The aim of this masters thesis is to examine how daily encounters between the Danish public libraries and the library-users called ethnic minorities are described within the public library field. Danish public libraries have been assigned to play a larger role in societys strive towards integration of immigrants and refugees. Within Danish politics I find an emphasis on the importance of maintaining Danish culture, but it is rarely expressed if ethnic minorities are, can or should be a part of it. Theoretical and methodological starting points are hermeneutics and text-analysis. My theoretical framework is research about international migration and ethnic relations IMER.

In 2005 Gunhild Eriksdotter published Behind The Facades in which she analyses the ways of approaching historical buildings in archaeology. Eriksdotter emphasizes that the archaeology of buildings is in dire need of renewal videlicet the traditional outlook on buildings as two-dimensional objects need to change. She develops a method of analysing the spatial dimensions in a three-dimensional world. By fusing theories and methods in excavating archaeology and architecture, she is able to give us a new way of approaching buildings. Her method includes the analysing of a buildings material, spatiality and use.

This essay takes its point of departure in the need for modern day public libraries to legitimize their place in today?s society. Societal changes call for constant reinvention of libraries and as part of this reinvention, new light is being shed on the public library?s role as a meeting place. By investigating contemporary debate articles published in Bibliotek i samhälle and Biblioteksbladet, two major Swedish library magazines, this essay aims to categorize and compare different conceptions of the library?s function as a meeting place.

This thesis examines what and in which language young people in Sweden with other linguistic backgrounds than Swedish read, as well as if they have access to the literature that they demand, how they use the library and what kind of role the library plays to them. The chosen method was quantitative and it consisted of a questionnaire as this method is useful in quantifying phenomena, which is the purpose of this thesis. The investigation shows that the studied population is bilingual. I hope that the thesis points out the range of the problems and that these issues need to be solved within the society and not the within the family. We need to make use of the resources of the young immigrants, as their cultural competence, in some cases even bi-cultural competence, can be useful for the Swedish society.

This Bachelor thesis examines the possibility of replacing an outdated, analog video recording system to a digital counterpart. It is key that the video and audio signals remain synchronized, generator locked and time stamped. It is up to nine different video sources and a number of audio sources to be recorded and treated in such a manner which enables synchronized playback. The  different video sources do not always follow a universal standard, and differ from format as well as resolution. This thesis aims to compare a number of state of the art commercial of the shelf solutions with proprietary hardware.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how the relationship between the socially constructed genders is manifested in American library science. To visualize gender, bibliometric analyses of peer reviewed articles published in three core journals of library science between 1980 and 2000 inclusive, are performed. The three journals are: College and Research Libraries, Journal of Academic Librarianship and Library Quarterly. Questions: 1. Does gender affect the publishing process regarding the distribution of female and male authors? 2.

There are reasons to believe that recent changes in the Swedish academic library environment create new images of identity. New information technology, changed educational methods and increasing numbers of students in higher education heavily influence the professional basis for librarians. The purpose of this essay is to examine and describe how the images of identity are conceived and expressed by staff in two university colleges in Sweden, Malmö University and Södertörn University. We define identity as the images of what the library is, what it is aiming to be in the future, what it should do and how. In a qualitative study attitudes towards and opinions of the role of the library in the university environment are investigated.

The public libraries in Sweden has an obligation to serve all of its citizens, but despite of this they often fail to include their LGBTQ-patrons. Since the year of 2008 RFSL (the Swedish Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights) have arranged a specially designed certification-process based on normcritical criterias that a chosen institution should fulfill to make their work more inclusive for LGBTQ-people. Sollentuna is the first municipal in Sweden to certificate all of their libraries. This study aims to examine what the certification have meant for the public library in Sollentuna and how a normcritical view can contribute to include LGBTQ-patrons at the library. As a method we used a qualitative interview-study to get a full picture of the certification-process and its influence on the public library of Sollentuna.

This two years master's thesis in Library and Information science, examines how the implementation of new technical equipment can affect how staff in public libraries organize their work and activities in the library. One Swedish public library in specific is the subject of research in this thesis, which has been anonymized as Kvarntuna city library. The study takes place in the beginning of the implementation of RFID-technology in the library. RFID, which stands for Radio Frequency Identification, is supposed to make the handling with different types of media in the library more efficient and in connection with the implementation one wants to reorganize work and activities in the library to make it even more efficient and also create a modern library.The thesis' method is qualitative interviews with six members of the staff. The theoretical framework of the thesis is a sociocultural perspective, especially inspiered by Roger Säljö, a Swedish professor in pedagogical psychology.

The purpose of this master thesis is to investigate what the work situation of children's librarians looks like in the year 2000, after the changes in society which took place since the 1980's. Did the tasks of children's librarians change during the nineties, and if so, in what way and why have they changed? Which new knowledge needs emerged for children's librarians during the nineties, and what was the cause of these new needs? Finally I want to know which needs for professional development arose, and how these needs are fulfilled. The thesis is based on qualitative interviews with children's librarians, library managers, library consultants, one representative of the Swedish school of Library and Information Studies and one member of SAB's children and youth committee. The study reveals that the identity of children's librarianship is strongly associated with the stimulation of language and reading.

This study is an attempt to examine how hospital libraries should develop its activities towards their target groups in time of reductions. The method was a case study of the hospital libraries in Uddevalla and Trollhättan. An opinion poll was carried out among a selection of hospital staff, patients, medical researchers and students. In addition a patient group at some wards was observed. The libraries in the study produce an annual report, which presents a proposal for developments.

Our purpose with this master thesis is to look at school libraries in two separate municipal contexts and with the help of case studies try to reach understanding of how the municipal organisation in general influences and co-operates with day to day reality. In order to achieve this objective we have posed the following questions: What importance are school libraries given in relation to questions of overall management and goals in the greater organisation? How are resources distributed and management allocated in the two cases? How are the various school libraries in the two municipalities organised when it comes to workload, employee role assumption and teamwork? In the section dealing with theory and previous research we present the theoretical viewpoint and the literature of importance for our subject. This includes a short history, reports and laws, and also some research and theory on school library organisation. Our method has been to study the circumstances in two separate municipalities, Varberg and Växjö.

The Swedish government has made the decision to transform the talking book system from an analogue system to a digital system called DAISY by the end of 2004. The purpose of this Masters thesis is to examine how public libraries are affected by this system change. This is carried out by studying the current situation in public libraries concerning the transition to DAISY. This qualitative oriented study is primarily based on interviews with four librarians and three library managers at six public libraries. Management by objectives is here seen as a suitably theoretical framework since public municipal libraries are partly regulated by the governments goals and laws.

Usability studies are not a central field of research in library and information science. Although literature in library and information science treats the importance of usable user interfaces quite extensively, the literature does not significantly treat potential problems in measuring usability. The aim of this master thesis is to investigate, through a critical analysis, the methods used when conducting usability studies in library and information science. The critical analysis is based on potential problems in measuring usability identified through a literature review from the field of studies Human-Computer Interaction, the concept of usabilitys original domain. The material which is to be analysed, is chosen from one library and information science journal Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the library for children and young people at Sahlgrenska university hospital in Sweden from a salutogenic perspective. The sociologist Aaron Antonovsky states that human health is benefited by the salutogenic perspective, since it stimulates our sense ofcoherence.The theoretical departure point is sense-making theory. The theory states that in order to move through life, humans are dependent on a sensemaking process. To make sense of our current situation, we need information. What kind of information depends on the individual and its context.