The purpose of this study is to examine how organizational change is experienced by a group of librarians at a medical library. The main focus is the librarians’ own experience of this change. The change consists of making the medical library a fully digital library with strictly work related materials. Prior to the change the library was used as a public library as well as a medical library, with a variety of literature and quite a large physical space. To find out how the organizational change was experienced by the librarians the study uses qualitative semi-structured interviews as method. When analyzing the interviews the theoretical framework of Cullberg's crises theory is used. The results show that there have been a lot of crises experienced. Though there are individual differences in how much these crises are experienced by the respondents. The study’s conclusion also shows that there could have been a lot less crises experienced by the librarians if the organizational change would have been differently managed. The results in this study could be used by other library organizations in similar situations.

The study aims to examine how leisure-time centers implement reading in their activities and how leisure-time teachers perceive reading in the leisure-time center. The study also explores how leisure-time centers cooperate with libraries. The method used was qualitative interviews with six leisure-time teachers from six leisure-time centers. The leisure-time teachers were all recruited to the study because of their implementation of reading in the leisure-time center. The interviews were analyzed with a theoretical framework compiled by Limberg (2003) about ways that adults perceive reading in schools and libraries. The study shows that the leisure-time teachers have different attitudes towards reading, some aligning themselves more with school reading and others more with leisure reading. This points toward the conclusion that the leisure-time center does not provide equal opportunities for all children in Sweden to read in the same way in the leisure-time center. The study additionally shows that the leisure-time teachers and librarians often only have a superficial cooperation consisting of the librarian providing books for the leisure-time center but rarely participating in reading activities. Results point towards that leisure-time teachers’ perception of reading impacts if and how the leisure-time center wishes to cooperate with the library. Leisure-time teachers with a perception of reading that coincides with the school seem to be less interested in using the librarian in activities while teachers with a more leisure oriented view have more of an interest of including the librarian.

The purpose of this master thesis in Library and Information Science is to contribute to the knowledge of the conditions the public libraries have for their integration work — i.e. activities intended for newcomers — from the librarians’ perspective. The participating libraries were located in municipalities with significant refugee reception and a total population under 30 000 residents. Six integration librarians from six public libraries participated in qualitative semistructured interviews, which were analysed with qualitative content analysis and discussed within the theoretic framework of Practice Theory as described by Stephen Kemmis. The results show that public libraries based in smaller municipalities are vulnerable to increase of demands and that their needs of resources and/or relief by additional meeting places and citizen offices increases proportionally. The libraries are dependent of adult educational associations and NGO:s voluntary work to offer demanded activities such as language meetups and IT support. The respondents show a low degree of planning and evaluation in their integration work and few participate in the existing expert network. The most reflecting respondents aim to make all activities inclusive for all visitors. The library economy is characterized by temporary projects. The lack of evaluation and documentation threatens to weaken the position within the municipality and make the libraries subjects to saving measures. New program activities need time to get established, but the respondents believe that the needs will remain when the immigrants are no longer newcomers, which speaks for the need of increased long term planning.

The rural libraries have a different context then the libraries in a more urban setting and therefore have a different way to organize and plan their activities. The aim of this bachelors thesis is to examine how librarians at libraries in the rural settings experience their activities and their role in the community. To acquire this information two questions are raised; “How are the activities at rural libraries described by the librarians?” and “How do the librarians view the libraries role in a rural setting?”. Answers to these questions will be achieved through semi-structured interviews, and their answers will be analysed with the use of the Four Spaces model. Four spaces is a model for viewing the activities in a library, and their goals. The collected data is then to be categorized according to four different terms: meetings, children and young adults, more personal service and challenges for a rural library. Many of the respondents expresses the use of the library as a meeting place and the important role that the libraries play in a small community in many different ways. One of the problems with working at a smaller library according to the librarians is that they have to prove to the management that their work is important, even in the smaller, rural settings.

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.

This thesis is a study of information gathered from interviews of recently graduated librarians, with focus on their opinion of their professional skills. A total of 14 librarians were interviewed, all of whom have been working professionally in public libraries for less than two years. A qualitative content analysis of the interviews reveals that many of our participants have a deficiency in pedagogic skills and practical experience, their knowledge strengths lie in areas such as information seeking and using databases and so this is where they felt most comfortable. However, this knowledge is not frequently needed in their work within the public libraries. The results of our study therefore appear to highlight a gap between education received and skills required for the actual work.

Uppsatsen syftar till att synliggöra folkbiblioteksutvecklingen i Luleå, samt att lyfta fram fler kvinnor som bidragit till folkbiblioteksutvecklingen i Sverige. Studien undersöker vilka faktorer som påverkat progressionen av Luleå kommuns folkbibliotek, samtidigt som dessa sätts i relation till Sveriges biblioteksutveckling. Trots att Valfrid Palmgren beundrade och framhävde Luleås folkbibliotek i sin skrift år 1911, är Norrbottens bibliotekshistoria tämligen dold för omvärlden. Luleås bibliotek var bland de första biblioteken i Sverige som utsågs till centralbibliotek, där bibliotekarien Olga Bardh anställdes som chef. Olga Bardh var en välutbildad kvinna med stora visioner om att skapa ett modernt och framstående bibliotek i Luleå och Norrbotten. Denna studie ämnar undersöka vilken betydelse hennes arbete hade för biblioteksutvecklingen, och på vilket sätt detta i så fall yttrade sig. Uppsatsens teoretiska utgångspunkter utgår från Christina Florins (1987) teorier om den svenska folkskolans feminiserings- och professionaliseringsprocess i början på 1900-talet, Yvonne Hirdmans (2004) teorier om genussystemet, samt Hanna Westberg-Wohlgemuths (1996) teorier om könsmärkning. Med hjälp av kritisk diskursanalys har det empiriska materialet analyserats i hopp om att verka för social förändring, där undertryckta samhällsgrupper synliggörs.

The aim of this thesis is to create an understanding of Swedish academic libraries’ work relating to social media and how the libraries’ policies affect this. The study was conducted through interviews with three librarians from different universities, and reviews of their written policies. The results were analysed with the help of Evert Gummesson’s theories concerning relationship marketing. The libraries as a whole wish to use social medias as a way of reaching their users and to give them a broader understanding of the libraries’ activities. The study also shows that the librarians have a good sense of what kind of social media presence their libraries should have, and the importance of both content and tone. They work continuously in groups with questions concerning social media. Whether or not tasks concerning social media is integrated in the everyday work differs between the libraries. Where the work has not been integrated or supported by the manager, the work has proved more difficult and cumbersome. This, and the fact that many of the followers are other libraries or librarians, shows that networking with different parts of the library industry also are important relationships to nurture. The study also shows that all the libraries have policy documents in one way or another, but that the content of these can vary greatly. Most libraries choose to create some type of policy document before creating a social media account, in part to show to the managers, in part to create an understanding for themselves of what it is they want to achieve with their social media.

The aim of this thesis is to found out about what is a good treatment in the university library and what librarians can do to make the user happy. The study focused on the meeting between the doctoral student’s and the library staff, about how the doctoral student’s wanted to be treated. The study was carried out thorough a series of four qualitative interviews with doctoral student’s. The result I analyzed from the qualitative interviewers with theories. The result of this study showed that often appreciated by the user of librarians are friendly, smiles, have eye contact during the meeting and show that they are really interested in helping the user and have patience. As a result, I worked out my own model on the parts that some of them I thought were important regarding a correct user response. Then in the analysis I explain the parts in more detail.

The aim of this Bachelor’s thesis is to increase the knowledge of the professional discussion regarding the social role of public libraries. The empirical material consists of articles from Swedish professional library journals between 2010 and 2019. The study is designed as a discourse analysis using theoretical concepts by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe. Librarians' perceptions of the social role have been analysed as well as discourses connected to the concept. Various perceptions of the social role were found and four different discourses were identified. In the discourse The uncertain core values the social role is seen as something fundamental which characterizes the idea of public libraries. The discourse The public library in the local community connects the social role to social responsibility and the strive for equalization of society through cooperation with local residents. The discourse The social meeting place describes the social role connected to the library as a place open for all and with possibilities to meet across social and cultural borders. In the last discourse The meaningful user meeting the social role is described as meetings with users. The user meetings in the daily library practice are described as highly meaningful. The different perceptions of the social role for public libraries found in the study illustrates the width of the concept. The perception that the public libraries are not doing enough regarding the social role is prominent within several of the identified discourses making this topic highly relevant.