The purpose of this study is to examine the experiences and perceptions of children`s librarians regarding floating collections in public libraries in Gothenburg. In focus for the study are the experiences and perceptions that exist among children`s librarians when it comes to children as library users, the librarian`s working tasks and the professional role as a librarian. The empirical material has been collected through semistructured interviews with six children`s librarians. The material has been analyzed twice. The first analysis has been conducted through qualitative content analysis. The second analysis has been conducted by using a tool constructed with inspiration from Maj Klasson`s and Anders Ørom`s theories of the professional roles and identities of a librarian. One major finding is that the informants percept children as different from grown-ups in their role as library users. The way children are makes it difficult for them to get their needs satisfied in a library system that practices floating collections. On the other hand the perception that children can learn what it takes to be able to act functionally within floating collections also exists among the interviewed librarians. Another finding is that literature mediation and collection development are working tasks that are influenced by floating collections. The study also indicates that the librarian role as a literature mediator and the role as a librarian that puts the user first are threatened as the marketing role and the role as a mediator of technical knowledge dominate when floating collection is practiced as a media strategy. / Program: Bibliotekarie

The aim of this study is to investigate methods of collection development, the users’ influence on selection and quality aspects, focusing on non-fiction literature in Swedish public libraries. To find out opinions of collection development, I use the method comparative literature study. Antonio Gramsci’s concept hegemony forms the theoretical background, and hegemony as concept is related to a library context by using Maj Klasson’s text on the librarians’ different positions of authorities. The focus of the study is therefore on the librarian’s position as authority, in contrast to the users’ position, regarding selection of non-fiction literature. A short historical review leads to the factors influencing collection development today. Swedish library policy documents, the Swedish library constitution, Unesco’s public library manifesto are some of the formal factors influencing collection development at Swedish public libraries. The analysis consists of three macro themes found while reading the empirical texts: collection development, quality aspects and users. These macro themes are divided into micro themes in order to analyse the chosen empirical texts. The result of the study shows a difference in authority between librarians and users regarding collection development, the complexity of non-fiction literature and the users’ influence on literature selection. These authority differences is expressed in the texts as whether the librarians or the users are considered as the authority, and why, in developing methods for literature selection. Concerning quality aspects, a difference was found between the texts, since one of them acknowledges the users as the most important reference to select quality literature, and not the librarians. / Uppsatsnivå: D

For a school library to function as a support for the students’ development of their academic abilities, it must provide material satisfying their needs as well as the needs of the teachers. The school library should assist the students in their research endeavours, as well as inspire reading for pleasure. In order to do this it is imperative that the school library actively develops the existing collection and continually strives to meet the needs of its users. The aim of this Master’s thesis is to describe and reflect upon how a particular school library works with collection development. The study focuses on the material present in a specific library, i.e. the books and other media types used or sought there, and directly influences that library as the material is reviewed, organised and/or discarded. To collect data for the thesis an action research inspired strategy was used, mainly drawing inspiration from the four defining characteristics of action research as described by Martyn Denscombe: Practical (aimed at dealing with real-world issues), Change, Cyclical process (initial findings generate possibilities for change which, once implemented, form the basis for further investigation), and Participation (practitioners are involved in the research process). The study involves practical work at the school library in question, mapping the collection and reviewing user needs, which led to decisions regarding weeding and procurement. The updated collection was then evaluated through interviews with students and faculty. As a result of the study a policy for collection development was formulated to support further collection development in the studied school library. / Uppsatsnivå: D

For hundreds of years the scientific journals has been the foremost tool for scholarly communication. Publishing of research results is very important for scientists. Often the research is bound to the university and the research libraries supplies the scientist with all journals needed. The last decades the libraries have seen the costs for subscriptions to journals explode. Commercial publishers often lie behind the mostly unmotivated escalation in price. The purpose of the study has been to analyse which strategies a Swedish research library has to meet this changes in journal costs and electronic development, and also to analyse the development of alternative scientific publishing. We tried to find the answer to these four questions:If you look at scientific journals, what consequences has the last years of economic and electronic development done to the strategies the library has got for collection management?How does the library work with collection management of scientific publications?How do the library weigh different publications and forms of publications (monographs, e-journals and paper journals) against each other?Do the library develop new forms for scientific publishing?The case study shows that the library has developed several different strategies to meet the changes within the formal scientific communication. The libraries have been heavily affected due to the rising expenses. The consequences has been cancellation of subscriptions and lowered grants for monographs. To meet the changes the university has, the last years, developed an own model for publishing scientific publications produced by the researchers at the university. Our conclusion is that the lowered economic resources due to rising subscription fees affects the library negatively and that many of the strategies the library has developed to meet the changes within scientific publishing aims to set free resources or in many cases set free means to finance the journal collection. We believe that the university is on the right track when developing an own model for publication. We also believe that co-operation with other universities have to increase. The communication inside the university will have to improve to raise the knowledge for the role of the library in the university of the future. A possible future role that would strengthen the library's position within the university is to be responsible for the university's scientific publication. To accomplish this more co-operation and communication is needed between library and university. / Uppsatsnivå: D

The aim of this Bachelor’s thesis is to find out what librarians think about the public libraries’ collections. How do they want to develop their collection and what do they want the collection to offer society?Sanna Talja has developed a theory about different attitudes regarding collection development. These are named ”the general education repertoire”, ”the alternative repertoire” and ”the demand repertoire”. In the analysis of this study, I use these three attitudes to structure the answers from my own interviews.To investigate how librarians think about the public libraries’ collections, I made telephone interviews with six librarians at six different libraries. In these interviews, I asked the librarians how they work with selection and acquisitions at their library, and about their personal attitude regarding the library’s collection.It seems like librarians have a strong will to form a collection that suits everyone. My conclusion is that librarians’ thoughts on what they want their collection to offer society, does not actually match how they practically work to develop their collections. I also suggest that librarians need to have more discussion about these thoughts than they do now. / Program: Bibliotekarie

The purpose of this bachelor thesis is to study the collection development of video game collections at the public libraries in Sweden. It also incorporates aspects about how violence in video games effects this process. The material for the study was collected through semistructured interviews with eleven purchasing manager librarians at different public libraries. The librarians identified aspects of the collection development that were considered important, for example subject knowledge. Subject knowledge about video games were considered determinant in the decision making during the purchasing process. Knowledge about video games was important to understand gaming as a whole to be able to make decisions in the selection process. Policies were shown to aid the librarians by providing advice about explicit content. Even though the content influences which games the libraries holds, these along with other identified factors showed that video games is a valuable asset for the libraries.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine how librarians in a Swedish public library work with collection management related intellectual freedom and Shoemaker & Vos (2009) gatekeeping levels. Intellectual freedom is the right to express, explore, consider and access ideas and information without restriction. Intellectual freedom is a United Nations human rights. Working with collection management, while trying to offer a variety of information and opinions without violating any societal groups may create ethical work dilemmas for librarians. Although regulated in Swedish legislation and local guidelines as media management plans, there is a risk collection management results in limiting information for the library user. The librarian becomes the gatekeeper; the person standing between information and the users.   This empirical material was gathered through semistructured qualitative interviews with librarians in a public library. The Library Manager and one of the librarians at the Freedom of Expression Library (Dawit Isaak-library) were also interviewed for additional perspectives. The empirical material was analyzed using Kurt Lewins (1947) gatekeeping theory and Schoemaker & Vos (2009) different gatekeeping levels as a theoretical analytical framework.   The results show that although the meaning of intellectual freedom was known, there was a lack of a common understanding of the concept. The media management plan is not an active guideline and the majority of librarians talked about collection management as a ”gut feeling”. The study shows ”gut feeling” easily results in limitations on an individual level. The study also shows that the gatekeeper role now rests with the user and not the librarian.

The aim of this thesis is to understand how organizational changes within collection development of printed media affect public librarians’ perception of community of practice and professional identity. The data collection method used is semi-structured interviews with nine public librarians in Gothenburg regarding their experience of centralized acquisition and floating collections. The material is analyzed within Wenger’s theoretical framework concerning communities of practice and identity in practice. The findings show a spectrum of experiences. There is a general difference in the result between respondents representing the central library and the district libraries. The librarians at the central library, now responsible for all acquisitions, tend to be more positive to the changes. The respondents who experience most impact express an experience of lost control over the collections and the process of selecting new media. They express difficulties monitoring new literature after the centralization. Even though all respondents state the users as the primary focus, they have different approaches in terms of how the printed collections should be used to meet the users’ needs. Three themes are identified in the discussion section. Firstly, the public librarians in Gothenburg are discussed as a community of practice in terms of Wenger’s three characterizing dimensions. Secondly, collection development in relation to practice and identity is discussed. Finally, the respondents’ experience of centralized acquisitions and floating collections is discussed, using the prevalent distinction between a focus on the collection or a focus on the user as a starting point.

A substantial part of the work conducted by librarians today involves keeping up to date with current trends. This is particularly important in collection management and literature procurement. Though young adults in Sweden have previously been found to read less with worsening reading comprehension, a recent study suggests that their reading habits are changing. Young adults now read more, and it is increasingly popular to read literature in English. The aim of this master’s thesis is to study how a changed reading behaviour in Swedish young adults could influence the work of youth librarians’ collection management and literature procurement. Empirical data was produced through a survey that was sent to all public libraries in Sweden. The data was analysed by employing Bates’ (2002) model of different information seeking modes as well as McKenzie’s (2003) information practice by proxy. The concept of Wyatt’s (2014) model of selection cycle was used to analyse and discuss the findings. The result of the study shows that most youth librarians use information seeking monthly to keep up to date with literature. The librarians are likely to use information seeking to keep up to date with literature more often if they have noticed this recent change in young adults’ reading behaviour. Above all, how librarians use social media and interact with the public is significantly impacted by whether or not librarians have perceived a change in the reading trends.

<p>The aim of this study is to examine how work at music departments in public libraries has changed with time. To analyze this, the role of music libraries as well as music library users, selection, holdings, acquisition and technological development have been examined. The examined data consists of qualitative interviews with music librarians and library assistants at public libraries in Sweden. To get a time perspective, handbooks and articles about music departments in libraries have also been analyzed.</p><p>This study emanates from Sanna Talja’s discourse analysis of music libraries in Finland. In her study of Finnish music libraries she has found three discourses that give the library different roles in society. The first discourse, <em>The General Education Repertoire</em>, states that the role of the music library is to educate the citizens by supplying a broad record collection with “classics” from all kinds of genres. The second discourse, <em>The Alternative Repertoire</em>,<em> </em>states that the role of the library is to be an alternative to commercial music and the record industry by providing alternative music, that can’t be found everywhere. The third discourse, <em>The Demand Repertoire</em>, states that the role of the library is to satisfy the library users’ needs and thus adapt the collection and acquisitions to the local demand.</p><p>The study shows that all three discourses are present at the public libraries examined in this master’s thesis. My interviewees state that they want to offer a broad collection with all genres represented but they find it also important to provide alternative music that is difficult to find elsewhere. At the same time, a demand repertoire, where the collection is more adapted to users’ wishes and needs, gets more common and librarians have a less critical attitude towards certain genres that were formerly banned at public libraries.</p><p>The study also shows that work at public libraries has changed a lot with time. The music departments started with only listening service, began later to loan their music collections to the users and now even provide music files that can be downloaded and played on mp3-players. Loan figures of phonograms remain high, but have started to drop, which can partly be due to downloading and the fact that the number of young music library users, such as adolescents, has gone down. The technological development has also changed work at the music library, among other things information research, acquisition and selection. Even though technological development has changed the work and tasks at music libraries, the role of the librarian is still quite the same. An important task still is to search for and provide information even though the strategies and facilities are different.</p>