The aim of this study is to examine a number of Swedish working public librarians and compare them with some popular standard images of librarians. In this project we have been working in line with these three questions: How do the librarians describe themselves and how can the descriptions be interpreted? What images are the most common and repetitive, according to earlier research? What differences and similarities are there between the images of the librarians and the working librarians? To answer the questions we have performed seven qualitative interviews with working librarians and collected relevant literature that presents various portrayals of librarians. To interpret the interviews we have used Pierre Bourdieus theories of social space, social fields, habitus and the cultural, academic, social and the economic capitals, as well as the connection between individual taste, class and social power. The conclusions of the collected material of earlier research and the interpreted material from the interviews have been compared and discussed.

During recent years the professional role of librarians has changed considerably. Development in the areas of information technology and the Internet has had a strong impact on libraries. Today?s visitors are in greater need of librarian support for information seeking and other services. This has led to a shift towards the development of a more complex pedagogical role for librarians.

In 1972 a national higher education for librarians was started. Up until then different categories of librarians got their education separately. The aim of this Master's thesis is to explore the attitude towards this new education for librarians. The study will concentrate on the attitude of the representatives from the research libraries. Researchlibraries had, until 1972, recruted their librarians amongst Ph.D-level scholars.

In this Bachelor thesis, we examine how the work of the librarian has changed over the past three decades. The research questions focus on the changes in librarians´ roles and working tasks regarding factors like technique, meetings between librarians and visitors and also how to give service to visitors.We have conducted interviews with librarians at university libraries as well as public libraries. In all, there were four interviews. We have also compared the two types of libraries.We have looked closely at these factors: the tasks of the librarians, the skills needed, how the library has been used as a democratic arena, and what kinds of meetings there are among librarians and users of the library. From these themes we have created interview questions, and our analysis is structured according to the themes.We have worked from a theory on different kinds of identities within the profession.

This bachelor´s thesis wants to look closer at librarians´ experiences of comics, manga and graphic novels. In order to bring these experiences forward qualitative interviews and the method of phenomenography was used. The material was then examend againstna theory of previous research, revealing that the problems librarians in Sweden face with these media are largely the same as the problems faced by librarians in other parts of the world. It also became clear that the participating librarians held a positive attitude to the presence of comics, manga and graphic novles in their libraries..

This bachelor´s thesis wants to look closer at librarians´ experiences of comics, manga and graphic novels. In order to bring these experiences forward qualitative interviews and the method of phenomenography was used. The material was then examend againstna theory of previous research, revealing that the problems librarians in Sweden face with these media are largely the same as the problems faced by librarians in other parts of the world. It also became clear that the participating librarians held a positive attitude to the presence of comics, manga and graphic novles in their libraries..

Librarians like to think that libraries contribute substantially to the progress of research. However, libraries still seem to have serious problems getting integrated in their parent organization on equal terms with other parts of that organization. The degree of integration of the library is thus the main topic of this thesis and the purpose is to examine how the interaction between librarians and scientists is formed and can be developed. That issue leads to concrete questions concerning what part librarians play in the scientists work and which factors influence the cooperation or lack of cooperation. We have chosen, for reasons of comparison, to make two case studies; one is a branch of a university library and the other is a library in a large pharmaceutical company.

National libraries hold large, valuable repositories of often unique materials. How can we ensure that the knowledge is accessible without endangering the materials that hold the knowledge? Digital preservation is meant to solve this problem. With more and more material being accessible digitally, users are expected to do more and more of the finding on their own, instead of being guided by librarians. What kind of knowledge do the librarians have, that cannot be mediated through a system? How is the knowledge of experienced librarians passed on to new librarians? What is the difference between physical and digital materials? I have interviewed senior and junior librarians of Det Kongelige Bibliotek in Copenhagen, Nasjonalbiblioteket in Oslo, the National Library in Helsinki, and Kungliga Biblioteket in Stockholm to learn about their journey to knowledge of their collections.

This thesis is structured as a combined empirical and literary study. The aim is to investigate how children at the age of 11-12 years reflect on their readings of fiction and how these reflections relate to the librarians' perspective of a child's reading ability and reading development. Qualitative interviews with children and librarians constitute the empirical part. Research and theories are compared to the empirical part then placed into a more extensive context. How do children at the age of 11-12 years old reflect upon their reading of fiction and how do librarians relate themselves to this age? An analysis using interviews, research and theories is used to answer these questions.

This thesis investigates collaboration between teachers and librarians concerning reading support activities in senior high schools in Sweden. The following questions were posed: 1. How do the teachers and school librarians cooperate when it comes to promoting reading? 2. To what degree of cooperation is that? And how is the level of cooperation perceived? 3.

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 aim of this Master?s thesis is to examine librarian images and stereotypes in Swedish and American fiction, and to discover if there are any differences between these. The images and stereotypes are also compared to those revealed in previous research. The study is based on ten novels. Five of these are written by Swedish authors and portrays Swedish librarians.

The purpose of this thesis is to study the attitude towardscomics among librarians as well as their personal image ofthe overall attitude towards comics among librarians and themanner in which the attitude of the librarians affects how thecomics are treated in the library.I have performed this study with a qualitative approach andhave interviewed a total of five librarians working in twodifferent libraries.I have founded the theoretical base for my research in anumber of historical attitudes towards comics and thencompared these attitudes towards the answers given in theinterviews as well as prior research found in three theseswritten by Magnus Johansson, Sarah Johansson and KarinEsaiasson.The results of the study is that traces of most of thehistorical attitudes can be found among all of the interviewedlibrarians but that none of them are harboring any negativeattitudes towards comics themselves. On the other hand thestudy does imply that the image of the librarian who onlythinks that comics are meant for children is still very muchalive in the collective subconscious of the librarians.The study also shows that while librarians of today tend tohave a neutral outlook in comics the historically subpartreatment of comic in the libraries and the subsequent lack ofacademic support on the subject have made it necessary forthe librarian in charge of the comic-section to have apersonal interest/liking for comics to be able to do a goodjob..

The purpose of this masters? thesis is to investigate how public librarians perceive privacy in connection with new technology in libraries. The main research questions are: - How do librarians experience the phenomenon privacy in the library?- How do librarians experience the relation between privacy and technology in the library?- What does this say about the relationship between privacy, technological development and library work?The study was performed with a phenomenographic methodological approach. The material consists of qualitative interviews with eight librarians who work at public libraries where the technology RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) has been implemented.

The aim of this Master?s thesis is to examine librarian images and stereotypes in Swedish and American fiction, and to discover if there are any differences between these. The images and stereotypes are also compared to those revealed in previous research. The study is based on ten novels. Five of these are written by Swedish authors and portrays Swedish librarians.