This master thesis is about amateur writing. To understand the writers needs and wishes about writing and access to information I have researched writing in a writing group. To answer my questions I have studied research literature and interviewed six of the members of the writing group. I also participated in their meetings for two years. The result of this study shows that writing had a therapeutic function for all of them in a period of their lives.

The subject of this thesis is the position of the story or activity rooms at the main libraries in Skåne, a province in the south of Sweden. The questions that are asked and answered are: Which of the main libraries has a story room? What do the rooms look like? How are the rooms used? Which is the relation between the form and the function of the rooms? and, finally, How do the libraries themselves present and describe their story rooms?.

The aim of this master thesis was to find out about librarians opinions of childrens libraries on the Internet, if it is a resource to reach children. Qualitative interviews were conducted with three librarians who had participated in the construction and development of childrens libraries on the Internet. IT and the Internet play an important role in childrens lives and children are using it to a greater extent. Libraries have begun to integrate IT and Internet into their services and are offering service on the Internet. The public library websites are usually for grown-ups and very few are directed to children.

This thesis investigates young people´s (16-21) preferences in reading through a survey including interviews and questionnaires. The groups attitudes towards reading and libraries, their reading and library habits, and to what extent eight libraries had bought the preferred literature were also examined. Some reports from the 80´s were used to find the changes. The result shows that youngsters read and visit libraries somewhat more frequently. Trivial literature is not as dominant, more teenage-books were read.

This master thesis is written in the purpose to discover which attitudes the public libraries in Sweden and Denmark have towards offering popular music to their patrons, how they motivates their choices and why they make the choices they make. The essay focuses on the differences and similarities between the Swedish and Danish libraries and relates their attitudes to the Finnish researcher Sanna Taljas three discourses regarding music policies in libraries.We examined this by sending out a question sheet to public libraries in Sweden and Denmark, the questions were regarding popular music's place in the library and how they build up their music collection. The question sheets were sent out to a total of 116 libraries of which 46 were Danish.The conclusions we drew after our examination were that Danish and Swedish public libraries have a lot in common in the way they regard and distribute popular music in the public libraries. Both of the respondent groups puts user demand high on the priority list as well as having a collection that holds significant works of many genres..

The purpose of this Masters Thesis is to explore the process of selection that librarians face when selecting and acquiring cultural magazines to public libraries. The methods used are qualitative interviews and literary studies. A brief review is given of acquisition policies at public libraries and of cultural magazines and the important role they play in public libraries. Five interviews have been made at five public libraries to find out what factors affect the process of selection when it comes to cultural magazines. Two theories are used as a basis for the analysis of the result of the interviews and literary studies.

In the wake of the electronic revolution digital library has become one of the central themes concerning libraries. The present study takes up the question whether digital library can function in the same way as the conventional library. The question can obviously be posed from different perspectives, e.g. technological-, the user-, or the organizational perspective. The study investigates if (and how) digital library can have the same functions as the traditional library.

The aim of this thesis is to investigate how the indexing of fiction for adults looks like in the public libraries that don?t buy indexed records for fiction from Bibliotekstjänst (BTJ). The questions that I want these libraries to answer is: - Public libraries that index fiction for adults themselves: 1. What tools do they use when indexing?, 2.

This master thesis deals with reading and library habits among young male students at the vehicle engineering programme in an upper secondary school. Also their overall opinion of libraries has been looked into. For the completion of this study all of the 43 students in question took part in a questionnaire while 5 of them were interviewed. The result of this statistical survey complemented with more focused interviews show that at some time or another all the students read, but their preference lies within the news and engineering pages of daily newspapers and periodicals. Those who read books choose action and fantasy for content.

As public libraries in Sweden receive the bulk of their budget from local government funding, which has stayed static or, at best, seen small increases, libraries have been faced with inadequate resources with which to satisfy increasing expectations from users. As few libraries are over-funded in the first place, ways may have to be found to combat this situation. The aim of this Masters thesis is to examine alternative sources of funding for Swedish public libraries, and my main focus of interest is that of sponsorship. The method used is a literature study combined with an empirical study, in which interviews were conducted with five persons each with long experience of working with public libraries. The literary study deals with the concept of sponsorship, and the motivations for companies to sponsor are also examined.

The aim of this master thesis is to investigate the development on the Swedish book market for the beginning of the 21st century. During the 21st century a lot of things have happened on the Swedish market for library books. Twenty years ago in reality only one company existed that could deliver books with the demanded equipment to the libraries, but in year 2010 there are four companies offering the same service. Other news during this time is bookshops on internet. We found this development interesting and therefore decided to contact the four companies as well as six libraries to find out what they thought of the new situation.

The aim of this masters thesis is to examine the picture book canonization process in pre-schools. To succeed in this I have examined what pre-school staff believe to be the criteria of a good picture book. Together with an observation of the pre-schools current collection, other factors which can influence the collection of the picture book are included. This constitutes the foundation for a description of the pre-school picture book canon. To pursue this goal, I have used the methodology of focus group interviews with staff from two pre-schools in a middle-sized town.

The main purpose of this thesis is to investigate how the societysystem in Austria has influenced the library system. The aim is toanalyse in what way these influences have changed during thegrowth and development of the public library system and how it isdisplayed in each separate library branch. The focus of myinvestigation has been the municipality public libraries in Vienna,and mainly the three libraries in the third district of the city. Themethod I have used is literature studies, examining and analysingsource material from the internal archive of the public libraries inVienna. I have also used the qualitative interview method in orderto examine the situation in the selected libraries Rabengasse,Erdbergstraße and Fasangasse.As there is no common library law, there are significantdifferences in the library structure in different parts of Austria andeach municipality decides how they want to prioritize the libraries.Since the public libraries of Vienna are well organized together inBüchereien Wien, the library structure in the separate librarybranches is coordinated.

The main purpose of this thesis is to investigate how the societysystem in Austria has influenced the library system. The aim is toanalyse in what way these influences have changed during thegrowth and development of the public library system and how it isdisplayed in each separate library branch. The focus of myinvestigation has been the municipality public libraries in Vienna,and mainly the three libraries in the third district of the city. Themethod I have used is literature studies, examining and analysingsource material from the internal archive of the public libraries inVienna. I have also used the qualitative interview method in orderto examine the situation in the selected libraries Rabengasse,Erdbergstraße and Fasangasse.As there is no common library law, there are significantdifferences in the library structure in different parts of Austria andeach municipality decides how they want to prioritize the libraries.Since the public libraries of Vienna are well organized together inBüchereien Wien, the library structure in the separate librarybranches is coordinated.

This masters thesis investigates how the Swedish county libraries relate to equality between men and women. The thesis treats the county library both as a place of work and as a part of the national library network. One of the reasons why this study focuses on county libraries is because of their special position in the Swedish library organisation as a link between the national policy and the public libraries. The analysis in the study is based on theories that argue masculinity and femininity as social constructions, and therefore can be affected by a different type of conduct. Data was gathered using qualitative questionnaires combined with some quantitative elements that were used to gain fundamental facts regarding the distribution of employees between the sexes and the existence of equality policies.