The aim of this Master's thesis is to examine and analyze what discourses about children that can be found in three Swedish culture publications, and also to identify the different social roles that are attributed to children in these publications. The theoretical and methodological background is discourse theory, as described by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe. Additional theory used is social constructionism and Norman Fairclough’s critical discourse theory. Three questions are asked: What discourse/s can be found in these publications? What do these discourses tell us about the view on children within the library domain? What social roles are attributed to the children in the texts and what consequences do these have for the power configuration between children and adults? Furthermore there is a discussion concerning what effects these discourses might have on the direct and indirect reception of children in the library. 84 articles from three publications - Biblioteksbladet, DIK-forum and Barn & unga – are analyzed, and four discourses concerning children are identified: the discourse of the idyllic child, the discourse of the indigent child, the discourse of the resource receiving child and the discourse of the equal child. Four social roles are also identified: groups in exposed positions, babies and small children, gender and pupils. The analysis shows that the unequal balance of power between children and adults is maintained and reproduced within the discourses, and is very rarely challenged. / Uppsatsnivå: D

The municipality of Falkenberg is a result of a unification of several smaller municipalities in 1971, each one with a small library. This left Falkenberg with an unusual large amount of smaller branch libraries. The object of this thesis is to describe and try to understand the political conflicts that have erupted during the period 1971-1994. Through a case study containing press clippings from the local newspaper, different reports, political meeting protocols, a historical background of the library and a study of library specific norms and regulations I can create an image of the heated debate. The participants in this debate can be divided into politicians and civil servants and the conflict circles round the fact that from an economical perspective, there is not enough budget to keep all the small, local libraries. There is a noticeable rift between the librarian and the politician opinions, but also within the group of libraryworkers, depending on where they are stationed, the head library or a branch library. Through different theoretical approaches; economical, organizational and linguistic, I try to understand why the situation has been almost static during the thirteen years I investigate in the case. The answer might lie in how the participants are protecting their preserves, by proving their political or professional identity through language. / Uppsatsnivå: D

The aim of this essay is to examine fan culture’s role in Swedish public libraries. I have interviewed, via email, six librarians who encounter and use fan culture in their daily work. The theoretical elements of my essay are based on a modified set of theories by Dorte Skot-Hansen that identifies six ideal types of cultural political rationalities. My study reveals that fan culture is used in Swedish libraries as a tool in increasing user participation in library activities. As a tool it is used first and foremost to attract young people to the library and to present the library as an environment that is welcoming to all cultures and all kinds of users. Interview responses suggest that there is a high demand for events connected to certain types of fan culture. I also draw the conclusion that the use of fan culture in a public library setting is facilitated by the interactiveness afforded by Library 2.0 tools.

The aim of this thesis is to investigate how libraries use thetools and ideas from library 2.0 in their reading promotionwork. We also want to include how librarians motivate thisuse and whatever merits and faults they encounter. We haveperformed document studies and interviews which we thenanalyzed with qualitative content analysis. Our theoreticframework in this study which we also used as a part of ourcoding scheme in the analysis was a model over the conceptlibrary 2.0 developed by Holmberg, Huvila, Kronquist-Bergand Widén-Wulff. This model describes seven aspects oflibrary 2.0 which is users, participation, library and libraryservice, web and web 2.0, social aspects, technology andinteractivity. We can see that there is a multitude of toolsthat can be connected to library 2.0 and reading promotionbeing used by the libraries we investigated. The library toolswe found most relevant for our study where blogs, useradvice, catalogue and chat. Even if the libraries could offerthese tools there were widespread issues with low userparticipation. We think this may remove the possibilities forthe tools. The web sites with high user participation had astrong focus on the social aspect among the users andlibrarians. We think this may be of importance but requirefurther research. / Program: Bibliotekarie

The purpose of this thesis was to explore the phenomenon called bookcrossing. To fulfill this I have asked the following research questions: Why do people participate in bookcrossing?What functions do books have for bookcrossers? The method used is qualitative, semi structured interviews. Four active bookcrossers have been interviewed. These interviews revealed that bookcrossing as an activity in a medium sized town is very small. It also revealed that many of the books that the respondents place out are never registered on the website, and probably get picked up by people who do not understand the concept of bookcrossing. Theories by Tveit and Ross have been used on the social function of books, and reading as a social activity. The results confirm the notion presented by Ross et. al, that reading is becoming an increasingly social and collective activity. One of the lessons learned from this study is that bookcrossing activity probably is greater in bigger cities. If a bigger city had been investigated, the result may have been much different. For bookcrossing to function well it probably requires a large population to draw from. / Program: Bibliotekarie

With the advent of a range of social networks, librarians all over the world have startedto ask themselves how this new technology can be used as a way to market theirlibraries. Today's information websites and search engines are difficult competitors forlibraries and information centers, and are forcing traditional information institutions tomarket themselves in new ways.Marketing theories have traditionally concerned themselves with money transactionsand marketing of specific services and/or products. Relationship marketing theories, onthe other hand, focus more on the relationship between the customer and the companythat produces the product or service. These two parties are seen as co-producers, andrelationship marketing theories tend to focus more on a win-win situation, than on thecompany gaining power of the customer. The relationship is the important thing, and thetheories concentrate to a great extent on how to nourish these relationships.This paper is a discussion about whether Facebook as a social network is a usable toolfor library marketing. Since both libraries and social networks are all aboutrelationships, we chose to make use of a relationship marketing theory to investigatethis. This theory was Evert Gummesson's theory about the most important relationshipsin marketing.The literature we have used in our analysis shows different meanings when it comes tohow to best, if at all, market a library on Facebook. The conclusion is that there is notone correct answer and every different library has to explore what is best for them. / Program: Bibliotekarie

This thesis conducts a comparative study between two academiclibraries, one Swedish and one English, in order to analyse ifdifferent funding systems influence the marketing of theirservices. The theoretic foundation is built on relationshipmarketing, which emphasises the importance of creating andmaintaining relationships. A qualitative approach has been usedthrough the use of case studies, with semi-structured interviewsbeing held with library staff and managers in both countries. Inaddition to these interviews strategic plans have also beenanalysed. The result from the study shows that whilst there aresome differences between the two university libraries there arealso similarities, which indicates that it is not clear if differentfunding systems have an impact on the marketing of the services. / Program: Bibliotekarie

The purpose of this thesis is to examine adults’ fictionreading habits. The focus is finding out what differencesexist between men and women to study the significance offiction to readers. The study is based on a questionnairesurvey with men and women coming in to a public library.We used Sten Furhammar’s reading dimensions andcategories to describe the importance of the respondentsreading experience and describe the ways that men andwomen read.Our result shows that the genres men and women prefer arenovels, detective stories/thrillers and biographies. Thereading experience can be either personal or impersonal andthey can read either for experience or for instrumental use.The respondents read in different ways depending on bookgenre, content elements and where the reading takes place.We identify several functions of reading fiction; the mainthree reasons are to read for relaxation, entertainment and topass the time. / Program: Bibliotekarie

This thesis is about how the library can help immigrants integrate into theswedish society. By studying leading documents of the libraries in Malmö,Stockholm and Umeå in search for how the relate to work consideringimmigrants and integration I have studied the library as a bridge betweenbeing included and excluded in the society. The thought is that the libraryopens the door to new worlds both for immigrants and born swedes toobtain knowledge about a culture different from their own.In my thesis I reached the conclusion that library on a day to day basisworks with the integrationprocess for immigrants. Although the leadingdocuments should evolve since they show gaps and seem somewhatmisguiding in their presentation of the libraries function. The librariesshould work more with analysis of the environment that they are active in sothat they are more individualized for the people around it. They should alsoprovide activities that shows more of the swedish society for those whomight come from another cultural environment, and this should be availableon their on language. / Program: Bibliotekarie

The purpose of this master thesis was to study the librarians’assignment at the public accesses computers, especially howthe librarians perceive what their task is and what their taskshould be.In order to answer these questions a series of ten qualitativeinterviews –inspired by the phenomenographic approach –was conducted with librarians who were employed at smallpublic libraries in municipalities with 5 000 - 25 000residents in Sweden.The conclusions in the master thesis were that librarianshave both similarities and differences in how they perceivetheir tasks at the public computers. The most essential taskwas helping the user with information seeking. Thelibrarians also perceived that it should be included in theirduties to help users with the technical/practical issues at thepublic computers. Competence, time and assets were finallythree outlying factors which affected in what extent thelibrarians were able to help the users. / Program: Bibliotekarie