The objective of this Bachelor?s thesis is to investigate how the public library in Luleå has set about implementing an alternative classification system for its children's books section and to explore why this was done. We wanted to investigate both how they have adapted the new system to the children's own way of seeking information and the library personnel's experience of using the new shelving system. We have done seven interviews to answer these questions and our choice of literature is intended to put the process of change into a wider context. The answers show that the library was dissatisfied with the former system and have instead expressed a desire to shift the focus of their classification system to their users.

We have carried out a study of a classification system for the Swedish collection at The Royal Library in Stockholm from 1887. It was printed in 50 copies. The constructor, Bernhard Lundstedt, and his colleagues used it as guidance in lack of a catalogue. We regard it a local classification system. Little research has been done on old classification systems, but Francis Miksa points out the importance of examining them.

This paper aims to apply a specific architectural theory onto Lund City Library in order to achieve a better understanding of how the physical concept of the library is affecting our knowledge and our production of meaning; and furthermore how it suggests a certain form of usage. This paper discusses the ways in which architecture is affecting us when we use the library. The paper attempts to answer the following question: ? Which one of Koch?s spatial structures could apply to Lund City Library, and in which ways could this spatial structure be a producer of meaning? The specific architectonical theory used is developed by Daniel Koch in his paper Spatial Systems as Producers of Meaning: the Idea of Knowledge in Three Public Libraries. This theory is the method of the paper as well.

This Masters thesis is concerned with the complex planning process of setting up a citizen bureau in a public library. The aim is to find out how citizen bureaux are designed and to suggest a simplified model of strategic planning. The planning process is studied from a business perspective in the library context, and this perspective is also used to study citizen bureaux and their written plans elsewhere. A combination of qualitative methods are used: observations, focus group discussions and interviews. Observations in the public library showed a great need for an environmental analysis as well as structure to the planning process.

The aim of this thesis is to examine how high school students use their school library for their information-seeking. The theoretical framework is based on Louise Limbergs three categories of students views on information-seeking and Andrew Large and Jamshid Beheshtis three categories of students choice of information systems. Qualitative interviews were used and seven high school students were interviewed. The empirical material was compared and divided into 9 categories. The results show that the students see the school library as a place where they can search for information, but its also considered to be a good place to hang out between lessons to study or to meet friends.

The purpose of this Master thesis is to examine how college library managers perceive shelves of book reservation system in an integrity perspective. Privacy is an important part of everyday life in the society of today and according to some people, for example a former library lawyer in the Swedish Royal Library, these shelves conflicts with the Swedish law of Secrecy (Sekretesslagen 9 kap. 22 §). I am therefore interested in how they perceive this system: what weaknesses and strengths it has, why they implemented it, how they have interpreted this law. To answer this I have used a qualitative method called phenomenography and done interviews with five college library managers.

The main purpose of this Bachelor´s thesis is to investigate the visions chief librarians have for their public libraries. The world around us and our way of living is changing as the society is changing ever more rapidly. This evolvement also influences the public library, its role for society and individuals, its activities and its design. The question is how the public library can face these changes and what function and role it can get and make for itself in the future. Through qualitative interviews with five chief librarians our aim is to answer the main question of this thesis: What are the visions that chief librarians on public libraries have for the public library´s future? This study also contain the role the chief librarians give the public library of today and what they mean is necessary for their visions to be achieved.

The point of departure for this thesis was an article written by Christer Hermansson (2008). He thinks that librarians, following the development of Library 2.0 and the change of public libraries, have strayed away from what he believes should be the focus of the library: Literature. The aim of this thesis is to study how librarians in six Swedish libraries perceive their occupational roles. How does the increased user control, which is seen as part of Library 2.0, affect the tasks of libraries and librarians? The material used in this study was acquired using a qualitative interview technique in which six librarians working in public libraries with experience of IT, mediation and purchase of literature partook.

The aim of this Master?s thesis is to investigate articles in Swedish library journals on children?s reading from gender and sex perspectives. Gender theory as it has been developed by Yvonne Hirdman and Robert W. Connell is used to analyze the articles. The thesis includes a chapter on previous research in the fields of gender in relation to children, reading and the library.

The wide spread of the Internet and new information technologies in recent years has come to effect how libraries manage and disseminate information. Search engines like Google are widely used by people who often find the information retrieval systems of libraries to be too complicated. In 2004 Google announced plans to digitise five major library collections. Organisations representing the publishing industry and authors have since then filed lawsuits against Google claiming that Googles scanning of library books infringe the rights holders copyright. Due to Googles potential impact on libraries this thesis aims to examine how Googles digitisation project, Google Book Search, has been received in the library community.

The aim of this thesis is to investigate the points of view of three groups of actors about their local learning center and its collaboration with the library. By interviewing groups of actors from the municipal sector, the library staff and students, I aim to investigate their associations of the learning centre, what kind of services it should offer, and how they understand the role of the library staff in specific collaboration between the public library and the adult education administration. The study design is based on Gunnar Grepperud?s and Terje Thomsen?s three missions for a local learning centre; the mission of a broker, a meeting place and a motivator. I also use Carol Kuhlthau?s levels of mediation as an approach to investigate how the actors want the library staff to work in relation to the centre.

The underlying purpose of this study is to see whether a library focused solely on providing literature in other languages than Swedish serves as a unifying, integrating force, or as an agent for division and exclusion. The study focuses on the International Library in Stockholm. The authors have created a profile of the visitors of the selected library, concerning their characteristics, their library habits and their perceptions of the International library. This profile has then been compared with the staff?s perception of the visitors as a group.

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 aim of this thesis is to mediate to the reader an image of Chinese classification systems and in what way the methods of classification have progressed during time. The tradition of classification in China is very old and dates back more than two thousand years, but it wasnt until the downfall of the dynastic era in the beginning of the 20th century, that Chinese libraries and methods of classification were modernized. This thesis also identifies the development of Chinese librarianship which is of old age since Chinese literature stretches three thousand years back. The main question is in what way the values of three different philosophies are reflected in five classification systems compiled between 1953-1975. The three philosophies are Daoism, Confucianism and Maoism/Mao Zedong Thought.

The purpose of this study is to find out how libraries can be user-friendly to people with dyslexia by focusing on how adult dyslectics experience the library. Data were collected through literature and interviews with adult dyslectic students. Two different types of user studies served as a theoretical framework; one was an individual-related study by professor Wilson and the other was a system-related one from professor Buckland. The findings in this study shows that dyslectic library users often experience difficulties when seeking for materials in the library, due to the libraries organisation of material according to the written language. Through technical aid and a more user-friendly organisation of materials it may be easier to find relevant material for dyslectics.