The aim of this Master?s thesis is to investigate how a public library should sign and organize their resources to make them as accessible as possible to the users of the library. Our theory, Paul Arthur?s and Romedi Passini?s wayfinding theory, is about how people search through information loaded environments. Our empirical material consists mainly of three parts: an inventory of the resources and guiding at Hammarö bibliotek, eight interviews with visitors at Hammarö bibliotek and observations of how visitors use and interact with the library, its resources and guiding.

This master thesis in library- and information science is about the intermediary function of the library room from an environment-psychological point of view. Young people are a group in society who often reduce their visits to the library when growing up. There are lots of reasons for this maybe more attractive activities occur outside the library doors, making the young choose not to use the library. But if the library interior is attractive in itself, and has a welcoming atmosphere, there might be a change and the young people may well choose to pay the library a visit. What is important to young people how do they want their library room to look? Our purpose is to see how the physical environment affects young people in libraries.

The purpose of this master thesis is to study the correlation and meaning of current ideas and practice at the public library of Gothenburg. This was done by comparing the visions and ideas expressed by the library through the library plan, with how the daily practice looks. For the theoretical framework organizational theory is used and research data was collected both from public documents and through observations. The public library of Gothenburg were chosen for the study because of it's newly renovated facilities. The idea is that these facilities make a suitable study object of the current ideas and priorities of the public Swedish library in general.The results show that the public library practice in Sweden still rests on the original public library ideas such as offering information for free and treating every user as equal.

The aim of this bachelor?s thesis is to examine what expectations a few, adult, frequent library users have on librarians' competences at a specific library. We also aim to compare how well the library users' expectations relates to how the librarians describe their own competences.The method used to gather the empirical information in this study is the qualitative semi-structured interview. We interviewed six library users and the four librarians who are employed at the library where we placed our study. The results of our interviews were analyzed with the help of a model based on Anders Ørom?s librarian identities.

The purpose of this master's thesis is to study how librarians at public libraries make the literature with state supported distribution available through marketing. By qualitative interviews with nine heads of libraries the thesis examines how the library staff in each library market the state supported distribution by the Swedish Art Council. My theoretical framework is based on Philip Kotler's thesis on marketing. My conclusion is that the library staff rather market the library as whole, than focus on just one specific type of books. The attitudes toward the state supported distribution are a mixed one, but the library staff is glad for what is given..

The aim of this thesis is to examine how four decision makers at a University College and a library director at the same University College perceive the profile, image and identity of their library. This University College library is used as our main example. We have evaluated the main example in relation to two other University College libraries, in order to obtain a deeper understanding of how these library directors view their own libraries and to attain a more multi-dimensional view of the main example of our study. Our intention is to analyse the current situation, not the past nor the future. Qualitative semi-structured interviews with decision makers and library directors have been conducted.

This thesis deals with the question of why the Swedish Academy Dictionary has its own Library when, for almost a hundred years, it has been located at the University Library of Lund. Looking at the library functions: librarian, users, room and books and their external factors: economy, internal actors, external actors and the development of the Swedish Academy Dictionary helped to shed light upon which relations between these factors have been important in the development of the library. The results show that there has not been a conscious plan behind the Library. A large number of the books in the Library was given by those who have worked at the Dictionary and also by their friends and collegues. Another part was given by the Swedish Academy and was partly gathered when the project was still in Stockholm.

This Master?s thesis is about the public library development in a rural district, in this case Bergunda, a large rural district in Kronoberg?s County in Småland in Sweden, existing 1952 ? 1970. The main question is; how the public library develops in Bergunda large rural district 1951-1970. The main question is divided up in sub-questions: the district uniting in 1952 and 1971; personnel; lending; library housing and the public library structure. In 1952, there is one public library, Bergunda public library, and four study circle libraries.

The aim of this Master's thesis is to analyze the relation between the discursive formation and the optical formation in the public library-apparatus. An ongoing individualization process in the library field and in society at large is used as a backdrop in the analysis. Discourse analysis is used as a method to explore the main Swedish library periodicals Biblioteksbladet, Bibliotek i Samhälle and DIK-forum. All issues from the years 1999 and 2009 have been used as material. The main analytical instruments applied in the analysis of this material are Michel Foucault's terms dispositive, apparatus and diagram.

This is a master thesis about the reconstruction of Bibliotheca Alexandrina. With a hermeutical approach utilizing literature review and interviews it examines how the library have come into existence, and what the Swedish efforts have been to help the project along. Using a mainly structural perspective, the major factors examined are world politics, Egyptian society and library values. The conclusion is that myths about the ancient library of Alexandria, the city of Alexandria itself, world politics, a more stable Egyptian society, improved world and Egyptian economy, an improved Egyptian reverence for reading and writing, less censorship, more freedom of speech and Egyptian national pride all have contributed to new library. Swedish efforts by Sida, the Swedish Institute in Alexandria, FAV and SWEBA have mainly been in the areas of information technology, education of Egyptian library staff and childrens literature..

The purpose of this masters thesis is to evaluate bookmobile service as a decentralised library service. I have made a qualitative interview survey, with seven Swedish municipalities participating, all providing bookmobile service in their rural parts. The purpose with the interviews is to examine their bookmobile service. I have also studied articles on bookmobile service, and decentralisation through small library units in library journals, to get an insight into how the work with decentralised library service is done in Swedish municipalities. In this thesis answer is sought to the following questions: - Which decentralised library services are suitable for inhabitants and institutions in sparsely populated areas, considering factors such as number of inhabitants, proportion of old people and children, demographic changes, economy, possibilities to cooperate with other municipalities? - What is the current bookmobile service situation in Sweden, taking seven municipalities in the region of Småland as a starting point? My conclusions are that each municipality must decide which decentralised library services that best suites their needs.

The aim of this study is to examine how important a factor the environment and the interior is to the creation of a user-friendly children?s library. In this study, environment is taken to mean the furnishing and the equipment in the children?s area at the library. The environment plays an important role in society today and because of that this is a current topic.

The purpose of this master thesis is to use marketing theory on the library?s activities. The marketing theory used is the 4Ps; product, price, promotion and place, as it's presented by Philip Kotler. Because the library can be seen as a service oriented organization Christian Gronroos theory of marketing in the service industry also has been used. A case study of the public library in Broby was made to illustrate how the public libraries? activities can appear in the light of marketing theory.

The purpose of this masters thesis is to examine how managers in public libraries are managing financial cuts. Questions posed are: What strategies are used by the library manager to handle the cuts and how are the strategies being worked out? What are the consequences of the cuts? How do the managers use their library plans in the work with the cuts and how do the plans change as a consequence of the cuts? Library managers in eleven communities are interviewed about their financial cuts in 2003 and/or 2004. The result shows that cuts are made in different ways. The study analysed the managers statements with a model about strategies created by Oulton.

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.