources from the archive of Utländska biblioteket. The main primary sources are the library's accounts book, its minutes, and two book catalogs. Using analytical tools from Jürgen Habermas, feminist criticism of his ideas and from Pierre Bourdieu, as well as results from previous research on older library forms and female organization in the 19th century, the thesis answers questions relating to the library as a society, its members and its book collection.The investigation shows that Utländska biblioteket was a subscription library as well as a book circle.

Since the brain is an important prerequisite for human language there is a great interest to gain more knowledge about healthy brain activity during language mediated communication. This study examines variations in high level language ability relating to demographic factors like gender and age and relates language ability to neural activity.Eighteen individuals in ages between 22 and 64 were included and divided into groups in relation to gender and age. The material used to assess language ability was derived from Testbatteri för Bedömning av Subtila Språkstörningar (Laakso, Brunnegård, Hartelius & Ahlsén, 2000), Swedish Lexical Decision Test (Almkvist, Adveen, Henning & Tallberg, 2007) and a reading test (Högskoleprovet). The results were correlated with measured brain activity using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) and language paradigms. ANOVA was applied to discover possible demographic variances in language ability as well as in brain activity.The results showed no significant differences in language ability.

The aim of this Masters thesis is to identify discourses within the school library field and to analyse which professional identities the discourses result in for school librarians. The empirical data consist of 71 articles from Swedish journals concerning school libraries and school librarians, between the years 2000-2003. The theory and method used is a discourse analysis which is inspired by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe. This form of discourse analysis was chosen since it was useful when identity was the focus of study. The analysis is accomplished in three steps.

This masters thesis investigates how the Swedish county libraries relate to equality between men and women. The thesis treats the county library both as a place of work and as a part of the national library network. One of the reasons why this study focuses on county libraries is because of their special position in the Swedish library organisation as a link between the national policy and the public libraries. The analysis in the study is based on theories that argue masculinity and femininity as social constructions, and therefore can be affected by a different type of conduct. Data was gathered using qualitative questionnaires combined with some quantitative elements that were used to gain fundamental facts regarding the distribution of employees between the sexes and the existence of equality policies.

We studied how librarians would adapt to telework, the performance of job responsibilitiesfrom home. We found'that all duties could be accomplished. but to varied extents.Computerbased searches, interlibrary loans, acquisitions, indexing and telephone referenceservices are the duties most likely to adapt to telework whereas cataloguing andclassification probably are best performed in the ordinary workplace.Most duties would demand access to technical means of assistance when performed fromhome. Connections to the library's local network, directly or via modem, are requiredbecause it is unrealistic to expect librarians to telework with fewer tools than theyordinarily have available. Although librarians generally believe that teleworking will nothave a large irnpact on the operation of the library, most would like to telework.Whether teleworking is a viable strategy depends on the characteristics of the duties, thelibrarian's desire to telework, but also on the size of the library, the size of its staff, thelibrary's activities, and how work is distributed between librarians..

The aim of this master?s thesis is to examine the virtual reference service Ask the Library [Bibblan svarar] from a postmodern perspective. Ask the Library is a Swedish online reference service that is run by the country?s public libraries. The postmodern theories of Jean-François Lyotard are used to study how information is managed and transmitted within the service.

Romanization as a method in the bibliographic environment makes retrieval difficult in many aspects. The object of this thesis is to illustrate the importance and the possibility to include non-Roman script in the records of the library catalogue. The questions at issue are about the consequences of romanization, the technical requirements for implementing non-Roman script, and bibliographical resources that have been developed during the last 20 years. The thesis is based on a literature study and correspondence with people who are familiar with the subject. The thesis points out that Romanization causes information to be distorted in various ways and is inconsistent with the requirements of exactitude in bibliographic control.

This master?s thesis investigates in which ways students seek out and access their textbooks and how they use their university?s library in this process. Data is collected through interviews from six students several semesters into their studies at the University of Stockholm. For the interviews two students each were selected from the fields of law, economics and humanities. The empirical findings were analyzed using T.D Wilson?s model of information behavior (1997).

The aim of this Master?s thesis is to survey what personal encounter at the library can signify, and to examine Swedish public libraries? policies for personal encounter. The posed questions are: What does personal encounter at the library signify? How are users and library staff represented in the collected policies? What do the policies say about digital encounter? 290 e-mail queries were sent to Swedish public libraries in May 2010. Of 140 responses, 107 stated that they did not have a written policy on personal encounter.