In an international perspective the Russian children s library is a unique institution, being solely committed to children up to 14 years of age. In Russia of today it is, however, being exposed to hard pressure as the economical and social conditions have changed dramatically since the collapse of the USSR. My interest lies in examining this change of living conditions for the children s libraries and how this in turn affect their work and role in the present state. In order to view this change in a longer perspective, I compare the situation for children s libraries during the time of communist regime with that of today using documents about and from children s libraries. I have studied its legal position and conditions, financial and political state, and how the modern society affects children and youth, especially their daily cultural life.

The purpose of the present thesis is to investigate the interaction between the branches in the different villages and its users and the importance of the branches for democracy. To illustrate these points, I have focused on Högsby municipality, a local council in Kalmar county. Högsby municipality is of particular interest in this connection, since all seven of the branches have been closed recently; only the main library remains. Moreover, three of the closed branches were, in 2005, taken over by citizen organizations local to the part of Högsby municipality where the libraries were located. The specific issues that were addressed were:- What needs were satisfied by the local libraries in Högsby council and is it possible to satisfy these needs in other ways and then, how?- Does the absence of a local library affect democracy?Interviews were performed.

The aim of this study is to examine how work at music departments in public libraries has changed with time. To analyze this, the role of music libraries as well as music library users, selection, holdings, acquisition and technological development have been examined. The examined data consists of qualitative interviews with music librarians and library assistants at public libraries in Sweden. To get a time perspective, handbooks and articles about music departments in libraries have also been analyzed.This study emanates from Sanna Talja?s discourse analysis of music libraries in Finland.

In writing this study, I wanted to examine which principles of organization that are possible for Swedish public libraries to use, and what these principles mean for the libraries customerorientation. This is done by examining a number of written sources, as well as studying the organization of six public libraries. I found several possible principles, but a number of principles have been more commonly used than others. Historically most public libraries were organized according to the functions needed to be carried out within the organization, but today it is much more common to use subject-based organizations, with some examples of organizing according to user-groups and needs. I have also encountered the possibility of organizing according to the sources that are to be handled, or the way in which these sources are used by the customers.

This thesis investigates young people's (16-21) preferences in reading through a surveyincluding interviews and questionnaires. The groups attitudes towards reading and libraries,their reading and library habits, and to what extent eight libraries had bought the preferredliterature were also examined.Some reports from the 80's were used to find the changes. The result shows that youngstersread and visit libraries somewhat more frequently. Trivial literature is not as dominant, moreteenage-books were read. Popular themes are love, history, reality, fantasy/sf, and detectivestories.

The purpose of this study is to examine and explain why three Swedish public libraries failedin their ambition to act as information services for small and medium-sized firms (SMF). To support this purpose two major assumptions are made:1) Public libraries who plan to run this kind of "business" must act with the same means as "professional" services.2) The service must be adjusted to the information needs of the customer.Based on these assumptions sixteen factors which are crucial to the "success" for this kind of service are presented.Applied to the information services of Lidkoping, Sölvesborg and Västervik, these factors reveal a number of shortcomings and mistakes made by the libraries.To understand this result these information services are seen as parts of a traditional Swedish public "library-thought". It is shown that, fundamental ideas in the way the public libraries are defined, like the responsibility to act in a neutral and democratic way, also characterised the three information services.These ideas together with the opinion of SMF as a "rational" information-consumer resulted in information services who did not meet the information-needs and information-behaviour of SMF..

This thesis aims to study the impact of the transition from communism to democracy on the public libraries in Poland. The central areas of study are changes in: the organisation of the public library system, the role of the public library in society, the librarian's daily work and job situation and collection development. The thesis is based on qualitative interviews with public librarians, public library managers and researchers in Warsaw, Torun and Gdansk. The theoretical background consists of chapters outlining thoughts on democratic and communist library ideas and public libraries' responses to a changing society. The results show that the public library system has been affected by two major decentralisation reforms in Poland, leaving the libraries in the care of local governments.

The aim of this master thesis is to describe some general trends and important steps in the Swedish university libraries user-orientation from the implementation of the university college reform 1977 until today. The aim gave rise to four further questions. Literature studies and empirical studies in the form of focusing interviews have been carried out, in order to answer the questions. Of the entire background material I have made a simple form of general analysis. I found that the libraries, during the years have interacted with the following four interested parties, the government, the mother organization, other libraries and the library users.

The main purpose of this Master?s thesis is to develop an understanding of why non-users do not use public libraries by studying their information and culture habits and their relationship to public libraries. One of the motivating factors behind this choice is the lack of earlier research on the subject, particularly qualitative research. The theoretical framework is stratified into three associated levels with Brenda Dervin?s sense-making theory on an individual level, Marianne Andersson?s and Dorte Skot-Hansen?s model of the roles of public libraries on an institutional level and Pierre Bourdieu?s theoretical apparatus on a social level.

Today, digital technologies (DT) can be said to play an important role in the Swedish school system. The goal of this essay was to describe DT use by school leaders, in relation to their views on schools? goals and visions, and teachers? and students? use of DTs. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with five school leaders of secondary schools in Umeå municipality, Sweden. The results show that school leaders? use of DTs center on three key tasks: communication, information and administration.

The purpose of this Master thesis is to examine whether the term elasticity is relevant and functional to apply to public library organisations. Another aim of the thesis is to relate the term elasticity to public library organisations in a network society. Sociologist Manuel Castells provide the theoretical framework on the network society. Three investigations (meant to complement each other) in two Swedish public libraries seek to give answers to these questions.To be able to examine which areas of public library activity are elastic, I make a rough definition of what public library organisations consist of ? nine activity fields are identified using IFLA?s guidelines in combination with Swedish law of public libraries.

The purpose of this study was to examine how Swedish high school students view school staff members, in general, but in particular school counselors. The research questions focused on getting the students descriptions of the staff members roles and functions within the school. The study was conducted using focus group interviews. The answers were divided into themes and then analyzed using role theory and previous research. The results showed that the students relationships with family, friends and previous knowledge about the staff members in school, affects their willingness to seek the support of school staff members.

The purpose of my essay has been to illustrate any possible differences between pre-school teachers? and parents' views on the mission of the pre-school put in relation to the pre-school curriculum. In my study I have taken a starting point in the following questions:How do pre-school teachers understand the mission of the pre-school?Do pre-school teachers recognize the term baby-sitting from their profession?How do pre-school teachers perceive the parents' view on the mission of the pre-school?How concerned are the parents according to the pre-school teachers about the pedagogical activities of the pre-school?What do the pre-school teachers do to inform the parents about the pre-school curriculum and how aware do they think that the parents are of the curriculum?What are the plans of the pre-schools to fulfill the new part of the revised curriculum that comes into effect July 1 2011?I chose to utilize the qualitative method with the hermeneutics as a theoretical framework in my study and through interviews study my questions. The interviews were made with four pre-school teachers from different pre-schools in the south of Stockholm.

Public libraries have an important roll of making information accessible to all people. This democratic right supports the cultural development in our society. When public libraries build websites offering information and services it can sometimes cause obstacles for impaired users. It is therefore our purpose to evaluate a selection of websites and library plans to examine how the libraries work with accessibility for these users. This thesis is based on theories of cognitive and human computer interaction, and information architecture.

The aim of this thesis is to study different aspects of the public libraries' investment in public access computers connected to the Internet. What level of accessibility can be found at the surveyed libraries concerning the number of computers open to the public, as well as chat and email services? What activities have been taking place with the computers in focus, and what have the goals of these activities been? Is there any control of content, and what aspects of the Internet are, if that is the case, subject to censorship. And how do the governmental policies relate to the surveyed libraries' intentions and activities regarding the Internet? In order to answer these questions, each main library in the 42 largest towns of Sweden was surveyed response rate: 100 %.