This Masters thesis concerns epistemology in Knowledge Organization KO, as a field of study in Library and Information Science LIS. Using a theoretical model by Birger Hjørland and foucauldian discourse analysis as springboards, this study analyses three epistemological discourses in the practice of KO. The aim of the study is to show how these discourses are constituted and demarcated in relation to KO, as well as to examine how they fit into Hjørlands model. A brief historical outline of some epistemological trends in LIS is sketched, as well as examples of how different epistemological schools influence different parts of KO, e.g. information retrieval, indexing- and classification theory. In the empirical study, three epistemological schools are examined, viz. empiricism, rationalism and pragmatism. Each school is represented by readings of representative research papers, connected to KO. The study identifies some major characteristics of each epistemological school and its research objects. This paper suggests some minor adjustments to Hjørlands model, in order to make it better fit to actual conditions. This reformation of the model includes the insertion of constructivism, and within it standpoint epistemology. / Uppsatsnivå: D

The purpose of this Masters thesis is to examine the debate concerning Agnes von Krusenstjernas Fröknarna von Pahlen-novels from a ideological analytic perspective. This debate came to be called The Krusenstjerna feud Krusenstjernafejden and was most intensive in the years 1934-35 after Porten vid Johannes and Älskande par had been published. We examine 8 articles using a text analytic method. We have limited ourselves to public material that is available in Swedish press and Swedish magazines. Our ambition is, through this, to determine the articles authors political point of view and ideas of preference. In doing so, we wish to see which societal conflicts the debate about Krusenstjerna expressed. Since the ideological analyses include an investigation of the context in society, the theory fits our investigation well. Our analysis focuses on two aspects of the context in society which had a large impact upon the cultural climate of the 30s. These aspects are sexual politics and nazism. We see how these aspects characterize the point of views which are expressed in the articles. Throughout our analysis, a picture of a society in change is getting clearer, where things like equal rights for women and workers threatens the present patriarchal structure. Put simply one could say that the conservatives were pitted against the radicals, since the radicals praised the liberal bluntness of Krusenstjernas novels, while the conservatives considered this openness a menace to society. In our analysis a more elaborate image is given than the most common way this debate is described. For instance it was not always the radicals who sided with Krusenstjernas way of describing. A writer can be both for and against Krusenstjernas novels. At a first look it can thus be hard to see what their actual point of view is. Through our ideological analysis the articles are put more in focus since the backgrounds of the writers positions are made clear. / Uppsatsnivå: D

The main purpose of this masters thesis is to investigate how male public librarians experience working in a female-dominated area by interviewing eight male public librarians. We want to find if our informants have experienced, or are experiencing, that the library users react differently to the male librarians, as opposed to the female librarians, with focus on possible prejudices. Besides this we want to investigate if the male librarians have had any reactions from their colleagues based on the fact that they are men working in a female profession. We are using three theories in this thesis. The first theory is based on an article by Christine L. Williams about mens and womens experiences of working in a female profession. The second theory is based on Marie Nordberg´s study on hegemony. The third and last theory is based on an article by Yvonne Hirdman about gender. The conclusion of this masters thesis is that our informants feel that they have to work harder and be better then their female colleagues to fit into a female-dominated job. Another conclusion is that male librarians do not get more reactions just because they are men than female librarians from the library users. The third conclusion is that our informants have not experienced any reactions from their colleagues about them being men working in a female profession. / Uppsatsnivå: D

The aim of this Masters thesis is to examine the user service discourses in the field of public libraries that can be identified in four Swedish library journals. Also which underlying causes that control the discourses and the consequences of them are examined. Questions in this study are: which discourses can be found, what characterises them, what kind of different discourses concerning technology in society control the user service discourses and what are the consequences of them. The theoretical starting-point is Ernesto Laclaus and Chantal Mouffes discourse theory. The method is text analytic. 27 articles from four library journals bis, Biblioteksbladet, DIK-forum and Ikoner are analysed. Three discourses concerning service to users of public libraries are identified: a digital discourse, a human discourse and a pragmatic discourse. The digital discourse is found to be based on information technology and to have a nomological account of technological determinism as underlying cause. The consequences of the digital discourse may be more digitally based service and less human based service. The human discourse is found to be based on personal service and to have an underlying cause of technological determinism that is time-dependent. The consequences of the human discourse may be human based service in spite of technological development. The pragmatic discourse is found to be based on both information technology and human service and to have an underlying cause of technology seen as socially constructed. The consequences of the pragmatic discourse may be that both digital and human service are seen as complementary. / Uppsatsnivå: D

Libraries all over the world struggle against the threat of decreased funding and a lack of governmental interest. In countries with an under-developed library sector the interest from the government is often minimal or non-existent. Since the 80´s Sida, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency has contributed to the library development in Central America through the Royal Library of Sweden. Nicaragua was the first country to be counterpart in the project. For a period of eight weeks I have completed a field study in Nicaragua and visited the National Library Rubén Darío and public libraries in the country. There are three major parts in this thesis. The first is to consider how public libraries can contribute to the process of democratization in Nicaragua. The vision for the support project is to increase public participation in the process of democratization. I have studied how successfully this vision has been implemented. There are two different views on how public libraries can contribute to democratization: actively and passively. The second part of this thesis is a discussion about how public libraries in Nicaragua can and should contribute actively to democratization. The final part is a study of five kinds of hindrances to library development: economical, administrative, cultural, professional and political. The public libraries in Nicaragua, seen from a deliberative theory of democracy, can contribute to the process of democratization by providing information and knowledge to the people. The hindrances are many but mainly of economic character and a lack of political interest. A reestablishment of an education within Library and Information Science, a political interest and active libraries providing mobile service and lending systems are necessary for the development of Nicaraguan libraries. Public libraries are of great importance in the democratic process, especially in societies with a lack of the written word. / Uppsatsnivå: D

The aim of this masters thesis is to explore a mediators practical procedure during booktalks. The main question is: Why do librarians have booktalks and what does it mean to have booktalks for children? In order to answer our main question, we have used these three questions: - Why do our interviewed librarians have booktalks? - How do our informants prepare their booktalks and what do their presentations look like? - Do our informants have any follow-ups of their booktalks and if so, how do they do that? To limit the thesis, we have concentrated our study to Swedish public libraries and to children in the elementary school. We have conducted qualitative interviews with three librarians who do booktalks for children as a part of their job. The thesis theoretical basis is Aidan Chambers theory about the Reading Circle and especially the parts enabling adult and selection. The study shows that the main reason to why our informants do booktalks is that they want children to enjoy reading books. Since there are no follow-ups of the booktalks, our informants can never be sure that their work is getting through to the children. / Uppsatsnivå: D

The aim of this study is to analyse and investigate a rather new field of LIS studies, i.e. link analysis which is a part of webometrics. Webometrics has been described as the quantitative study of web based phenomena drawing on bibliometric or informetric methods. Link analysis has its counterpart in citation analysis within the field of bibliometrics. The questions the study investigates are if webometrics can provide LIS with new knowledge and if there is a place for webometric studies in LIS research. The study was carried out by a juxtaposition of different texts. As a background to the empirical part of the study a presentation of informetrics and bibliometrics is given. A comparison between link analysis and citation analysis is also offered. The empirical part displays two different views on bibliometrics and webometrics, as well as seven webometric studies of different kinds. The conclusion drawn from the text study is that link analysis has much in common with citation analysis, and that webometrics is a promising area of research, though it has some problems to overcome before it can survey sound research in the field of LIS. These problems mainly consist of the difficulty to gather reliable data for the analysis. / Uppsatsnivå: D

The aim with this study was to examine which information sources are used by the librarians in the process of changing automated library system and why. Furthermore it was of interest to examine whether there are any correlations between variables environment, information quality, information availability, information need and information sources. I used a quantitative method that was carried out in form of a nationwide survey. Questionnaires were sent out to all the Swedish libraries that had change library systems sometime between the years 2000 / Uppsatsnivå: D

The aim of this masters thesis is to examine how the educational work of the Swedish public library was regarded in the Swedish library journal Biblioteksbladet at three different periods of the twentieth century, i.e. the thirties, the sixties and the nineties. Using a theoretical framework from the field of professionalization and a methodological framework of hermeneutics, it is shown that the educational work of the thirties can be described as having a focus on free learning whereas the educational work of the sixties can be described as having a focus on public utility. The educational work of the nineties focuses on the information seeking process of the user. It is noted that this development during the century can be understood as a shift of the cognitive authority of the public librarians. It is shown that the change of exterior factors was discussed in two ways. The development of information technology has, in the eyes of the writers, moved the focus away from the collections of books to the use of tools for information seeking like the computer. The constant increase of adult students has gradually transformed the public library towards an education library. It is also shown that the public librarians had difficulties to welcome adult students. It is suggested by means of the theoretical concept of jurisdiction - that the reason for this is a conflict between the new role of the public library as an educational library and the older role that stressed free learning. / Uppsatsnivå: D

The purpose of this masters thesis is to examine how managers in public libraries are managing financial cuts. Questions posed are: What strategies are used by the library manager to handle the cuts and how are the strategies being worked out? What are the consequences of the cuts? How do the managers use their library plans in the work with the cuts and how do the plans change as a consequence of the cuts? Library managers in eleven communities are interviewed about their financial cuts in 2003 and/or 2004. The result shows that cuts are made in different ways. The study analysed the managers statements with a model about strategies created by Oulton. The internal strategies used most commonly were lowering performance and reducing costs. The external strategies were limiting cuts and off-loading. Mostly the managers plan the cuts alone and make decisions on the basis of their knowledge about the activities in the library. Consequently, cuts in the budgets were realized, but the negative effect was that the users access to the library service deteriorated. This study couldnt answer the questions about library plans, only two of the communities had such a plan. Our conclusions are that the strategic planning could be better and that library plans are needed. The managers can use more performance measurements and let the staff take part in the planning. By marketing the public library in the community, the managers can find more support and possibilities to co-operate. / Uppsatsnivå: D