The aim of this Master?s thesis is to survey what personal encounter at the library can signify, and to examine Swedish public libraries? policies for personal encounter. The posed questions are: What does personal encounter at the library signify? How are users and library staff represented in the collected policies? What do the policies say about digital encounter? 290 e-mail queries were sent to Swedish public libraries in May 2010. Of 140 responses, 107 stated that they did not have a written policy on personal encounter.

The aim of this master thesis is to find out if young people and librarians think that reference groups can support public libraries to meet the needs of young people, and if the reference groups, which the librarians describe, differentiates from the young peoples requirements. I have made a qualitative study with a questionnaire to six librarians who have experience from reference groups and ten interviews with teenagers. The result showed that young people have many interests and needs which can be met from the library. The teenagers were positive to the library and many of them showed interest in having more influence on the library. Many would like to join a reference group, but on the condition that they would be offered real influence.

It is important to identify the consequences of alcohol consumption among university students since over-consumption can lead to health problems and poorer academic performance. The following personality factors, neuroticism, conscientiousness and extraversion, have in previous studies shown to be related to alcohol consumption  and shown to be associated with the university students' alcohol use and living arrangements. This study examines the following question; Is there a link between university students' alcohol consumption, and;1) the personality factors neuroticism, conscientiousness, extraversion?2) their living situation?3) personality factors and living situation together?Participating in this survey was one hundred university students with a mean age of 23.4 years (SD = 2.6). To examine participants' personality, alcohol consumption and living arrangements, the NEO Five-Factor Inventory (Costa, McCrae, 2003) questionnaire was used and the questionnaire also contained self-constructed questions about drinking habits, living arrangements and demographic questions. This study's results indicate that neuroticism, conscientiousness, living situation and extraversion predicts alcohol consumption (R2 = .354, p <.001). Thus, students who have these personality traits and circumstances one by one or together have a increased risk for alcohol over-consumption..

The aim of this master thesis is to examine the opinions of the students of Linköping University regarding the role of the university library in their learning process. The study addresses the student?s expectations and satisfaction regarding the library services. The questions we seek to answer are: What are the students? conceptions of Linköping University Library as a part of their learning process? What expectations do the students have regarding Linköping University Library? Does the library fulfil the students? expectations? In what way has the library?s pedagogical ambition reached the students? What are the students? opinions about the user education? The study is based on a web survey complemented with interviews.

The structure of the Swedish public library field has been evolving during the last decades. The traditional mission of educating the citizens to become responsible, democratic and knowledgeable members of society has in a way led to the integration between public and school libraries. Lately new co-operational models have been under debate and a sense of resistance has arisen because of the economical and market influences. In parallel with closure of library branches new libraries have evolved in malls and wash houses and some with self-service with no use of librarians. This work shows how co-operation in rural areas finds the common goals for the people living there who are concerned about keeping the service needed including the public library and thus using existing means and crossing borders of commercial thinking.

The Swedish teacher education is continuously changing along with the understanding of learning. The teacher education at Södertörn University has an intercultural profile, which is considered modern and innovative. In this essay, students? experiences from their practical training are analyzed to examine the correspondence between teacher practice and the modern teacher role conveyed by the University. The results show that some students have experienced practical training where the standards of the University?s teacher role were met, whereas others feel that they have not received the practical guidance needed to be able to wholly use their education in their future employment.

This Masters thesis investigates user education at academic libraries. The increased demand on students to keep themselves updated in the information society of today urges libraries to develop their user education, concerning both content and teaching strategies. The aim of this study is to examine user education at academic libraries, and the approach of librarians in their teaching. The research questions address how librarians implement the user education and what they focus on. We also want to explore what differences and similarities there are between the user educations, and if anything could be further developed within them.

The purpose with this study is to examine school-leaders?, school-librarians? and teachers? expectations and aims for their school-libraries at two different schools in the city of Växjö. The study is based on these five questions:· How do school-leaders, school-librarians and teachers think about learning?· What function does the school-library have?· What roles do school-leaders, school-librarians and teachers have in the school-library?· How do school-leaders, school-librarians and teachers experience the co-operation in the school-library?· How would school-leaders, school-librarians and teachers wish that the co-operation should be?To be able to answer these questions I have done thirteen qualitative interviews and studied literature relevant to the subject. Three different theories are used as a theoretical framework; the traditional perspective, individual constructivism and social constructivism.

This paper follows an analytical and critical line of reasoning concerningindexing and retrieval of music in Swedish public libraries. The focus ofthe discussion is based on the terms included in the subject heading list ofthe Swedish Classification System. The empirical study is performed inthe context of online catalogues in the public libraries of Örebro andGävle. The theoretical background relies on the indexing theory ofProfessor Frederick W. Lancaster.

The purpose of this thesis is to describe the work process and the results of our work with developing a web based auction system for students at Linköpings University. The present options open for students to sell objects within the University is limited to a billboard that doesn?t support bidding. Because of that a system was developed to offer an environment where they could present there objects and let demand set the final price level. A new function in this process is the option of alternate ways to end an auction with the intention of eliminating some of the problems that exists within the currently available web based auction systems with last second biding..

The focus of this two year master?s thesis in Library- and Information science is the study of two Swedish Public Library buildings with the examples Lomma and Halmstad. The main goal and purpose of the thesis is to try to uncover which views and values of the public library are expressed in the examined libraries; and to what extent these views manifests are shown in its architecture.The theoretical framework is based on Raymond Williams?s cultural concepts of effective, dominant culture and the two extremities of this culture, called residual and emergent cultures. A second aspect is Yi-Fu Tuans concepts of Space and Place.

The purpose of this paper was to investigate the special services for immigrants which are offered by Swedish libraries on their different levels regional, local and school as well as immigrants experiences of the library services and how these services and experiences conduct themselves to the development of the harmonic multicultural society. The methods used were interpreting reflexive interviews with immigrants and librarians. The guiding theory in this study was a three-phase model by Gillis Herlitz according to which a newcomer goes through three stages in an adaptation period. Phase 1 is a positive honeymoon phase, that later is replaced by phase 2, a critical disappointment period, which then ideally should be resolved in phase 3, where the individual reaches a balancing stage of cultural adaptation. The results of my observations indicate that the performances of the different libraries seem to operate in a way that corresponds to the different phases in this model.

The purpose of this thesis is to discuss the possibilities of, and interest in, a digital download service at the music departments of the libraries. I chose to conduct my study at the city library of Gothenburg. I studied the legal download services that exist today and I did a statistical survey among the users of the music department, followed up by interviews to see how they took to the idea. From the inquiry I learned that a majority of the users was negative to having a digital service replacing the physical department, although a majority was positive to try a digital service. I also used the inquiry to compare the reasons for downloading music to the reasons for borrowing records from the library, but there was no significant difference.

The paper is a research of"The Library project", a three-year collaboration project betweenArbetarnas Bildningsforbund, Studieförbundet Vuxenskolan, Sveriges Författarförbund and public libraries at 14 places in Sweden.The goal of the project is to find new forms for collaboration between libraries, authors and organisations for adult eduacation under the motto "two branches of the same education tree".The purpose of this research is to make a close description of the project and also look at the goals anf purposes of the different actors in the project. The main thought is that the different goals and purposes have caused at least some of the problems in the project..

The purpose of this thesis is to examine how the public libraries work towards SFI (Swedish For Immigrants) based on the views of the overseeing librarians. To study this we have asked the following research questions:What distinguishes the public libraries? work towards SFI according to the responsible librarians? What distinguishes the communication between SFI teachers and the librarians according to the responsible librarians? What opinions are held by the librarians in regards to their work with SFI?We have used a semi structured interview method with seven librarians in charge of the activities with SFI at small and medium sized public libraries in a rural area of Sweden. The theoretical framework is composed of Marianne Andersson and Dorte Skot-Hansen?s model for analysis of the local public library profile and the authors? definition of collaboration.