This thesis treats a new perspective in the theory of classification, the context-based approach. The aim is to find out what kind of value this new approach can have in the process of creating a classification scheme for a special library collection. The first question to be answered is how the context-based approach works in a real life. The second question investigates which role the research in this particular area might have. Illustrating a real-life situation, the unit of Rättsmedicinalverket in Linköping serves as the object of study. The goal is to model tools for creation of a classification system that emerges from the context and that serves a special group of people with certain interests. Taking a user perspective, an inquiry has been conducted to establish the user needs. The data was collected by a questionnaire and organised according to main tasks performed by the participants. Interesting results were revealed: The context-based approach may play an important role for classification research. It may be used as an alternative to the traditional collection-based classification schemes, but only if multiple procedures are applied. The inquiry method used in this thesis can be a good complement to other methods. / Uppsatsnivå: D

The aim of this study is to look at the identity of the public library, and to examine one way to make the identity of a specific library strong. PUNKTmedis is a newly opened library in Stockholm, aimed solely at people between 13-19. The question to be answered was: How can it affect the image of the public librarys identity when you aim the activity towards a specific user group? To answer this question, the qualitative method of case-study was used. Five interviews were carried out, with representatives from three different groups: users, politicians and librarians. Focus was on how these three different groups described the traditional public library, PUNKTmedis, and the future library. The results show that the traditional public library has an unfocused identity, with many different goals. PUNKTmedis has a very strong identity, with focus on the librarys role as a social and cultural centre. The future librarys identity is not as strong as PUNKTmedis, but more focused than the traditional librarys. The three different groups value the different roles of the public library somewhat differently when it comes to the traditional and the future library, but are very unanimous regarding the identity of PUNKTmedis. One of the main reasons for this is the strong user-influence that has shaped PUNKTmedis. This user-influence is something that more libraries could work with, in order to work towards a stronger identity. / Uppsatsnivå: D

The aim of this thesis is to describe and analyse the ideology behind Sida's cultural aid by using postcolonial theory. We want to analyse the discourse on cultural aid that is found mainly in Sida's publications. The interpretation of the sources is made with a hermeneutic base and by using postcolonial theory in combination with Paul Ricoeur's theories on the function of ideology: 1. ideology as distortion, 2. ideology as legitimation, and 3. ideology as integration. Since Sida - the Swedish Agency for International Development Cooperation - works with former colonies and gives most of its cultural aid to Africa, we have chosen to have a special focus on traces of colonial ideology in Sida's discourse and on ideas about African culture. A postcolonial perspective means focusing on certain themes like colonialism, neocolonialism, cultural imperialism, ethnocentrism, "the Other", the image of Africa, identity especially cultural identity and national identity, cultural hybridity versus cultural "authenticity" and globalization. Sida's discourse on cultural aid can also - or even foremost - be seen as expressing ideas on Sweden and the Swedish national identity. Whereas the general Swedish development aid discourse has a modernizing ideology which usually uses Sweden as a norm, the discourse on the cultural dimension of aid has a tendency to promote a view on African culture that is culturally conservative or anti-modern, and contrary to the normal habit of expecting countries receiving aid to follow in Sweden's footsteps. It stresses the need for African culture to be "traditional" and - thereby - "authentic". We see this as an ethnocentric discourse on African culture, which says more about the Western need of a "cultural Other" than about Africa. / Uppsatsnivå: D

The aim of this masters thesis is to examine how daily encounters between the Danish public libraries and the library-users called ethnic minorities are described within the public library field. Danish public libraries have been assigned to play a larger role in societys strive towards integration of immigrants and refugees. Within Danish politics I find an emphasis on the importance of maintaining Danish culture, but it is rarely expressed if ethnic minorities are, can or should be a part of it. Theoretical and methodological starting points are hermeneutics and text-analysis. My theoretical framework is research about international migration and ethnic relations IMER. I combine my text-analysis with contextual matters, such as politicians´ statements concerning ethnic minorities 1990-2005. Questions posed in this study are: How are ethnic minorities described in the two largest library journals 2000-2005 in Denmark and what views and ideas can be found? Can these views or ideas be linked to those of the politicians? 38 articles from the two library journals Danmarks Biblioteker and Bibliotekspressen are analysed with the use of IMER-research. The results of my analysis disclose differences in how children, youth and adults are looked upon in the journals. A general impression is that an emphasis on the Danish culture, without defining what it contains, and the description of Muslims as problematic is present in the journals as well as within Danish politics. However, initiatives are taken in the journals towards a discussion about what the national culture can or should contain. / Uppsatsnivå: D

The main purpose of this master thesis is to study the information support by the head office of the Swedish social insurance office to its administrators. The thesis only focuses on information that concerns laws, regulations and instructions. The study is based on an interview with the head of the division of law at the social insurance head office and a questionnaire answered by administrators in four different counties. The purpose with the interview was to find out about the information strategy of the head office and in the questionnaire the administrators could describe their opinion of their information support. Our special interest was the information channels and how the administrators were able to absorb the essential information. The result of the research was that the administrators were quite satisfied with the information support but they had difficulties in using the information channels. According to the head office the main channel is the intranet which the administrators found difficult to search and they required a better structure. Another problem was the lack of time and to heavy burden of work. The authors mean that the Swedish social insurance office should gain a lot by invest in an intranet with a proper structure that better could support the administrators information need, this would also lead to a great saving of time. / Uppsatsnivå: D

The purpose of this thesis is to make a comparative literary study of ten laboratory experiments with different kind of sources for query expansion terms. The experiments are grouped according to categories of term sources, which are: search results, collection dependent knowledge structures, collection independent knowledge structures and one that combines the two last mentioned sources into one. To enable a comparison all other variables were held as constant as possible. There is the improvement measured in mean average precision, which is used to measure the various sources potential. The result from the study shows a strong connection between the kind of source for the expansion term and improvement of the result. The experiments were structured based on results from A to B, the best result being A followed by B and so forth. The idea with these units is also to show potential common characteristics according to query expansion strategies. Unit A consists of the combined knowledge structure and has shown considerably better result compared to the others. The hypothesis of this experiment was, that different knowledge structures have various characteristics, that together reinforce each other. The experiments in unit B all use the collection as term source, including search result as such, and are also all statistically based. The only experiment using NLP technique and linguistically based measurement between terms, constitutes unit C. Unit D consists of all experiments in which collection independent sources were used for query expansion. / Uppsatsnivå: D

In February 2002 the European commission put forward a proposal for a new directive on The patentability of computer-implemented inventions, but which during my work on this essay has not been decided on yet. The directive has divided the decision-makers in the union, the commission and parliament, into two different positions regarding by which range computer-implemented inventions should be patentable. The parliament has amended the commissions proposal in a substantial way and the legal process has caused a heated debate both within the unions administration and among various interest groups both in favour of and against a patent on computer-implemented inventions. The loudest protests have come from a group that feels threatened by a possible software patent: Open Source. In this study I examine both the arguments by the decision-makers and by the lobbying for and against the proposal. By analysing the rhetoric in selected texts, I have been able to find different standpoints and perspectives on intellectual property. While the commission shows a narrow economic perspective on the regulation of intellectual property, the parliament has shown a concern for creativity that should not be too severely controlled by a few. The commission advocates liberalised rules of patentability while the parliament wants to draw the line clearly around what inventions can and cannot be given patent. There is also a divergent attitude to the phenomenon Open Source software, which the decision-makers have neglected in the process, but which other parts of the unions administration notice as the possible future of the software market. / Uppsatsnivå: D

The aim of this study is to examine a number of Swedish working public librarians and compare them with some popular standard images of librarians. In this project we have been working in line with these three questions: How do the librarians describe themselves and how can the descriptions be interpreted? What images are the most common and repetitive, according to earlier research? What differences and similarities are there between the images of the librarians and the working librarians? To answer the questions we have performed seven qualitative interviews with working librarians and collected relevant literature that presents various portrayals of librarians. To interpret the interviews we have used Pierre Bourdieus theories of social space, social fields, habitus and the cultural, academic, social and the economic capitals, as well as the connection between individual taste, class and social power. The conclusions of the collected material of earlier research and the interpreted material from the interviews have been compared and discussed. Results show that there are a lot of differences between the librarians and the stereotype images. The images usually show the librarian as female with a work that is more of a lifestyle than just work and she often lacks academic education. The librarians are also usually portrayed as shy or boring. Our respondents on the other hand are all social, well-educated and often have several interests outside work. As for similarities most librarians have some of the physical attributes in common, like glasses or tactful clothing. / Uppsatsnivå: D

The main object for this thesis is to study how students in library and information science at Högskolan i Borås search and valuate documents in the process of writing a paper. The study is based on a series of interviews with 12 students. Our methodology is also based on studies of their final product. The goal of the study was to map out how the students make their decisions during their search process. We studied the students use of search words, relevance judgements and how their need for information changed trough out the writing of their paper. Our theoretical background is based on articles that describe similar studies but in more specified areas. In our study we try to make a more general evaluation of the information seeking process. In the thesis we show how librarians could be of better use in their interaction with students and that the biggest problem for the students is that they are inconsistent. We also discuss some myths for example that more search ways results in better documents and that more references gives a better paper. We come to the conclusion that this isnt always the truth. In our findings we try to show how students in the same situation as our informants can be helped by being aware of the needs and problems that can occur during the writing of a paper and not making them themselves. We also hope that librarians can find use of our thesis as they help students in the future. / Uppsatsnivå: D

The aim of this Masters thesis is to examine how the gender structure appears in detective novels and in the society during the 1960s and 2000s. We have a pre-understanding that the gender structure is more distinct in the earlier books and we will investigate this by looking at the two aspects occupation and family role. We find this to be an important question to notice because society today isnt equal between the sexes. Our study is based on a theory of Yvonne Hirdmans, she claims that the man is the dominant part and the woman is in an inferior position. We apply a stereotype model she has conceived and we try to categorize the characters in the books we have analysed into this model. In the books we have analysed we have found that women are described as the weaker sex and separated from the males. They are also described by their looks, which we cannot notice when the men are introduced. We found that we could not see the gender structure clearly in the detective novels by looking at the aspects occupation and family role; we also had to look at other aspects such as the characters images. By applying Yvonne Hirdmans stereotype model we could see a clear picture of the men while the women were more indistinct. This results in that men can more easily identify themselves with the male main character, than women can do with the female characters. / Uppsatsnivå: D