The study aims to examine how censorship and comics have been discussed in three debates. The aim is also to identify discourses and the orders and relations of power constructed in the debates, and to examine how librarians should handle debates about censorship and comics. Selected sources are articles from Swedish newspapers and tabloids about the debates on the Pox-trial, the manga case and the debate about Tintin in Kulturhuset. The results from the analysis indicates that the debates have been dominated by two main discourses: a discourse on freedom of speech and a discourse on social responsibility. Within the discourse of freedom of speech there is a range of perspectives that emphasize: artistic freedom, the need for open and free conversations, a discussion about how the comics are assessed in comparison with other media formats as well as a discussion about moral and moralism.

In this project an iPhone application for storing food and drink experiences was developed with focus on an easy interaction design. The already existing market of similar applications were studied and evaluated to extract their positive and negative features. Interviews with experts within the food and drink business where made in the pre study to get a good perception of how to divide and categorize the sections in the application. To optimize the usability, workshops with potential users with different technical experiences where continuously held during the development of the design.During the development two variants of development environments where evaluated. The final result of the application was developed in the environment that made the best impression and seemed to be the best alternative.The resulting product has a thought out design meant to be easy to understand, even for the first time users.

The aim of this study is to describe how Swedish research librarians feel that their work has been affected by electronic journals. The study focuses on medical electronic journals accessed through consortia agreements via Bibsam, the Royal Librarys Department for National Co-ordination and Development. This thesis includes two main parts: a literature survey and an empirical study. The literature survey shows that since the 1990´s most research libraries are hybrid libraries including both printed and electronic information sources and that librarians tasks to seek and organize information have remained but the tools have changed. Qualitative interviews were performed with four librarians at two university libraries and one university college library on how their work with electronic journals differed from their work with printed journals, which new tasks the electronic journals have brought and which have disappeared and how the librarians professional role has been affected.

The purpose of this thesis is to describe and understand the existing factors behind the selection of foreign newspapers in Swedish public libraries. We wanted to study this subject because the political situation in many countries is reflected in the newspapers and can cause difficulties in the selection process. Examples of this can be how to avoid newspapers with political propaganda and with censored content. Another reason for our interest in this subject is based on our prejudice that newspapers from other countries are important for people with foreign background. To answer the question we have conducted qualitative interviews with five persons who are responsible for the purchase of foreign newspapers at four libraries.

This essay focuses on the term usability while conducting a user centred system design. Usabilitymeans to what extent a user can use a product to achieve effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction.Development using a user centered system design means that knowledge about the end-users andit?s opinions becomes a crucial part of the development process. The question of this essay is if usinguser centred system design will lead to good usability.We used methods from a user centered system design point of view while developing an applicationfor a Swedish bookstore company called Bokia AB. This included user and task analysis following by aclose relationship between the developers and end-users by using sketches and showing themprototypes of the system while collecting feedback.After concluding our case study we determined that using methods from user centered systemdesign could be used as a great tool to further improve the usability and to improve an applicationssuccess chances..

This thesis aims to investigate the information habits of peoplewith a serious interest in music. What information needs do theyexperience, what information sources do they seek out to fulfillthese needs and what part does the public libraries play in theirinformation habits?To answer these questions a qualitative approach was used. Fourrespondents with a serious interest in music were interviewed.The theoretic framework was based on Robert A. Stebbins theoryon serious leisure and Karen E.

Our aim with this study has been to show the central factors that we consider have had animpact on public libraries in the "information society". We have studied two communities in the south of Sweden, Ronneby and Sölvesborg. These two communities have both started a development to the IT society, a society where information plays a great role, where the technique is the tool that supplies information.Ronneby community had early the aim to be the chief Swedish information center. A priority on information technology has therefore been obvious for them. Sölvesborg community has had another method and time schedule towards the IT society.We have been studying the documentation of aim and the strategy for IT development in different levels.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate an existing user interface. The company in question has a web-based user interface (available through logging in via their website), but they are interested in making the process of using the interface more convenient and the interface more accessible, so that users without a background in computing can properly manage the interface. At the same time they want to apply additional functionalities in order create and to manage increased traffic on the company?s website. For this reason it is important to take into account the issues involved in human-computer interaction (HCI) as well as aspects of cognitive psychology in order to make the tool and the web interface more usable, more motivational, and therefore more efficient and professional.

In public libraries there seems to be an unspoken consensus on what literary quality is. At the same time librarians are always eager to express the opinion that quality lies in the eye of the beholder. Quality is, it is said, something that you don t have to define. But at the same time it s up to everyone to decide what quality means to them. What I have been missing from the discussion in libraries about literary quality is a theoretical awareness about what it means to divide literature into higher and lower spheres.

In Sweden there are 560 000 disabled people over the age of 16, half of those are in use of some kind of mobility device.Living with a disability means that due to injury or illness you are having trouble functioning without devices or assistance in your daily life and has a big impact on the independence of the disabled user.The everyday life for disabled parents with young children are different depending on the type of disability and mobility device.Today there is no alternative to the stroller for the disabled user who use mobility advises. This causes problems when the disabled person on there own have/want to move the child.The following statement have been the cornerstone for this project: How to make it possible for a wheelchair user to move a child, in the 0-2 year, for longer distances with a focus on independence and safety for both adult children?Due the process, of industrial design, this question and problem have been solved during 10 weeks. The process have contained parts as meeting with users, analyzing, concept development, evaluations, mock-up making, testing, shape & color development etc. This in the end have resulted in a full scale model of the appearance of a proposed product.The result is a stroller witch can be connected to the users specific wheelchair due two one time adjustments.

The aim of this Masters thesis is to understand how librarians develop their reference service. The purpose was to find patterns in how librarians work with reference questions. As a theoretical framework we have used research in the reference field. Where do the skills of the search process come from: education or experience? Answers were sought to the following questions: - How different are the search process in practice compared to theory? - Which similarities and differences are there among the informants? - How important was the education in comparison to the knowledge about the libraries collections? - How did the changes in the school system in 1993 influence reference education and what could the consequences be to the reference knowledge among librarians? We sent out a question form and a search question which was answered by 12 librarians in university and university college libraries.

The aim of this study was to compare the Query-by-Humming systems Midomi, Musicline and Tunebot regarding their retrieval effectiveness. The aim was to see if there were differences between the systems but also between the user groups common users, musicians and singers. Query-by-Humming system means that the user sings a tune that the system then use to find the right melody.To compare the systems and their users, queries where collected from the different user groups and replayed for the systems. Mean Reciprocal Rank and Friedman test was used to do the comparison.The results showed that the system did not achieve equivalent and that there were no difference between the user groups. The Mean Reciprocal Rank showed that the systems had very different retrieval effectiveness, where Midomi was the system with best result and Musicline with the lowest result..

This master thesis in library- and information science is about the intermediary function of the library room from an environment-psychological point of view. Young people are a group in society who often reduce their visits to the library when growing up. There are lots of reasons for this maybe more attractive activities occur outside the library doors, making the young choose not to use the library. But if the library interior is attractive in itself, and has a welcoming atmosphere, there might be a change and the young people may well choose to pay the library a visit. What is important to young people how do they want their library room to look? Our purpose is to see how the physical environment affects young people in libraries.

This essay is about possible causes to the female dominance in public libraries. We have focusedon the 20th century in Sweden and the development of public libraries during this time. Forthis purpose we have done a survey of three different cities, Uppsala, Jönköping and Skara,during three different years, 1938, 1958 and 1978. We have studied salaries, gender and titlesfor the employed at the head library in each city and then made comparisons between them.In conjunction, we have also studied how women were looked upon by the rest of society,regarding their education and work opportunities.To achieve a comprehension of the society's view of women we have, in the essay, put threedifferent theories of the so called "female nature" in center. The genderization in the labourmarket has also been set to discussion.A comparison between librarians, teachers at different levels, and postoffice employees, hasalso been made regarding their salaries during the years (1938, 1958 and 1978)..

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.