This master’s thesis looks at discourses that use the pronoun ”hen”. The media debate in Sweden over this pronoun in 2012 started in connection with the publishing of a children’s picture book: Kivi och monsterhund, by Jesper Lundqvist and Bettina Jansson. The essay investigates how eight librarians, who take an interest in and work with gender issues, talk about the pronoun hen and about this picture book and other books that have characters which are not named as a sex/gender. The essay takes a discursive perspective on reality and on the construction of knowledge and carries out a discourse analysis of the librarians’ talk in the qualitative interviews that were made for this study. In the analysis of these interviews Yvonne Hirdman’s theory of the gender system takes a central part. The result of the analysis is seven discourses that are central to the librarians talk about books and gender and where the pronoun hen is a focus or a related issue. The essay argues that gender categorization is a dominant discourse in our western society and that certain uses of the pronoun hen, especially the discourse named as the Human-discourse, challenges this domination. The discourses that most librarians used were within the reasoning of the dominant discourse of gender categorization. A conclusion is that the meaning of the pronoun hen is not determined by any one discourse but that there may be a political intervention working towards integrating the pronoun hen into the dominant discourse of gender categorization and thereby neutralising the pronoun.

The aim of this thesis is to study articles in DIK’s librarian labor union newspaper over a time period of 40 years, 1974–2014, to obtain knowledge about depictions of public librarians. The aim is also to examine which discourses that can be identified in these depictions. Discourse analysis believes that the language contributes to realizing reality and by studying articles in DIK’s newspaper an understanding of the public librarian profession can be provided. This essay may contribute to increased understanding, new perspectives and deeper knowledge of the public librarian profession. The thesis' theoretical and methodological framework is discourse analysis, more specific Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe's discourse theory. Relevant discourse theoretical concepts are applied in a text analysis of the empirical material, articles in DIK’s newspaper. In the analysis, the public librarian profession were studied from four angles: knowledge and skills, tasks, characteristic features and the profession. The results of the analysis reveal that the public librarians have knowledge and skills in several subjects, for example in service, literature and information. It has also shown that there is a breadth and variety in librarian tasks. The analysis has also shown that there are positive and negative statements about the characteristic features of librarians and that the profession for a number of reasons, such as female dominance and low pay, has a low status. Four discourses were identified in the material, and with that four ways to understand librarians were identified: The Literature Discourse, The Information Discourse, The Service Discourse and The Status Discourse. This is a two years master’s thesis in Library and Information Science.

Introduction. Stereotypical representations of libraries and librarians in popular culture and media have been a cause of concern for decades. Nevertheless, representations of fictional libraries and librarians in video games have so far been ignored by scholars. This thesis aims at an initial mapping of this uncharted territory.   Method. The two types of source material, fantasy video games and textual productions made by video gamers, were identified through online searches. Various forms of data, such as screenshots, videos and notes, were analysed through qualitative textual analysis. Theory. The thesis is grounded in a social constructionist approach, with central concepts such as representation, stereotype, genre, and thematic and ludic dimensions of video games, mainly derived from cultural studies, media studies and game studies.    Analysis. Textual analysis was carried out focusing on (1) the form and function of libraries; (2) the appearance, personality and actions of librarians and their relations to library users, and (3) the significance of genre. Several themes were identified, such as the library as a romantic meeting place and a source of information about the video game world. Conclusion. Representations are often influenced by genre. For example, libraries tend to be reduced to resource generators in strategy games. While librarians are portrayed with fantasy features such as tentacles and green skin, the female librarian stereotypes dominating the media landscape today, the ”old maid” and the ”sexy librarian”, are clearly present in video games. Male librarians are more varied however, and the often referred to feminine librarian is not prevalent. Video gamers reproduce stereotypical images of librarians as angry, shushing and – in the case of female librarians – sexually attractive. Paper type. This is a two years master’s thesis in Library and Information Science.

The purpose of this study is to examine what happened to library storytime sessions during the COVID-19-pandemic. Qualitative interviews were conducted with children's librarians from Sweden and Germany. In total eleven librarians working with children were interviewed. Five librarians from five libraries in Sweden and six librarians from five libraries in Germany took part. A model of three approaches to reading was used to analyze the empirical data collected from the interviews. Several aspects of what the librarians view as important in the storytime session were identified; the theoretic model used was not sufficient to reflect all aspects. Hence a fourth approach was created, putting emphasis on relationships within the reading situation and also the reading experience itself. The way the librarians describe how they adapted their storytime sessions during the COVID-19-pandemic shows that not all aspects could be transferred to the substitutes for storytime used, such as online storytime and outdoor storytime. Especially difficult to sustain was the aspect of building a relationship within the reading situation when resorting to online storytime. In Germany, a less favourable digital infrastructure further hindered transfer. There was also a pattern of viewing children as ”becomings” more often in Germany than in Sweden. The German librarians emphasize the role libraries can play in reducing socio-economic disadvantages for children in need of it and also link storytime ”fun” to possible positive consequences such as intellectual freedom. The Swedish librarians tend to view the reading experience during storytime as important in itself, which essentially is a children as ”beings”-perspective. In both countries, the librarians had to try new ways to reach young children during the pandemic. The study however suggests that in-person meetings is an intrinsic part of both Swedish and German children's librarianship. This is a two years master’s thesis in Library and Information Science.

Utifrån en pågående neutralitetsdebatt inom biblioteks- och informationsvetenskap är studiens syfte att undersöka bibliotekariers uppfattning av neutralitet som professionsvärde, detta utifrån huruvida bibliotekarier uppfattar eventuella spänningar mellan deras professionella yrkesidentitet och ett aktivt politiskt engagemang. Kvalitativa semistrukturerade intervjuer har genomförts med bibliotekarier. Detta resultat har analyserats med hjälp av Macdonald och Birdis (2020) beskrivningar av neutralitets-uppfattningar och Hysing och Olssons (2012) tjänstemannaroller som teoretiska verktyg. Genom en idé- och ideologianalys har bibliotekariernas uppfattningar om neutralitet karaktäriserats. Analysen utvecklas genom att deras idéer om bibliotekarierollen karaktäriseras i relation till olika tjänstemannaroller. Studiens slutsatser visar att det förekommer skilda uppfattningar kring hur neutralitet kan tolkas. Gemensamt för informanterna är dock att de uppfattar att det är omöjligt att uppnå en fullständig neutralitet. Neutralitet uppfattas vara viktigast i mötet med användare. Bibliotekarierna skiljer mellan en personlig och professionell roll, men kombinationen av rollerna anses lättast när professionens ideal går i linje med det personliga politiska engagemanget. Ställningstaganden är en del i bibliotekariens yrkesroll vilket gör vissa tjänstemannaroller lättare att axla än andra. / From an ongoing neutrality debate in library and information science, the aim of this study is to investigate librarians’ conception of neutrality as a professional value. This is based on whether librarians consider there to be possible tensions between their professional identity and active political engagement. Qualitative semi-structured interviews have been conducted with librarians. The results have been analyzed with Macdonald and Birdi’s (2020) descriptions of conceptions of neutrality and Hysing and Olsson’s (2012) roles of public officials as theoretical tools. The librarians’ conceptions of neutrality have been characterized through an idea- and ideology analysis. The analysis is developed through characterizing the interviewees’ ideas of the librarian role with different roles of public officials. The study’s conclusions show that there are different conceptions of how neutrality can be interpreted. The respondents have in common that they consider it impossible to reach full neutrality. Neutrality is considered most important whilst facing users. The librarians differentiate between a personal and professional role, but the combination of roles is considered easiest when professional ideals accord with the personal political engagements. Statements are a part of the librarian’s professional role which makes some of the roles as public official easier to assume than others.

The purpose of this study is to illustrate the emotional labor of Swedish public librarians, find examples of strategies for emotional labor that librarians use, how personal attributes like being an introvert or an extrovert might influence these strategies and find out how guidelines and management affect the emotional labor of librarians. This is done by interviewing six public librarians who are working in different parts of Sweden, in differently sized libraries and with different amount of work experience. Our findings show that different forms of deep acting is the most common strategy for librarians and that consequences of emotional labor can depend on personality, and which strategy is used depending on this. Another finding is that management and guidelines play an important part in emotional labor. The leader should be involved in the daily tasks of the workers and should have knowledge of the situations that the worker deals with. A final conclusion is that knowledge and awareness of emotional labor can help reduce the negative consequences of emotional labor.

The aim of this bachelor thesis is to investigate how collection development implemented in a changed media landscape affects the professional identity of librarians. The study is based on three questions: Which problems, quandaries or possibilities are librarians experiencing in collection development? What does the idealistic view of collection development look like - and how does it relate to librarians’ actual work? How does all these factors related to collection development affect the profession of librarianship? Former research indicates that collection development is not that uncomplicated, and it discusses all kinds of practical issues. There is though a lack of former research in the relationship between collection development and profession, which is the aim of this investigation taking place in small public libraries in the north of Sweden. To answer our questions six librarians were interviewed in a ”semi-structured” way. In the analysis we applied Roger Säljös construction of the sociocultural theory and related it´s concepts to lines of reasoning in our result. The results and analysis showed that in the current media landscape there are many factors and considerations affecting the collection development process. First there are fundamental documents and policies, written based on the democratic mission of the library and then, because there is a certain ambiguity in the directives, there are the librarians’ interpretations, which sometimes might be based on personal ideologies. All this in combination with failing collection development tools forces the librarians into a certain controlling role.

<p>The aim of this two years master’s thesis in library and information science is to study how children and librarians recommend books through the website Barnens bibliotek. In the scope of this aim it also tries to answer the following questions: What qualities in books do children and librarians respectively emphasize when they write book recommendations? How do they formulate the recommendations? And finally, how do their respective recommendations differ?</p><p>To examine these aspects a total of 50 book recommendations were chosen and analysed through an hermeneutic approach. Out of these 50, 30 were written by children and 20 were written by librarians. The recommendations were analysed through Louise Rosenblatt's theoretical framework concerning literary responses combined with Alan C. Purves' och Victoria Rippere's model of literary elements. The theoretical workings of Aidan Chambers were also used for drawing conclusions about how to connect the results of literary responses to everyday library work whether it is in a library or on the Internet.</p><p>The main results were that children turn inwards referring to themselves and their personal feelings when communicating a literary experience, while librarians turn outward communicating a literary content. Both parts do seem clearly aware that they are mediating a literary experience to a third part, which of course is expected of the librarians but a bit unexpected in the case of the children. Both parts refer basically to the same qualities when recommending books, even though they do it in different ways. And finally regarding the formula of writing a book recommendation, librarians tend to keep to a set structure of literary responses while children are more likely to mix the set of literary responses. The results also point to how important it is for library workers to understand the readers to better develop collections and programs that adress and respond to reader’s interests.</p>

<p>The aim of this two years master's thesis is to examine public librarians’ views of their pedagogical role towards school children, and to illustrate the relationship between public libraries and schools as a background for the role of the public librarians. The theoretical framework is Carol Cullier Kuhlthau’s theory of the roles of librarians as mediators in reference work (Levels of Mediation) and in education (Levels of Education). The main question of the study is: How do public librarians view their pedagogical role towards elementary school pupils and high school students? Related questions regarding the use of the public library for school purposes, the communication and cooperation between the public library and the schools, the difference between public libraries and school libraries and the librarians’ view of pedagogical work are also made.</p><p>The method used is qualitative interviews. These are made with seven public librarians from different libraries in different communities. The study shows that the librarians are aware of their pedagogical role towards school children, but still the role is unclear and difficult to distinguish from the roles of other formal mediators such as school librarians and teachers. The study also shows that a number of conditions, such as the organization of the schools’ library use and the communication and cooperation with the schools affect the pedagogical role of the librarians. They are also affected by the traditional role of the public librarian, which is to be at the user´s service rather than working as a counselor. However, the public librarians in this study believe that the ideal way to work with school children is to support their learning process.</p>

The aim of this two years master's thesis is to examine public librarians’ views of their pedagogical role towards school children, and to illustrate the relationship between public libraries and schools as a background for the role of the public librarians. The theoretical framework is Carol Cullier Kuhlthau’s theory of the roles of librarians as mediators in reference work (Levels of Mediation) and in education (Levels of Education). The main question of the study is: How do public librarians view their pedagogical role towards elementary school pupils and high school students? Related questions regarding the use of the public library for school purposes, the communication and cooperation between the public library and the schools, the difference between public libraries and school libraries and the librarians’ view of pedagogical work are also made. The method used is qualitative interviews. These are made with seven public librarians from different libraries in different communities. The study shows that the librarians are aware of their pedagogical role towards school children, but still the role is unclear and difficult to distinguish from the roles of other formal mediators such as school librarians and teachers. The study also shows that a number of conditions, such as the organization of the schools’ library use and the communication and cooperation with the schools affect the pedagogical role of the librarians. They are also affected by the traditional role of the public librarian, which is to be at the user´s service rather than working as a counselor. However, the public librarians in this study believe that the ideal way to work with school children is to support their learning process.