Diss. Linköping : Univ., 2003.

This study aims to seek how the librarians interpret the democratic mandate and how they use this in their profession. Jenny Åström made a similar survey in 2012 throughout the whole of Sweden and we are considering if the results have changed over the recent years. Unlike Jenny Åström, who interviewed library staff all over Sweden, we focused on only 2 municipalities. We performed qualitative interviews with 6 librarians who are working on public libraries. We have applied our result both from the information Jenny Åström got on her study and from the model The four spaces, by Skot-Hansen et al. We are also discussing difficulties that can occur in working with the democratic mandate.

The purpose of this study is to examine the makerspace phenomenon in relation to Swedish public libraries today using the Four Space Model. The study seeks to establish whether makerspaces in public libraries can contribute to increasing the relevance of the public library in an increasingly technological society. It also seeks to investigate if having a makerspace in public libraries can revitalize the public libraries mission of popular education.

This essay deals with the cultural demands on the fiction available at public libraries, i. e. the problem with deciding the demands of quality of fiction. How come that the users can find novels by authors like Colleen McCullough and Belva Plain, but very seldom the works by Jackie Collins and Margit Sandemo? The valuations seem to differ from one library to  another, even though some books, like the works by authors mentioned above, never will be bought by libraries. During the period of 1991-1994 a project called the GÖK-project (GÖK is short for Gothenburg. Ömskoldsvik. Kalmar, the cities who participated in the project) took place, in order to meet the users' demands on the public libraries. The reason to this was the sinking number of loans since the middle of the 1980's. The project was appreciated by most of the users, but at the same time criticised by other persons. active in the Swedish cultural life. These persons feared that the project would deteriorate the literary standard at the public librairies. The popular literature has through the ages been accused of being conservative, racistic and destructive, especially for young readers. Since a long time ago this kind of literature also has been considered as bad for women. This point of view as regards what is good or bad literature has earlier been predominate at public librairies and not until the last decades this attitude has changed.

Due to the public nature of the library the librarians meet members from the entire society in one room daily and need to address the different needs of the patrons and the patrons' different expectations of the librarians' service. The aim of the thesis is to investigate public librarians' encounters with patrons, that the librarians perceive as difficult or challenging. Socially excluded groups like homeless individuals, drug users or mentally ill individuals are groups that together with teenagers can be perceived as "problem patrons". To investigate this problem six interviews with librarians were conducted. The analytical framework concists of Echeverris definition of a good reception of users, the librarians ethical guidelines and on Jürgen Habermas theory of the public sphere. The librarians perception of the public library and their own reception of the library patrons appeared to be very similar to the theoretical framework. The conclusion of this thesis is that the librarians view of the library appears to be synonymous with the meaning of public sphere and the foundations of democracy.

The purpose of the present Bachelor’s thesis is to contribute to the library and information science research on how author visits for an adult target group at public libraries in Sweden as a phenomenon can be understood in relation to the public library’s societal function. The questions asked were, firstly: which goals are present in the author visit activities? And secondly: what functions does the public library hold in regard to the author visit activities? Qualitative interviews with representatives from five public libraries have been employed as a method for collecting data. The empirical data was analyzed using a qualitative content analysis method. The theoretical framework consists of the concepts in “the four space” model by Henrik Jochumsen, Casper Hvenegaard Rasmussen and Dorte Skot-Hansen. It is found that the public library through the author visit activities supports several, but not all, of the goals presented in the model. It is also found that the public library through the author visit activities to a greater degree works as inspiration and meeting space than learning and performative space. The study concluded that author visit activities at the public library holds many possibilities in regard to goals and functions of the library.

The aim of this bachelor thesis is to find how multilingual activities placed in public libraries are described in journals that are addressed to professionals in the library field. Questions posed in this study are: - What opportunities multilingual activities in public libraries are considered to have in a multicultural society?- Which problems in the society these activities are considered to be able to solve? Integration theory of Hans Ingvar Roth (2005) and his concepts of positive and negative distance and proximity is used as a theoretical background for this study. A qualitative content analysis is used as a method for analysis of the empirical material that consist of articles published in two library journals Biblioteksbladet and Bibliotek i samhälle. Results of the study indicate that according to the journals public libraries are seen as places that have benefits for supporting creation of positive distance and proximity between different groups in the society. Multilingual activities at the library are therefore about on the one hand integration promotion and support of learning of the Swedish language and on the other hand, the preservation of different native languages and the linguistic and cultural heritage.

Many libraries in Sweden have since 2008 started to switch their classification system fromSAB (The Swedish classification system) to Dewey (Dewey decimal classification system).Kungliga Biblioteket (National Library of Sweden) decided to switch classification systemfrom SAB to DDC in 2008 and recommend that all libraries in Sweden should also follow. Inrecent years, a number of public libraries have started the transition to DDC. Our thesisfocuses on the public libraries and the librarians view on the matter. The discussed questionsof the thesis are:1. How do the public libraries see a possible transition to DDC?2. Why have some of the public libraries changed their library system to DDC and others havenot?The empirical material of the thesis consists of 47 questionnaire responses that wherethereafter analyzed. Five of the public libraries that answered our questionnaire had began thetransition process to the DDC, thirty-nine of them only used SAB, although more than half ofthem where open to make the transition at some point in the future. Some of the publiclibraries didn’t want to change to DDC because they considered it a system that would not suitthe Swedish conditions very well and therefore preferred the Swedish system (SAB) more.Librarians are divided between those who are positive towards a transition to DDC and thosewho are not. We tried to analyze the librarians’ views from a psychological view based on atheory on individual ́s reactions towards organizational change. However, what we couldinterpret from the answers on our questionnaire, many of the librarians' considerations andthoughts regarding DDC are somewhat similar to earlier discussions about Dewey, which leadus to believe that there has not been made huge progress on the matter.

Syftet med utvärderingen är att den skall kunna fungera som ett underlag för beslut om förändrade öppettider på Ånge centralbibliotek. Biblioteksbesökarnas och bibliotekspersonalens åsikter om de nuvarande öppettiderna ligger till grund för de slutsatser och rekommendationer utvärderingen lett till. Undersökningen bygger på följande utvärderings frågor: • Hur ser biblioteksbesökarna på bibliotekets öppettider – är de nöjda eller vill de se en förändring? När vill de att biblioteket skall vara öppet (exempelvis kvällar/helger)? • Hur ser bibliotekets personal på öppettiderna och hur ställer de sig till förändrade öppettider, exempelvis kvälls- och helgöppet? • Finns det något samband mellan biblioteksbesökarnas sysselsättning och vilka öppettider de föredrar? • Vilka förslag på förändrade öppettider kan jag komma med på basis av ovanstående frågor? Resultatet av den enkätundersökning som delades ut till bibliotekets besökare visar att de flesta biblioteksbesökare är nöjda med bibliotekets nuvarande öppettider, men att vissa förändringar skulle kunna förbättra dem. Många anser att biblioteket bör vara öppet ytterligareen kväll i veckan, samt att det bör öppna tidigare på förmiddagen. Det går även att se att det finns ett samband mellan vilken huvudsakliga sysselsättning biblioteksbesökarna har och de tider de föredrar att besöka biblioteket, något biblioteket bör ta i beaktande när de utformar sina nya öppettider. De lärare och förskollärare som intervjuats anser att samarbetet med biblioteket skulle kunna fungera bättre, samt att det bästa vore om biblioteket kunde öppna tidigare påförmiddagen så att man mer flexibelt skulle kunna besöka biblioteket då det är öppet.De rekommendationer utvärderingen lett fram till är att biblioteket bör gå tillbaka till de öppettider man tidigare haft, det vill säga med kvällsöppet två kvällar i veckan i stället för en, samt att man bör undersöka möjligheten att öppna tidigare på förmiddagen. I övrigt rekommenderas en undersökning av hur bibliotekspersonalen kan förbättra samarbetet med skolan och förskolorna.

This study is performed as an Archive, Library and museum master’s thesis in two years studies. The overall aim is to investigate and analyze what the term Manga means in a library and information science context. The concept of Manga has different meanings depending on whether we start from a Japanese or a Swedish context. Manga is integrated in the Japanese society while Manga often is associated with youth culture or a separate genre in Sweden. The first issue is to examine how the Manga literature lending statistics looks in Swedish public libraries in the years 2000-2011, which is illustrated through text and graphics. A dramatic increase in Manga literature lending statistics occurred 2004 which culminated in the year of 2009. From this statistics the study also investigates which genres are represented in the Swedish public libraries. This diversity of genres and subgenres in Manga literature is sharply reduced to a few genres in Swedish public libraries where romance, comedy, action, fantasy and adventure are dominant. The second question dealt with how to define and use the term Manga? I suggest that Manga can be sorted into the concepts of Manga Literature, Manga aesthetics and Manga culture with the intention of nuance and specify the subject areas content and discussion.The third issue in this examination is dealing with how Manga literature can conveniently be placed? What are the contextual components in Manga and how do they relate to each other?