The purpose of this study is to examine if digital public libraries are serendipitous environments. Serendipity in this instance is defined as finding something unexpected and valuable, while searching for something else.A survey was conducted at two Swedish digital public libraries, where the Patrons were asked to fill in a questionnaire online. The questions were based on the work on serendipitous digital environments by Lori McCay-Peet, as well as considerations of human factors that could possibly influence serendipity.The result indicate that a majority of Patrons experience serendipity at the digital library, although it?s still more common to do so at the physical library or on other web sites. The result also confirms the importance of taking human factors into account when studying serendipity.

The purpose of this study is to examine if digital public libraries are serendipitous environments. Serendipity in this instance is defined as finding something unexpected and valuable, while searching for something else.A survey was conducted at two Swedish digital public libraries, where the Patrons were asked to fill in a questionnaire online. The questions were based on the work on serendipitous digital environments by Lori McCay-Peet, as well as considerations of human factors that could possibly influence serendipity.The result indicate that a majority of Patrons experience serendipity at the digital library, although it?s still more common to do so at the physical library or on other web sites. The result also confirms the importance of taking human factors into account when studying serendipity.

The aim of this Master's thesis is to investigate why and how projects with children participating in selecting media at children s sections are made and how the projects effect the collections and the usage of these collections. We have studied literature dealing with how the selection at children s sections traditionally are made, how children participate in society and the question of quality. We have also made a survey to find out whether it is common to do projects like this in Sweden. In addition to this we have studied the discussion of Patrons participating in library activities, having found mostly Danish material. Our study deals with five Danish projects, the reports of which we have read, and five Swedish projects, whose responsible librarians and assistants we have interviewed.

The aim of this master thesis was to measure the terminological consistency when indexing fiction. The study included ten participants, five librarians and five Patrons who indexed two novels in three steps. Besides calculating the terminological consistency a typified index based on the term frequency was created.Subject heading list Att indexera skönlitteratur was used as a controlled vocabulary and to calculate the consistency the asymmetrical formula was used.The result showed that the study produced relatively high consistency values compared to other studies. The subject heading list increased the consistency value for all of the participants, for the Patrons the increase was substantial. The librarians produced higher consistency values compared to the Patrons in almost every step and they had in percentage lower amount of terms used only once..

The purpose of the present qualitative study is to create knowledge about librarydigital services and their marketing to Patrons with disabilities in Armenia, on theexample of the National Library of Armenia, as well as, to discover opinions of theNLA librarians and Patrons with disabilities about the importance of library digitalservices to people with disabilities. Literature review and qualitative interviewing has been employed as methods to collect the empirical data. The results have been analyzed and discussed based on the library-marketing model of marketing research, marketing segmentation, marketing mix strategy and marketing evaluation suggested by Koontz & Gubbin (2010). It has been concluded, that 1) e-accessibility issomething new at the NLA and the NLA does not provide equally available knowledge, resources, services, facilities to Patrons with disabilities, because of the following main challenges: lack of continuous funding and support from the state, lack of appropriate facilities and technologies, lack of qualified staff, and historicallyinherited library infrastructure impediments; 2) no library service marketing is conducted to Patrons with disabilities at the NLA; 3) the opinions are that provisionwith such services is very important to people with disabilities, since they allow those people to gain access and use information in formats adopted to their various needs, and, of course, they become integrated into the modern society. The important role of a library as a non-discriminator and copyright protector in a developing country when delivering digital library services to Patrons with disabilities has also been discovered..

The aim of this essay is to investigate how Patrons, librarians and indexers use subject headings to describe and index fiction literature. We wanted to know if the groups concentrated on different levels in the text from a semiotic viewpoint, where words either can describe the manifest/connotative meaning or the latent/denotative. To investigate this we had four fiction indexers, four librarians working with fiction for adults and eight library users read and index four short stories. After that we did interviews asking them about how they were thinking when describing the texts, how they use subject headings, about their opinions on indexing and, in the interviews with the librarians and indexers, about their usual work assignments. The subject headings they listed were analysed according to the level they described.

The goal of this Master?s thesis is to explore the approach and general attitude of public libraries regarding Sign Language Literature. There is a need to study and advance how the deaf can find ways to read in their own language, as it is as important to them to be able to read in their language, as it is to the next hearing person. The purpose is to define and explain the full capacity of the problem. In the process of research, by investigating how library staff approaches and deal with deaf Patrons, the nature of the patron-staff relationship is revealed.

This paper explores the accessibility for Patrons with different physical disabilities in regards to materials, service, the library building and its website at two typical, medium-sized public libraries in Sweden.The case study is based on interviews, observations, and document and literature studies. As a theoretical framework for this study, Buckland?s model of information barriers is used to describe, discuss and evaluate how the two libraries work with accessibility. In addition, international and national guidelines are used to measure whether additional actions are required of the libraries to improve the accessibility.The results show that both libraries are well suited in various respects to provide for the different needs and the requirements of Patrons with physical disabilities. Some obstacles still exist in both libraries, especially in the lack of literature in accessible formats in different languages.

The purpose of this Master?s thesis is to describe how Swedish public libraries use Web 2.0-tools and their experiences of using the tools. Focus of the study lies in the contact between public libraries and their Patrons on the Web 2.0-tools. For the purposes of the study, the use of weblogs and MySpace were chosen for examination. The methodology used for this study was qualitative interviews.

The aim of this thesis is to investigate librarians? experiences and opinions about a system for fiction retrieval based on the subject headings list Att indexera skönlitteratur. I want to know if librarians experience that subject headings searches for fiction literature are a good working tool, if there according to librarians are other resources and means that makes fiction available and searchable, and how they estimate the possibility of non-professionals to use subject headings for fiction retrieval. Six librarians at public libraries in Göteborg where interviewed. The interviews dealt with their work with fiction literature, their experiences of subject headings as a fiction retrieval tool, and with their contacts with Patrons.

The purpose of this master?s thesis is to examine what needs and expectations the Patrons have on the local public library services for adult students. With increased knowledge of these matters the library will be able to support and improve the service for users. The focus is on adult students with immigrant background who study Swedish as second language in a municipal adult education school. The main questions are: How do adult students use the library at present? What do they consider to be most important when using the public library for their studies? How do these expectations correspond to their experience of the library services? Two focusgroups and one in-depth interview were carried out.

This is a study about the communication interaction in the context of the reference work at some public university-libraries and some private company libraries in Gothenburg and Borås. The primary purpose of the study is to investigate the communication interaction in a library situation. The second purpose is to deepen the knowledge, understanding and to establish what is important in this communication. Focus has been on how the intermediaries communicate and how she or he perceives this communication. The intermediary needs to manage the communication with all the different Patrons and different information needs of the Patrons.

This Masters thesis aims to examine how Swedish public libraries deal with the new challenge of evaluating web resources. In order to study this we have asked staff involved in gathering links for the libraries web sites to participate in a survey concerning how they go about choosing links. Apart from trying to capture this procedure it has been our purpose to establish whether the libraries feel they should provide their Patrons with evaluated links at all and in what way they are influenced by other libraries or other main figures involved when choosing a link. We were also interested in the differences between libraries with large and small link collections. When defining evaluation, we have only focused on content.

This study examines the cultural place and status of video and computer games in the Swedish public library. Using works on popular culture and the theories of Pierre Bourdieu, this study employs quantitative methods, as well as textual analysis, to analyze the results of an online questionnaire with 19 questions focusing on selection criteria, shelf placement, perceived competence, as well as reasoning for having or not having these games in the library. 286 out of the 440 libraries contacted is participating in the study, and the libraries consist exclusively of public libraries in Sweden that are found in the database of the Royal Library.The results of this study show that a larger number of libraries than previously indicated have started to provide electronic games to their Patrons. At the same time, patterns in the data and comments suggests that these games in many cases still do not enjoy the same level of cultural recognition as other media. Indicative of this is the way most libraries seem to focus on the medium being exclusively for their young Patrons, with seem-ingly very little in the way of investment for adults.

This paper concerning the regional architectural term known as the Tjust Empire style analyses manor houses built in the Tjust area by the east coast of Småland in the period 1810-1860. The term Tjust Empire style was invented in 1937 by PhD. Manne Hofrén in his dissertation on architecture in Kalmar län in the period 1650-1850. The aim of the paper is firstly to determine whether there is a distinct difference between the regional Tjust Empire style in architecture and the common Swedish empire style or as its Swedish equivalent is known; the Karl Johan style. Secondly, the paper strives to analyse why and how the Empire style became so popular in the area during this period, focusing on architecture as a means to express social identity and status.