By studying a place or a phenomena research contributes to the creation of the image of the thing that he or she studies. Also, planning is seen as a democratic tool, a way to ?make? democracy. In order to see what democratic ideals that is being express it becomes important to study the research about democracy in Botkyrka. It is from this thinking this study about democracy and research has been formed.

This paper is a comparing study of the retrieval effectiveness of the search engines Google, Google Scholar and Scirus. The aim is to find out how good they are at retrieving relevant academic material in the research-field of Library and Information science. The thirty search questions where based on actual information needs collected from exams within the field of Library and Information Science. This method was used to prevent that none of the search engines were given an advantage because of construction of the information needs. The first twenty retrieved documents on the retrieval lists are examined for academic content and relevance.

Public libraries are mainly employing women and have female managers. According to theories based upon so-cial construction we create our roles together in our society. The role of a manager has for a long time been viewed as the role of a man. The objective of my thesis is to gain knowledge on how a few women that work as managers in public libraries perceive and describe their roles. A parallel aim is to let a few future librarians de-scribe their managers and their own views on leadership, with a focus on gender issues.

The aim of this thesis is to study how public libraries in Sweden use alternative shelf arrangements that differ from the library?s original classification system, which in Swedish public libraries usually is the SAB-system. I sent out a survey to 169 public libraries, where I received 114 replies. 77 of these stated that they had some kind of alternative shelf arrangement, therefore these are the ones that are included in my study. I wanted to investigate in what way the libraries had changed their shelf arrangement and why this decision was made.

The purpose of this Master thesis is to compare the perception and significance of reference work in two countries, Sweden and Germany. This will be achieved by means of a literature review of previous research literature and public documents and a content analysis of articles from two library journals.A first step was to examine the historical development of reference work in the selected countries. In connection with this there proved to be distinct phases in the discussion regarding reference work. These phases with their specific discourses, themes and emphases reflected and thus later were confirmed in the second part of the study.The results show that despite some similarities there are also quite a few differences in how reference work is perceived in both countries. For Sweden, the idea of reference work was introduced relatively early.

The purpose of this master's thesis is to discuss how young people view their possibilities of exercising power and influence in Swedish society and politics. To accomplish this we have used several different sorts of relevant material. As an introduction, we review the development of the Swedish research concerning youths, with focus on the development in the last two decades of the twentieth century. We continue with a study of important Swedish youth-political documents, especially of the Government Bill På ungdomars villkor: Ungdomspolitik för demokrati, rättvisa och framtidstro On the terms of the youth: Youth-policy promoting democracy, justice and hopes for the future. The Bill is the foundation of a new youth-policy in Sweden.

The SAB-system (Klassifikationssystem för svenska bibliotek) was created almost a hundred years ago and has often been viewed as insufficient among many academic libraries. KB (Kungliga Biblioteket) has therefore decided to change to DDC (Dewey Decimal Classification) which means that the Swedish libraries are now facing a challenge that involves a change to a new classification system. This is a comparable situation that occured when the SAB-system was created. The aim of this Master?s thesis is to examine the Swedish library sector´s approach to a new classification system, first to the SAB-system and then to DDC.

This study investigates the use of the social network Facebook among 67 Swedish libraries; 27 academic libraries and 40 public libraries. Data is collected through an analysis of the libraries? Facebook pages and through an email survey. To analyze the data, a series of statistical analyses were performed.The results indicate that the public libraries more actively posted Facebook updates than the academic libraries and that the libraries that had a policy for use of Facebook/social media more actively posted updates than those libraries that did not have such policy. The libraries use Facebook mainly to post links and photos and to announce events, provide book recommendations, and to emphasize special occasions.

The purpose of this bachelor thesis is to examine reviewswritten by users in library online catalogs, online bookstoresand on the web community LibraryThing, in order todetermine whether there are any differences in the way usersreview books, and whether these differences might explainwhy libraries experience difficulties in getting their users toreview books. At the core of web 2.0 and library 2.0concepts lies the thought of user participation, and largerlibraries have sought to implement systems for reviewingand tagging items in the catalog in ways similar to onlinebookstores and other websites.By analyzing the contents of user reviews, however, thisthesis shows that users express themselves differentlydepending on what kinds of literature they review, and inwhat context. Most notably, user reviews of ?the Classics? orcanonized literature recognizes the high status of suchliterature, while users reviewing popular fiction expressthemselves in a way that admits that the reviewed titles areconsidered less valuable. There are also signs that booksreviewed at online bookstores are seen as products ormerchandise, while the reviews at the library to a greaterdegree treat the books as works of literature.The conclusion reached in this thesis suggests that there maybe a relation between the image of the library as a defenderof high culture and the perceived status of literary works,causing users to become hesitant to review books, feelingthat they do not have the knowledge to describe or reviewthem ?correctly?..

The aim of this Master's thesis is to understand public library users' perceptions of librarians' attitudes to users and professional knowledge. The purpose was also to investigate the relative importance to the user of pleasant or a knowledgeable librarian. As a theoretical framework we use theory from business economy where the experience of the user is in focus. Answers were sought to the following questions: How do users perceive librarians attitudes to users? How do users perceive librarians professional knowledge? How do users want to be treated by public librarians? What kind of knowledge should public librarians have, according to users? We interviewed twelve students in university education that are users of public libraries.

Purpose: This thesis aims to study how students in upper secondary school evaluate sources in their everyday school work and how the role of the school library and librarian officiate in this context.Methodology: A web questionnaire was conducted and 155 students from different schools, with or without school library and school librarian, participated. We coded and aggregated the questionnaires according to the strategies that are used when evaluating sources, identified by Francke, Sundin and Limberg. Cognitive authority, a theory by Patrick Wilson, was also a part of our analysis. Conclusions: The study shows that students use different strategies, separately or combined, as a way to evaluate sources. The teacher is regarded as a cognitive authority and is the main influence concerning source evaluation. It also shows that the role of school libraries and school librarians, in this context, seem to be non-existent.

The multicultural society of today where individuals have varied cultures and languages is different to the homogeneous society of the past, and sets new demands upon the school. The school library can play an important role when it comes to the integration and the acceptance of students with a different mother tongue. Provision and access to literature in the student?s mother tongue is seen as a strong indicator of a school that promotes a multicultural environment, and it?s also linked to the student?s feelings of identity and self-confidence. Their knowledge in their mothers tongue is crucial to the acquisition of a second language, and learning in extension.The purpose of this bachelor is to examine how school librarians work with multilingual students in junior high school, and what they consider to be their roles in this context.Confirming previous research, mediation of information and promotion of reading was a central task to the school librarians we interviewed.

The thesis aims at, from a user perspective, examining how a group of industrial researchers understand the information seeking in their every day work. A qualitative method is employed. The empirical material consists of open-ended interviews with in all ten researchers. All of them work at the Swiss-Swedish Technology Company ABB's research laboratory in Västerås. The thesis is based on the opinion that the scientific knowledge production has become commercialised and that the scientific communication is going through certain changes.

The aim with this master thesis is to study which ambitions and strategic aims Gothenburg?s district libraries have regarding their music sections. I have utilized my theory from Sanna Talja, a Finnish researcher in Library and Information Science. She identifies three perspectives in maintaining a music library. She calls them, general education, alternative and demand.

The aim of this two years master thesis is to explore the relationship between public libraries and deaf adults. I want to know if deaf adults are a prioritized group in Swedish public libraries. Deaf adults use Swedish sign language witch is a visual language and differs from Swedish. I discuss the difference in Swedish Sign Language and Swedish and the importance of Sign Language literature. I also explore what methods can be used for mak-ing the library service towards the deaf group more customer centered and service oriented.The lack of sign language knowledge among the library personnel can lead to communication barriers.