This essay points at the importance of public libraries as arenas of meetings between refugees and the local population, and by this - creating social kapital in the society as a whole. The researchers Aabø, Audunson and Vårheim have created theories about low-intensive meeting places, that means – neutral, public places where accidential meetings with different strangers can happen, which can create social capital and trust among each other. To complement these theories I also use Vårheim who have implementet social capital-theories to the sphere of public libraries. These two theories complement each other and can help me investigate two public libraries in a rural area in Sweden. My purpose is to see how these two libraries are used as low-intensive meeting places for refugees and if the libraries contribute to build social capital in the society. I am interviewing library personal and the two heads of the libraries. I want to see what services etc. they provide for refugees and overall their thoughts and attitudes towards the library as a meeting place for refugees. In conclusion I have found that neither library is very strong when it comes to the function of creating meetings between refugees and the local population. But overall they have open attitudes towards it, and they try in different ways to provide services for immigrants. I can see in the material that these libraries have a good platform and possibilites of creating social capital in the society, and in many ways they contribute to this.

This thesis aims to identify bottlenecks in the internal communication of aSwedish public library. Specifically, it addresses the behaviour of the library staff when they seekfor work-oriented information through interaction with their colleagues. A fundamental assumptionof this study is that the information-seeking process depends on organisational culture. I have madean exploratory case study in a medium-sized Swedish public library, where relevant issues areidentified and correlated with the culture of the organisation.I have used Schein's three-level model to describe the culture of the library; this model definesculture as a set of basic assumptions and the actions of people as expressions of their culture. Datafor the study were gathered using several approaches, including interviews with the library staff andobservations of them. In order to describe the interaction of the staff during their informationseeking, I used additional theories, including the politeness theory and Morrison's model ofinformation-seeking within the organisation. Finally, qualitative content analysis was used to drawconclusions.The results of this study suggest that issues such as conflict avoidance, strong sub-group identities,and strong values concerning 'the daily work' may complicate the information seeking process. Ialso identify and discuss additional relevant contributing factors, such as task-specific issues. / Program: Bibliotekarie

The aim of this master thesis is to examine the attitudes among library staff regarding a music downloading service called Musikwebb, which is available in many Swedish public libraries. It focuses on the impact of Musikwebb on the process of music selection, the relationship between Musikwebb and the digital development in public libraries and what service Musikwebb offers its users. The gathering of material was executed through focus group interviews with library staff in four libraries. This empirical material we divided in three categories: Music selection, The Library and its digital services, and Library services. We use the results of Sanna Talja’s discourse analysis regarding the relationship between Music, Culture and the Library to analyze our material. In addition we use Anders Forsslund’s master thesis which also is a discourse analysis concerning human and digital services in public libraries. Our findings include that library staff is ambivalent in their attitude towards Musikwebb. The benefits of Musikwebb comprise that the service offers a wide collection of music, prevents library staff from making uninformed or arbitrary selection of music and that it offers around-the-clock service to those who master ICT. The drawbacks of Musikwebb includes the fact that library staff lose control over the process of music selection, offers little service to those who do not master ICT and that digital services tends to undermine the traditional role of the public library. Despite this fact we also found that library staff think that the traditional and the digital library services should coexist. / Uppsatsnivå: D

The aim of this thesis is to study how public libraries in Sweden use alternative shelf arrangements that differ from the library’s original classification system, which in Swedish public libraries usually is the SAB-system. I sent out a survey to 169 public libraries, where I received 114 replies. 77 of these stated that they had some kind of alternative shelf arrangement, therefore these are the ones that are included in my study. I wanted to investigate in what way the libraries had changed their shelf arrangement and why this decision was made. I also wanted to explore the staff’s attitude towards this change, and how they perceived the user-satisfaction after the change. I came to the conclusion that most libraries had arranged their collections after category and genre. The most prominent reason to change their shelf arrangements was to make the library more user-friendly, the SAB-system was considered to be too complicated for the users to understand. Most of the staff had a positive attitude towards the change, they considered it to be an exciting project and something that would benefit both staff and users. They were of the opinion that most users had appreciated the change, and that it had assisted them, better than before, in finding what they were looking for in the library. / Program: Bibliotekarie

Today, one of the foremost tools used by the library staff is the library catalogue search tools. It has come to our understanding that some library staff are dissatisfied with how the search tools works. The aim of this study is to illuminate the library staff's negative experiences of the search tools, and to present a basis for future discussion and development. To our help we have used a quantitative survey which were sent to library staff that used one of the two largest integrated library systems in Sweden, BOOK-IT and Mikromarc. The questions regarded the library staff's perception of a number of features in the search tools. The results showed that in general, the overall impression of the catalogue search tools were positive, even though dissatisfaction with specific features could be observed, e.g. the system's way of handling misspellings and the ability to search the catalogue when the system is offline. This study can be seen as a small step on the way to better search tools in the library catalogue, giving the library staff better and more effective ways of providing service to the library users.

English title: ”They occupy our comfortable couches and armchairs” - the library staff’s view on problem patrons. The purpose of this study was to examine the views of problem patrons among staff at swedish public libraries to see if there was an overall view. We also wanted to look into which feelings these patrons bring up from the staffs perspective and to whom the problem patron is a problem for. We sent out an questionnaire to employees in public libraries and got responses from over 20 different counties. As a theoretical framework we used social constructionism and the results were analysed by using a modified version of Berger and Luckmanns Social construction of reality model.   The results of this study identifies nine different categories of problem patrons and the most common feelings these patrons contribute to were frustration and discomfort. Our results also shows that the problem patron can be a problem to both the employees at the library and to other library visitors, but not always at the same time, in the same situations, and under the same conditions. Whether a patron becomes viewed as a problem or not depends according to this study on society and library norms, which we try enlight in our analysis and discussion section.

<p> </p><p>This bachelor’s thesis purpose is to examine how library staff experiences the meeting with non-Swedish speaking users of public libraries, and how they solve different situations. Today there is not much research on this subject but we find these questions important to study because we think it is good to be aware of the situations that can arise and discuss how to solve any problems. To have a basis for this qualitative study we conducted group interviews with library staff, where they are asked about their experiences with non-Swedish speaking users. In the analysis the results of the interviews are compared to previous research and related to communication theory, which is the theoretical framework for this study. In order to clarify how the barriers for communication affect the meeting a barrier model is applied.</p><p>After the analysis a discussion follows, where the term “non-Swedish speaking” is reasoned about, as well as the question whether it is possible to deal with all user groups equally. Finally the conclusions are presented. Our findings are among others that meeting with non-Swedish speaking users where the library staff has difficulties with understanding their intentions occur every day. Many of the informants believe that language can create barriers, which can lead to a meeting of poor quality. Body language is considered a great asset in communication when the verbal language is not enough. Additional solutions may be to cooperate with colleagues or other users in the library, but it is also important to be imaginative and flexible to make the communication work and to make the experience of the meeting as good as possible.</p><p> </p>

The aim of this study is to deepen the knowledge of how libraryusers, library personnel and the relationship between them are expressed in “strategicdocuments” of university libraries in Sweden. As used in this study, strategic documentshave the purpose of pointing out focus and strategic planning for an organization. Sixstrategic documents are chosen. The main theory and method used is critical discourseanalysis signed Norman Fairclough. His three-part method: text analysis, discoursepractice and sociocultural practice, is used as a toolbox. The study also analysesstrategic documents as a genre.The analysis reveals that the image of the user presented in the strategic documents isindistinct, focusing on what the library should do but not for whom they should do it.The library personnel were, with one exception, not mentioned in terms of “librarians”but instead in terms of the more impersonal and less specific “staff” or “co-workers”.This suggests that the library personnel are exchangeable and change is what definesboth the occupation and the library. Strategies of professionalization were protrudingand technology was the most significant motivator for the organization.The relationship between the library users and the library personnel is not as evident inthe material as could be expected; it is foremost expressed as existing between theuniversity and the library. We see this as problematic as the relationship between thelibrary personnel and the library users is the key to the legitimization of universitylibraries. The study reveals three main discourses; the discourse of effectiveness, thetechnical discourse and the discourse of change and renewal, which together point outfuture directions for university libraries in Sweden. / Program: Bibliotekarie

Little attention has been paid in the literature to libraryassistants in Swedish public libraries. In this bachelor thesis,the professional role, work duties, career prospects and statusof library assistants are examined at two public libraries.Because of a scarcity of published information on thedevelopment of this profession in Swedish public libraries,retired library assistants, as well as currently employedlibrary assistants, librarians and a library head wereinterviewed.Since the ‘80s, work duties of library assistants havechanged, with a reduction in some of the more manualaspects of library work, the development of new duties and,overall, an increasing similarity in the duties performed bylibrary assistants and librarians.Additionally, the public perception of library assistants as acategory distinct from librarians was investigated bydistributing questionnaires to library patrons. Contrary toexpectations prompted by statements in the literature, asubstantial portion of visitors was found to be aware of thetwo separate categories.Library assistants at Swedish libraries have no careerprospects, unless they undertake studies in their own freetime and at their own cost, and obtain a librarian degree. Adifference between the situation of library assistants inSweden and corresponding professional categories in a fewother countries is that, at present and for several years, noformal education for library assistants has been available inSweden. Plans for a reintroduction of such education wereindefinitely shelved in 2004, principally because of theopposition of librarians’ professional associations and tradeunions. / Program: Bibliotekarie

This bachelor’s thesis purpose is to examine how library staff experiences the meeting with non-Swedish speaking users of public libraries, and how they solve different situations. Today there is not much research on this subject but we find these questions important to study because we think it is good to be aware of the situations that can arise and discuss how to solve any problems. To have a basis for this qualitative study we conducted group interviews with library staff, where they are asked about their experiences with non-Swedish speaking users. In the analysis the results of the interviews are compared to previous research and related to communication theory, which is the theoretical framework for this study. In order to clarify how the barriers for communication affect the meeting a barrier model is applied. After the analysis a discussion follows, where the term “non-Swedish speaking” is reasoned about, as well as the question whether it is possible to deal with all user groups equally. Finally the conclusions are presented. Our findings are among others that meeting with non-Swedish speaking users where the library staff has difficulties with understanding their intentions occur every day. Many of the informants believe that language can create barriers, which can lead to a meeting of poor quality. Body language is considered a great asset in communication when the verbal language is not enough. Additional solutions may be to cooperate with colleagues or other users in the library, but it is also important to be imaginative and flexible to make the communication work and to make the experience of the meeting as good as possible.