The purpose of this Masters thesis is to investigate if gender stereotypes are mediated to children between 0-3 years through books suitable for their age. This thesis concerns books that are available in public libraries. The content will be analysed by using a combination of methods, both content analysis of all the books in our study and a qualitative analysis of a smaller number of these books. With inspiration from both Robert Connell and Yvonne Hirdman and their theories of gender and gender stereotypes, this material was read and we wanted to examine if books for very young children might establish stereotypes. Our analysis showed that many known stereotypes are common in these books.

The aim of this masters thesis is to explore a mediators practical procedure during booktalks. The main question is: Why do librarians have booktalks and what does it mean to have booktalks for children? In order to answer our main question, we have used these three questions: - Why do our interviewed librarians have booktalks? - How do our informants prepare their booktalks and what do their presentations look like? - Do our informants have any follow-ups of their booktalks and if so, how do they do that? To limit the thesis, we have concentrated our study to Swedish public libraries and to children in the elementary school. We have conducted qualitative interviews with three librarians who do booktalks for children as a part of their job. The thesis theoretical basis is Aidan Chambers theory about the Reading Circle and especially the parts enabling adult and selection.

The purpose with this masters thesis was to model the scanner in a system for laser bathymetry. The model was then used to develop a controller for the scanner so a good search pattern was achieved. Two different types of models have been tested, a physical model and a Black Box model of Box Jenkins type. The physical model has been derived from Lagranges equations. Identification experiments have been used to compute the Black Box model and to find the unknown parameters in the physical model.

This masters thesis concerns the professional knowledge of the librarian. It is a comparative study where two major ma-gazines in library press, Biblioteksbladet and DIK-forum, is compared between the years 1990-2000, in relation to the theories of professionalization and the associations to the union. The study focus on showing the differences and similarities between the two magazines according to how they interact from the subjects education, wages and status. The study is conducted from two questions: - Which are the central differences and similarities in the description of the librarian profession in the two magazines, from the perspectives of wage, status and education? - In what way do the two magazines reflect the theories of professionalization? To give a wider perspective of the librarian profession, there is also a historical chapter with an explanation to the making of the librarian profession..

Symbols in the hands of politicians can be a powerful tool of manipulation. The usage of symbols in speeches or texts can change a person?s will, without him or her ever knowing it.We have compared the usage of symbols in the articles surrounding the ratification of the constitution in 18th century America with that of today?s European Union, to see if any similarities between these two cases exists, and what implications this could have for the future of the EU. We have divided the symbols in both cases into different categories so as to enable us to compare the cases to each other. With the help of Masters Theory and the writings of Benedict Anderson and Murray Edelman we have concluded that there indeed exist some similarities between 18th century America and the EU.

The purpose of this Masters thesis is to study students perception of the services that the library staff provides and the library staffs opinion of the students perceptions. With the concept service we mean the treatment, the attitudes and the qualities that exist between the library staff and their users. Our purpose is also to examine how the users experienced services quality. Our survey was conducted at an academic library with questionnaires to both students and library staff. We analysed the result of the survey by using three theories by Lundmark, Keen and Grönroos and Monthelie.

The aim of this masters thesis is to examine query expansion. Query expansion is the process of adding new terms to a query to improve the retrieval effectiveness. In this study the baseline query was expanded in five different modes. The first expansion strategy was formulated by the inflected terms as the system does not allow truncation, I have inflected the terms, e. g.

The present work is a continuation of the ideas developed in previous projects during my Masters studies that explored the relation between pattern, form and space. Starting from the pattern multiplication for space construction the present project proposes textiles as an assortment of flexible expressions. The purpose of the project is to explore aesthetic and functional potential of textiles for out door temporary structures. This is to create a pattern interface which filters sunlight through a textile surface to offer instant sheltering solutions for out door activities. The project combines research and analyses of outdoor temporary structures and scope of textile in the area.

Writing has been the most important tool in knowledge organization KO. In our modern society we can use our speech as a technical tool to seek information. Can we apply speech as a tool to organize information? The aim of this masters thesis is to problemize speech aspects in the field of knowledge organization KO. The investigation has two main parts and I use a hermeneutic approach.

The purpose of this Masters thesis is to compare the scheme structure of two national classifications system, namely the Swedish SAB system and the German ASB. It has been assumed that there are no major differences between the two models of classification systems or the main classes into which documents are placed. The classification theory and subject analysis, which form the basic theory on which my research is based, are taken from Dahlberg, Langridge and Rowley. A comparison of 30 monographs classified in the SAB system Sveriges allmänna biblioteksförening and in the German ASB system Allgemeine Systematik für öffentliche Bibliotheken showed that the classification structure was primarily responsible for determining where a particular document was placed. However, despite the fact that the subject in various documents may be similar, my research will demonstrate that the structure of the two codes also depends on different interpretations of the main subject in a document.

This Masters thesis concerns computer games in Swedish public libraries. We have investigated the opinions of public librarians concerning what they think about computer games, and to what extent they believe it should be a part of the public library. The method we have chosen is qualitative interviews. The theory we have used is a pedagogical literature strategy, which we have reformulated so that it fits our investigation. The results show that the interviewed public librarians think that the library should offer computer games for children and youths to use at the library, and that they should offer computer games for lending, to all the library users.

This is a project in Entrepreneurship and Creativity on masters? degree. The purpose was to verify whether the Swedish retail trade within the beauty care business was ready for an in-troduction of colour cosmetics. Through the qualitative research grounded theory, I made several phone interviews with independence retail traders within the Swedish beauty care business. The selection of respondents is based on statistical facts and geographic coverage of Swedish beauty care shops.

This Masters thesis concerns how library and preschool can cooperate in supporting childrens language development and especially that of bilingual children. We have investigated how librarians and preschool teachers different competences can complement each other to gain the best result in work with childrens language development. This study is based on qualitative interviews with four librarians and three preschool teachers. The answers from them have been analysed according to different categories. Our results show that both librarians and preschool teachers think that bilingual children need extra support and that it takes longer to learn two languages.

The purpose of this Masters thesis has been to examine the importance of libraries for girls leisure time in secondary school. Focus has been on the use of the library as a leisure activity. Interviews were carried out with six girls of the ages 13 to 16. The conclusion of the study is that the library is of importance for the girls mostly through its books. Reading turned out to be an important leisure activity for the girls and the books provided by the library were of significance for their identity development.

Citizenship information is defined as the information the citizen needs to be able to take part in and influence the society. Since it is a democratic issue that information concerning the citizens role in society really reaches the citizens, it is of importance to study how the citizens proceed when they have a need for this information. The aim of this Masters thesis is to investigate how our eight informers proceed when they experience this need in a non-work situation. We performed qualitative interviews. The most important part of our interviews was the introduction of some fictitious problems to the informants.