The aim of this Master’s thesis is to examine the professional discourses that can be identified in the public library field. My main focus is to look at the professional views on the added value of public library. Questions posed in this study are: how does the professional language look when it comes of speaking and reasoning about the public librarys added value and function, which discourses can be identified in the professional language about the public library, what could the discourses entail for the future of public library? The empirical data consist of four interviews where the respondents have been constituted by public librarians. The theory and method used is a discourse analysis from where the discourse theory of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe have been utilized. In my analysis I have interpreted what is said by the librarians about the added value of the public library. From there I have been able to identify four discourses: market economy discourse, social entrepreneur discourse, democratic meeting place discourse and changes discourse. My conclusion is that the future public library holds changes and challenges where the role of the public librarian will be more strongely influenced by a market-driven mentality. Also I have concluded that it is of importance that public librarians are prepared for the challenges that are and the challenges that are yet to come. / Program: Bibliotekarie

The subject of this paper is the library job market in Sweden 1975-1995. Job advertisementsin the periodical of DIK Association (the Swedish federation for occupational groups thatworks with documentation, information and culture) have been studied.1975, 1980, 1985, 1990 and 1995 there were 2 170 advertisements of situations for librarians.They have been examined with focus on the following:situation description:qualifications requested:• type of library• size of municipality•county• hours per week• duration• designation• tasks• education• knowledge of languages• knowledge of specific subjects• knowledge of computers• experience• driving licence, carStatistics have been made. The figures of the five years have been compared to give a pictureof the development.The results have also been compared with what has been written about the changes that arehappening on the labour market in general, and similarities and differences have been pointedat.

The aim of this bachelor’s thesis is to examine what expectations a few, adult, frequent library users have on librarians' competences at a specific library. We also aim to compare how well the library users' expectations relates to how the librarians describe their own competences.The method used to gather the empirical information in this study is the qualitative semi-structured interview. We interviewed six library users and the four librarians who are employed at the library where we placed our study. The results of our interviews were analyzed with the help of a model based on Anders Ørom’s librarian identities. The model was further developed by us with the addition of another identity which we named the affective and social identity.The conclusions of this study are that the library users' expectations are based on their individual library needs which differ from person to person. Individually they don´t relate to all of the competences that the librarians describe, but the expectations from the user informants as a group meet the librarians' descriptions fairly well. Both groups of informants emphasize that the affective and social identity is important for the librarians to recognize to be able to meet the expectations of the library users. Other competences that the users expect the librarians to have is competences about literature, IT, general and special education and the way the library's books are organized. / Program: Bibliotekarie

This two years master’s thesis takes interest in the concept of marketing related to the Children’s Library. The purposes have been to investigate the perception of marketing among a few librarians working at the Children’s Library in the Swedish region of Halland and further to analyse their perception of marketing in the daily work at the library. Eventually to analyse the consequences of these librarians approach to marketing related to their perception of the library’s mission. The Regional aspect of the survey is due to the 2011 celebrated report about marketing the library. The theoretical framework is twofold, the marketing mix is used to understand what at the library could be used in marketing. The work of the Danish scholars Henrik Jochumsen och Casper Hvenegaard Rasmussen are used to understand the different functions of the library. Their theory present the library’s four different func-tions illustrated as "spaces". The spaces are the inspiration space, the learning space, the meeting space and the performative space. By those means the librarians perception of marketing in their everyday work have been analysed. The method used is qualitative, semi-structured interviews. Results show that the majority of the librarians preferred the vague word "visibility" to marketing. The con-cept of marketing was more seen as something communicated to users by posters and leaflets. When asked about interpersonal relations, accessibility and communication the librarians saw these concepts as important thought not obviously related to marketing. The spaces of inspiration and performance were more strongly connected to marketing than the learning space and meeting space. There is an urgent need to discuss the concept of market-ing in relation to the role of the library. This is a two years master’s thesis in Library and Information Studies.

The aim of this bachelor thesis is to compare book blogsabout teenage literature, two blogs written by librarians, twoblogs written by youth. The aim is to find similarities anddifferences with focus on how the blogs reach the target audi-ence of youth and how the blogs work with reading promotion.The method used in this study is a qualitative content analysisof four blogs. The study uses two different theories. A enquiryscheme partly influenced by a study by Connie Crosby con-cerning how to be an effective blog. Also a theory taken fromJofrid Karner Smidt and her three approaches to reading pro-motion: the promotion on demand, the active recommendingand informing promotion and reading promotion in dialog.For the library blogs to better reach the target of youth theyshould try being more personal and recommend other bookblogs in order to be a part in the blog community. Theyshould also stimulate the interactivity by being thorough andanswer all the comments they get on the blog.The result concerning reading promotion shows that thelibrary blogs appears as accommodators while the youthblogs appears as readers. All blogs write mainly about newbooks and the library blogs should think about promotingsome older books as a complement to the youth blogs.There are also a clear difference between the approachof reading promotion. The youth blogs represent the promo-tion on demand while the library blogs represent the activerecommending and informing promotion and reading promo-tion in dialog.

Since the opening of the first staff-less public library (meröppna biblioteket) in Sweden in 2009, the number of staff-less libraries has been growing at an increasing rate. Still, there has been little research published on this recent phenomenon in the Swedish library sector. The aim of this thesis is to fill a part of this gap by focusing on librarians employed at staff-less public libraries. The study targets their experiences with regard to changes in work content, competence requirements, and professional role. The findings are based on eight interviews conducted with ten librarians at staff-less libraries in six Swedish municipalities. The material has been analyzed using part of Wrzesniewski and Dutton’s job crafting model as the theoretical framework. In addition, Ellström’s concept of actual competence (rather than formal competence) and Ørom and Schreiber’s definition of librarians’ professional identities have been used to support analysis. The findings show that the introduction of staff-less opening hours impacts the librarians’ work content in terms of tasks, cognition, and patron interactions. This in turn makes room for librarians in staff-less libraries to develop existing or new competences. Changes in the professional role due to the introduction of the staff-less library are more difficult to identify. These changes seem to be triggered by developments in society rather than by changes at the local level.

In this Bachelor thesis, we examine how the work of the librarian has changed over the past three decades. The research questions focus on the changes in librarians´ roles and working tasks regarding factors like technique, meetings between librarians and visitors and also how to give service to visitors. We have conducted interviews with librarians at university libraries as well as public libraries. In all, there were four interviews. We have also compared the two types of libraries. We have looked closely at these factors: the tasks of the librarians, the skills needed, how the library has been used as a democratic arena, and what kinds of meetings there are among librarians and users of the library. From these themes we have created interview questions, and our analysis is structured according to the themes. We have worked from a theory on different kinds of identities within the profession. This theory is based on the works of Trine Schreiber and Anders Ørom who both are researchers in the discipline. Our conclusion, based on the interviews and also on previous research, is that earlier identified identities can be completed also with a role/identity that can be linked to a need of educating visitors, and a role/identity that regards marketing, i.e. to inform people about the library, its services and activities.

The aim of this thesis is to obtain a better understanding and a better knowledge of how librarians in a University College of Applied Sciences cooperate regarding information sharing. Seven librarians were studied by using semi-structured interviews. The analysis has a sociocultural perspective, which means that the informants have been studied as they are part of a social practice; a work practice, in an academic context. The results show that Kemmis’ theory of practice, with three dimensions of the practice, identified as a) cultural-discursive, b) social and c) material-economic, has been a useful tool for presenting a diverse picture of a social practice in this academic context. The interview guide had questions which were formulated in terms of information sharing and cooperation, with these divisions: Formalia, Work, Forms of cooperation, Use of information and Cooperation regarding information sharing in work practice. / <p>Titel på omslaget: Bibliotekarers informasjonsdeling i yrkespraksis : Et kvalitativt studium ved biblioteket på Høgskolen i Oslo og Akershus</p><p>Uppsatsen har norsk text.</p>

The aim of this bachelor thesis is to examine how medical librarians relate to their occupational identity and mediation of information. New technology and new ways of communicating information have influenced the profession of medical librarians and their duties, why it is important to examine their occupational identity. The research questions are: How do medical librarians perceive and relate to their occupational identity and as information intermediaries? How do medical librarians relate to their duties? The method used in this study is semi-structured interviews and the empirical information was analyzed using qualitative content analysis. The theory used for analyzing the results is Anders Øroms theory about six different identites which occurred in line with the development of society. The conclusion is that medical librarians have different and complex perceptions of their occupational identities but quite similar perceptions regarding their duties. One of Anders Øroms identities regarding mediation of information is the identity that suits medical librarians best. After further analysis using Øroms theory the need to add two identities emerged, one identity regarding information service and one about communication. By adding those two identities it is easier to understand the connection to the occupational identity of medical librarians.

This thesis aims to examine how public librarians talk about users in the context of self-service libraries in the library press, that means papers whose main group is librarians or people working in some kind of library oriented operations. The strategies has mainly been based on Foucaults theories based on monitoring and power and been investigated through a discourse analysis. The results showed that the user is mentioned in some different situations, often when talking about the library’s mission and services but also when speaking about security and monitoring. The discourses that has been identified have focused on the library as a place for all types of activities or a more market economy view of the library. A more security-oriented discourse could also be identified in the analysis. The conclusion is that users often are mentioned by librarians when speaking about the library as a place and the service provided by the library. Also when talking about security the users are mentioned. Users are often mentioned when talking about something positive or negative. The user is seen as both a possibility and a threat. Mainly the user is winning the trust from the librarians, but they need guidance and support from them. This view of self-service libraries raises the question of who will monitor the users when the librarian is not in place.