This master?s thesis investigates how six Swedish public libraries integrate equality aspects in their user oriented activity. The theoretical starting point for the study is that Sweden is a part of a gender system characterized by gender separation and male superiority, as described by the Swedish historian Yvonne Hirdman and theories that argue that femininity and masculinity are social constructions. Another starting point is that the library sphere cannot be separated from the gender inequality in society. Since the library is part of a gender system that value individuals who are seen as males and separates men and women, some of the library users may be neglected.

Residential estates are created without any adaptation to the users who will use them. Clients wouldprofit on involving users in an early project stage to create housing estates adapted to the user?s needsand wishes. Clients of the housing estates that require missions from consultants should realize that noone exclusive can represent other people's needs, regardless of the theoretical expertise they possess. TheSwedish million programme in the 1970s is an example of how objective expertise gained control, whichled to the creation of outdoor environments where few wanted to stay and live.

This study investigates the individual usage of the Dublin Core metadata format in three Swedish Subject Based Information Gateways, SAFARI, Svenska miljönätet and Svesök. The authors also present the reader with an overview of the metadata concept and explains in particular the Dublin Core Element Set. The approach to the study is investigation of Dublin Core application from the viewpoint of three major issues, user friendliness, interoperability and quality control. The study includes an in-depth comparison of the three different metadata templates, as well as interviews with people in charge of the metadata production at the respective SBIGs and users of the respective SBIGs« templates. The study shows that the three SBIGs are more similar than they are different.

The intention of this essay is to describe the problems with loss of books at three Swedish University libraries. It?s based on interviews with librarians. The library codes of ethics, the library law and the terms of reference of the libraries are central for my understanding. Interview results: Little was being done to stop theft.

Bakgrund: Media är idag en av övervakarna inom bolagsstyrningen och forskning visar på att det är den viktigaste övervakaren för att förmedla information till allmänheten. Det finns dock tvetydig och motsägelsefull forskning kring effektiviteten i medias övervakning, då det kan finnas incitament till att inte rapportera på ett opartiskt och oberoende vis. Denna studie kommer granska medias rapportering, för att öka förståelsen för dess rapportering och huruvida det är en fungerande övervakare eller inte.Syfte: Att öka förståelsen kring om media fungerar som en övervakare inom bolagsstyrning och i sådant fall hur.Metod: Studien har en deduktiv forskningsansats där vi genomfört en komparativ flerfallstudie bestående av medias rapportering från fem svenska företagsskandaler, där rapporteringen hämtats från fyra av de största tidskrifterna i Sverige. Det empiriska underlaget har analyserats med hjälp av en analysmodell som beskriver stigmatiseringsprocessen och denna har underlättat behandlingen av det insamlade empiriska underlaget.Resultat: Studien visar på tendenser att media fungerar som en övervakare i en svensk bolagsstyrningskontext, då dess rapportering överensstämmer med de kriterier som en övervakare bör följa..

Today multi-touch technology is the basis for many new techniques designed to improve interactions with computers and mobile devices. It seems that multi-touch screen interface makes the user handling very natural in the sense that there is no need for a manual in how to interact with the object on the screen. The aim with this paper is to establish a fundamental set of design principles intended specifically for large multi-touch interfaces. To reach this goal we have implemented a couple of sub-goals beforehand: It was essential that we acquired a good understanding of the current state of the multi-touch interface and the different implementations that exist today. To make this possible we constructed a multi-touch display, "Rosie". Knowing how the hardware is produced today will help us understand the limitations and also the possibilities of the design implementations today and in the future. We also needed to devise a sound interaction design process that conveys the modern designers work.

We are living in a society where the digital technology is a tool that integrates into our life and changes our daily life and the way we communicate. The easy access to information and the opportunity to communication change the schools organization and demands new ways of teaching with and in contact with the surrounding world. That is why it is interesting to know how teachers can create an education environment with support of digital tools that fulfills a meaning for themselves, the pupils and the goals of the curriculum. This study is about how six teachers in one elementary school creates an education environment with support of digital tools and how they think the affect the pupils cooperation, communication and participation.The theoretical frame for this study is built in a sociocultural perspective, where people learn and develop through participation in social practices. To get the understanding of how teachers are thinking about the challenges and possibilities that digital tools have in the education environment, I choose a qualitative research method.

The purpose of this study is to find out what the educators idea of educational documentations in ratio to childrens inclusion and impact in pre-school are, together with the child's own perception of the concepts of documentation. We proceeded from the following issues: What are the significance of educational work according to the teachers? What is the teachers idea of a childs impact and inclusion in educational documentation? In what way do the children have influence over, and inclusion in educational documentation? What are the childrens feelings of the documentations? In order to find answers to our questions, we used qualitative examinations consisting of seven educators and seven children from various pre-schools in Stockholm, and thereby, we have analyzed our results. As our theoretical frame, we used ourselves of Vygotskijs and Säljö's sociocultural perspective that is about "progress and learning", which is achieved by interaction and cooperation in a social context. The result shows that the aim of educational documentation is to reveal the childs development and learning, and also to involve the parents by putting up documents on the wall.

Purpose: To assess awareness and attitudes regarding HPV, HPV-vaccines, use of condom and participation in pap-smear screening among high-school students in Uppsala County. The intention was also to investigate if there were any differences between students at theoretical programmes and vocational programmes.Methods: 608 students from seven high-schools in Uppsala County answered a questionnaire covering demographics, awareness and attitudes regarding HPV, HPV-vaccine, use of condoms and pap-smear tests.Results: A majority of the students had never heard of HPV (86 %, n=521), HPV-vaccine (94 %, n=537) or the link between HPV and cervical cancer (88 %, n=563). Most respondents had a positive attitude towards HPV-vaccine (84 %, n=508), but the biggest obstacle was the high cost (37 %, n=227). The students believed that it was less likely that they would use a condom with a new partner if vaccinated (mean=78, SD=26, p<0.001), or if they or their partner used contraceptive pills (mean=62, SD=32, p<0.001) compared to how likely it was that they would use a condom in general with a new partner. The girls rated the probability that they would participate in a pap-smear screening as relatively low if vaccinated (mean=59 SD=27).

The communicating home concept has been defined byidentifying the dominating communication technologiesto/from and in the homes, the most important customerbehavior and user needs, the dominating products and thedominating actors of the industry.The evaluation of the communicating home industry has beenperformed with a five forces framework analysis and theoriesregarding value migration and value structures of industries. Ithas been concluded that actors of communication technologies,goods and access services will compete fiercely. The barriersof entry will however be high. When it comes to contentservices the situation is completely different. These actors will,to the largest extent, meet lower competition and low barriersof entry.

The aim of this Masters thesis is to examine the use of IT, that is the Internet and other applications of personal computers, among seniors 65+. It also deals with issues of access to IT for seniors in public libraries. The theoretical background of the study consists of Rogers "Diffusion of innovations", Hektors categories of information activities, and the Swedish IT-commissions categories of motives and prerequisites for the use of IT. The research questions focus on factors motivating the use of IT, the extent and the purposes of IT use, the consequences and the barriers that IT-users experience, and views on IT in public libraries and IT courses, respectively. Qualitative interviews were carried out with nine senior IT-users.

The purpose of this essay is to study causes for the lack of political trust in Europe and especially in Sweden. The essay starts with a presentation of two theories about the reasons for low political trust. Robert D. Putnam among others presents a theory that gives social capital an important role when viewing the low political trust. As Putnam sees it a person that participates in any kind of organization, political or not, develop trust for other human beings that in the long run affects political trust.

Democracy is now a legitimate claim not only in the society but even in the classrooms. According to the 1994 Curriculum for the Non-Compulsory School System, Lpf 94 in Sweden, are all pupils in all types of schools ought to have a high level of possibilities to be able to influence their education. But many studies have led to unsatisfactory results about the actual situation in schools. Swedish students are critical of the limited opportunities they have in influencing their own learning process. This essay is only one among the many studies that have dealt with school democracy during the last 50 years.

                                                  AbstractThe development of our society has in many ways changed the relationships between the political parties and the citizens. Fewer citizens are active in political parties, which has contributed to the fact that we see a form of catch-all effect and a development of parties that organizes more in forms of professional organisations. This paper has made a research of modells of democratic ideals and values between leaders and party-members in political parties in the local area. The purpose has been to show how these ideals and values can reflect back on the political development. The result shows that the development has created a form of catch-all effect and a professionalism in the parties.

The purpose of this master thesis is to investigate how the public library can support adult learning through collaboration with other actors in the community. This is done by examining the activity of Linköping municipal library towards the user group adult students. The questions raised consider; the political view of supporting adult learning, the role of the public library, who are the actors in Linköping, the experiences of collaboration and finally what promotes and restrains collaboration. The investigation is done as a case study with qualitative methods. The qualitative methods was found to be the most appropriate for this study, since the majority of the empirical material has been collected through interviews.