Rainbow shelves, shelves with a LGBTQ theme, are becoming popular in Swedish libraries, and may have been created to counteract the poor indexing of the fiction with LGBTQ themes. The purpose of this thesis is to examine how the books on this shelf are indexed in one Swedish library. In order to do so we first examine the subject headings list used to index fiction to see what LGBTQ subject headings there are and if they are lacking in any way. Then we examine the representation of these subject headings on the rainbow shelf to see how the shortcomings of the list influence the indexing. We also do a content analysis on the books found to have no LGBTQ subject headings to examine why they have been placed on the shelf. Are there shortcomings in the indexing of these books? We use queer theory to suggest that the shortcomings of the indexing is caused by the underlying heteronormativity of our society. We find that many LGBTQ words are not represented in the subject headings list and that heteronormativity is predominant but only made visible through what does not conform to the norm. The most prevalent LGBTQ subject headings in the rainbow shelf are those concerning homosexuality, while bisexuality and transgender subject headings are barely used at all. We find that the indexing of the books without LGBTQ terms in many cases is lacking, but in others it is a question of how you choose to interpret the book.

The aim of this thesis is to study social tagging in an OPAC by looking at the tags of Ann Arbor District Library’s catalogue. In this thesis I analyse the possibilities of social tagging. The main questions to be answered are what is the distribution of tags in different categories, what are the differences between fiction and non-fiction and how do the social tags differ from the terms of the professional indexing practice. Studying 500 tags I find that subject matter was the most frequent category for tags assigned to fiction and non-fiction. The tags assigned to fiction were more multi-dimensional than the tags assigned to non-fiction. The tag categories experience and task, which are unique to the social tagging practice, were not used frequently. I suggested that they still had potential to be of interest to users with common interest and taste. The study shows that the users did not, to any higher extent, use the terms of the catalogue. The tags were in general less specific than the professional terms. In the thesis I use communication theory to analyse the social tagging practice and two different terminologies. I find that the social tagging practice has the potential of being a complement to the professional indexing, allowing users to use more associations and their own terms. I find that the manga and anime community used their own terms that in many ways were different from the professional terms. / Uppsatsnivå: D

The aim of this master thesis is to find out how indexing of fiction works. I look at the consistency when users’ choices of index words are compared with each other and I also compare users’ choices to the current indexing made by libraries. I examine the subject heading list, Att indexera skönlitteratur, to find out how well it works in this particular context. The investigation included seven users who, in three steps, are creating a subject heading index of the Swedish novel Klippdockan by Cecilia Dahlheim. On the basis of their choices the results may either indicate that the consistency is good enough for subject heading index fiction, or if it is just a waste of time depending on how it is done today. The results show that consistency is low overall and that certain aspects point out changes that can be made to make subject heading index for fiction more efficient and effective. The survey shows that consistency is higher if the document text is short, if a subject heading list is used and if the words are not too specific. Today there is an increase in the amount of fiction held by libraries and there is a need for more user-friendly systems as users increasingly search in the catalogues themselves. The conclusions are that there is a need for a subject heading index for fiction in our libraries, and that there are ways to improve today's situation. / Uppsatsnivå: D

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. / Program: Bibliotekarie