Swedish public libraries offer different kinds of digital help for their users. Sometimes by ”digital drop in” or ”smartphone courses”, and sometimes spontaneously at the reference desk. This study investigates librarians’ experience of helping users with non-traditiontal library questions, for example: banking issues and smartphone problems. Four librarians were interviewed and a phenomengraphical theoretical approach was taken. In the beginning of the interviews the informants was asked to define what digital questions are for them which resulted in a broad definition that included for example: Youtube, copying, e-mail, e-books, wifi, virtual reality and information seeking. The interviews were transcribed and then categorized in four themes that was especially prominent: definition of digital questions, what should the library help with, librarians competence for digital questions and digital help at the library related to the democracy mission. Because of the phenomengraphical approach the study focused on the librarians experience of digital questions as a phenomenon rather than on describing the digital activities the libraries offers itself. The result showed, among other things, that the librarians in this study experience digital help at libraries as an important task and describes it as relevant for the libraries mission of prevent digital alienation. The informants also problematize banking issues as a phenomenon at libraries in the light of legal and ethical dilemmas.

<p>Open access to scientific literature on Internet is a concept which is supposed to change librarians' work. The aim of the thesis was to examine librarians' perception of Open access. A questionnaire survey was conducted among librarians at libraries with specialisation in technique, natural sciences, medicine and pharmacy in Sweden. Even though Open access can be regarded as an alarming for librarians' work, the results of the survey showed that the future of the librarians' profession can be positive if they flexibly adopt their work routines according to changes in publication forms and library users' needs.</p>

The purpose of this bachelor's thesis is to investigate how working librariansmanage controversial media. It builds on three debates in the media about libraries and booksthat have taken place during the years of 2012 and 2013. The questiones asked were: How dolibrarians manage racist media? How do librarians manage media that instructs on how tocommit crimes? How do librarians manage sexually explicit media? And lastly, how dolibrarians manage pressure from outside of the library? The theoretical framework consists ofRobert Hauptmans division of the two kinds of ethical strands of librarianship, in this thesiscalled ”Free information” and ”Information responsibly”. The method used to collectempirical material was qualitative interviews. Three librarians were interviewed during themonths of April and May 2013. The librarians studied were all responsible for purchasingadult media. The study showed that librarians, at least the ones studied, were divided in theirethical thinking. On one side they considered free information to be a cornerstone in what thelibrary stood for, but on the other side they all considered there to be media which should notbe offered at their library. However, on one question they all stood firm in their belief:libraries should never remove media from its collection when told to do so by the media or thepublic. This division has been documented in earlier studies.

In this two years master's thesis a regional project, Futurum.kom, is studied through the experiences of eight librarians from two of the participating libraries. The interviewees have all attended local and regional seminars where questions about core values, target groups and the role of the public library were discussed, among others. The seminars resulted in a number of core values and target groups. During the project, a number of advertising campaigns are to be conducted. The first one of these had recently been implemented at the time of the present study.  The aim of the thesis is to investigate the interviewees organizational self-perception in relation to the project. Potential outcomes regarding the professional role are also studied. The thesis takes its theoretical premiss in theories of organizational identity, as well as in the concept of marketing culture. A qualitative method of semi-structured interviews is used. Results show an increased self-reflection, expressed through questioning what the library is, and who it is for. Also, an increased communicative awareness seems to have been developed, partly through the project. Although results are vague, there seems to be an ongoing shift in the organizational self-perception, manifested by an identified need of changed work procedures. In this respect, results indicate that the way of thinking about the library tends to be somewhat less library-centered and reactive, and more customer-focused and proactive, which is generally positively perceived. It is argued that the project can be understood as “management of meaning”; i.e. the project, its target groups and core values, supports a shift towards a stronger marketing culture. Although the core values as such seem to have had various impact, they do play a part in the questioning-process described above. Regarding the larger library, the project in many ways can be said to support the market-oriented approach that has previously been implemented. It therefore seems plausible that the change in organizational self-perception is more profound to the smaller library.

The main focal point of this study is about public libraries and its possible roles in today's society. Going from having had a clear educational orientation, public libraries has with time amassed several other roles, which all need to relate to the swedish law regarding libraries and other governing documents, as well as business plans. This thesis focus on a qualitative investigation, which was conducted through in-depth interviews with librarians and other staff at a public library in Stockholm, named bibliotek Plattan, to ascertain the prevailing opinions within this facility about the role of libraries and librarians. The choice of examine this particular library was based on the fact that bibliotek Plattan differs from the public library in general and only offers material for adults. Their collection of litterature is primarily based on fiction novels. As theoretical framework and analytical tool for this study a model of Jochumsen, Hvenegaard Rasmussen and Skot-Hansen is used to analyse what the library can be. The model consists of four spaces: the inspiration space, the learning space, the meeting space, and the performative space. The results show that bibliotek Plattan has characteristics of all four space, though the characterisation library as inspiration space is the strongest influence. Other discoveries which were made showed that the informants wanted to a certain degree to return to a traditional role for libraries with reading and silence as the main elements, and the general view was that in the context of libraries, using the term meeting place was generally seen as negative, as well as that it can be problematic to be a specialised library as there are manyvying ideas and concepts of what a library is and should be. This is a two year's master thesis.

The aim of this two-years master’s thesis is to examine the role of the body and the importance of nonverbal communication in the library workplace and to explore the possibility of becoming more nonverbally skilled. For this purpose a course was developed and presented to nine librarians in a public library in the vicinity of Stockholm in February, 2011. Qualitative interviews with the librarians were conducted after the course. Important theories for this work were Annemaree Lloyd’s thoughts on corporeality, Erving Goffman’s dramaturgical sociology and John Dewey’s learning by doing. Theories concerning what communication and nonverbal communication really are were essential, as was literature that shows that nonverbal communication is an important aspect in the profession of the librarian. Nonverbal signals of importance in the library setting were identified as being mainly eye contact, smiling, bodily movement towards the library user, tone of voice, proxemics (spatial distances), chronemics (time) and haptics (touch). The study also shows that the design of the library and librarians’ worktools interact with the possibility to communicate nonverbally. The course consisted of exercises normally used in the training of actors. This was based on the theory of Erving Goffman. The learning process was an example of situated learning in that it took place in the library. It also gave the participants an opportunity to share their knowledge and experience of nonverbal skills with each other. After the course the participants were given questionnaires with questions about their attitudes and experiences of nonverbal communication and their view on the course. After a week a follow-up questionnaire was distributed, in order to find out if the course had in any way had an impact on their work performance. The investigation shows that nonverbal skills play an important role in the work of the librarian. Training in these skills has long been neglected, since they have for the most part been taken for granted. This study shows, however, that this kind of training is important. The librarians who took part in the course testify that the exercises gave them valuable practice. Nonverbal skills can be taught and learned: and “it is time to bring the body back into the information field”.

During the last years the scientific communication has undergone a series of changes. As a result new and different forms of publication and distribution of research has seen the light of day, one of these is open access. Open access as a concept was introduced in the beginning of the 21 ́st century. The aim of this bachelor thesis is to examine what ideas of open access are present in the academic libraries of Sweden. Furthermore we will look at what different roles librarians, researches and research funders are given. The theory and method chosen for this essay is based upon the critical discourse analysis of Norman Fairclough, with a focus on linguistic aspects of texts as well as the surrounding context, which the texts both influence and are influenced by. By applying linguistic tools two discourses where distinguished on a superior level, the democracy discourse and the market discourse. Between these two discourses there is a battle for hegemony. Within the two discourses there are also several internal discourses present. The internal discourses are not necessarily at odds with each other, they are rather seen as different aspects that together construct their superior discourses.

Open access to scientific literature on Internet is a concept which is supposed to change librarians' work. The aim of the thesis was to examine librarians' perception of Open access. A questionnaire survey was conducted among librarians at libraries with specialisation in technique, natural sciences, medicine and pharmacy in Sweden. Even though Open access can be regarded as an alarming for librarians' work, the results of the survey showed that the future of the librarians' profession can be positive if they flexibly adopt their work routines according to changes in publication forms and library users' needs.

The aim of this thesis is to find out whether there is anycollaboration between libraries and daily activity-centres inScania and how librarians and care staff use literature towardspersons with, for example, intellectual disabilities. Furthermorethe aim is to examine if there are any views on how cooperationbetween the organizations could be developed.The method used is web surveys with mainly open endedquestions sent to both librarians and care workers in dailyactivity-centres.The study shows that most collaboration today is concerned withthe participants in the daily activities performing tasks at thelibraries. Many of the librarians also states that they offer bookdeposits. A few libraries occasionally offers reading aloudactivitiesfor the user group. Most of the daily activity-centres inthe study have groups that visit the library regularly. There seemsto be an interest for closer cooperation but lack of resources isregarded by the librarians as the main obstacle.Regarding the purpose of reading aloud for the user group itseems as if both professional categories see it as dominantly apleasant experience for the participants in the daily activities. Thecare workers also stress aloud reading as pastime and reading as ameans to create community. Librarians too stresses the view ofpastime. An important difference is that reading as a way offinding out facts seems to be much more important to the careworkers while the librarians much stronger press the view ofreading as a form of therapy.

The Open Access (OA) movement came to be as a reaction against the enclosure of information resources, facilitated by new distribution technologies. The purpose of the OA movement is to make research results freely available. The aim of this master´s thesis is to increase the understanding of how libraries outside of the academic sphere and within research institutes relates to OA. As a theoretical framework I created two different ideologies, the OA ideology and the nonsharing ideology. I also conducted six interviews with librarians. Through an idea and ideology analysis I relate the materials to the two different ideologies. The theories used concern information commons and gifting economies. My study shows that the informants have different views of the OA ideas depending on what aspects that is in question. Especially when it comes to economics and copyright issues the informants express a great degree of criticism against the traditional publishing models. In some other aspects the informants relied on the traditional publishing and thereby on the nonsharing ideology. The idea to make research results freely available was positively viewed upon by many of the informants. They sometimes plan and have ideas connected to the OA ideology. In a few cases they also work with OA materials, but the context that the libraries functions within makes it complicated and sometimes less urgent than it is in the universities to adopt to OA to a larger extent.