This essay seeks to investigate how the public libraries of Sweden market and advertise their services to the public and what circumstances effect that work. The method to investigate this was chosen to be a qualitative inquiry through interviewing six different employees of the Swedish public libraries, all who had different circumstances surrounding the advertising work they did at their respective libraries. The results of the interviews showed that the circumstances in which the different informants worked with marketing varied to several degrees and so their marketing work did also vary greatly. The conclusion of the essay was that most Swedish libraries seem to work with marketing in their own unique way and that the main circumstances that affected this work were dependent on the libraries budget, guidance from their leadership and the librarians marketing knowledge.

This study deals with author visits at public libraries, where the author perspective is the focal point. A questionnaire was sent online to the members of Författarcentrum and this study is based on the 87 replies. It was found that a majority of the respondents, 76 of the 87, had made at least one author visit to a public library during the last five years and that their main reason for visiting was reportedly to meet with the reader. Steiner's four categories of authors from 2019 was used to place the respondents in the literary field based on Bourdieu's theoretical framework, the categories being star authors, established authors, acknowledged authors and published authors. It was found that there were certain differences in the experience of the author visits based on what category the author belonged to, and that the authors with strong positions on the literary field were favored in some ways. Throsby's model from 2001 of the creative work process was used alongside Bourdieu's thoughts of the literary field, with the conclusion that author visits to public libraries seem to be a kind of work that produce both economic and cultural value for the author. However the sampling wasn't big enough to make certain general statements of how authors experience and view author visits to public libraries on a larger scale.

The purpose of this master’s thesis is to study the perceptions of accessibility among users and staff at a Swedish public library in a sparsely-populated area. The subject of public libraries in sparsely-populated areas has been studied in a number of previous theses, but a lack of user perspective is evident. This thesis poses two questions: What are the similarities and differences in the users’ and the staff’s perceptions of accessibility in the library services? What are the similarities and differences between users’ and staff’s perceptions of accessibility and their perceptions of the roles of the library respectively? The study’s theoretical frameworks was derived from Michael Buckland’s model of information barriers, and Andersson and Skot-Hansen’s model of the four roles of the public library. The method of data collection was primarily semistructured interviews with users and staff, to a lesser degree document analysis and observations. The results show that users focus on the barrier of too short opening hours, and lack of certain content in the library collection, whereas the staff view the strained human resources as the largest barrier to accessibility. Perceptions of the overall library operation can help to explain the differences. The users view the library as a somewhat static range of services associated with culture and knowledge, whereas the staff perceive the library as playing a active role in promoting culture and knowledge.

I denna kvalitativa intervjustudie undersöktes tre skolbibliotekariers upplevelser av läsfrämjande vid gymnasieskolan. Syftet var också att studera om skolbibliotekarierna arbetade läsfrämjande mot en viss målgrupp, och vilken syn de hade på läsning i skolan. Det teoretiska ramverk som använts för analys av de intervjuer som genomförts behandlar begrepp såsom kulturellt kapital, instrumentell läsning och utmaningar för skolbibliotekarien. Resultatet visade att om än inte informanterna själva ansåg att de arbetade läsfrämjande riktat mot en specifik målgrupp, så var det läsfrämjande arbetet främst fokuserat till elever vid yrkesprogram. Det fanns två anledningar till detta, en av skolbibliotekarierna upplevde en personlig känsla av att kunna förändra och påverka läsningen hos elever vid yrkesprogram. Två av skolbibliotekarierna pekade på en bristande läsförmåga som skäl till att de startat upp ett läsprojekt vid yrkesprogram på deras gymnasieskola. Uppsatsen undersöker därtill skolbibliotekariers syn på läsning vid gymnasieskolan. Två olika aspekter av läsning framkom, å ena sidan den som fokuserar på en instrumentell läsning och å andra sidan en abstrakt syn på läsande.

This thesis aims to investigate the elements in the implementation of information technology at the National library of Namibia and the library at the University of Namibia. It examines different components that have an impact on the two libraries use of information technology. It deals with the personel, support from the government and foreign aid donours, the users, co-operation with other institutions, the situation for libraries in Africa and the development of information technology in the African and Namibian society.The paper also illustrates the present situation at the two libraries, with their different experiences of the computer equipment, internal databases, on-line connections, CD-ROM and plansfor the future. Prospects for the successful use of information technology at the libraries are also discussed.

Classifications are a crucial part of Library and Information Science (LIS). Classifications aim to organize information, making it easy to retrieve and access. Scholars have criticized the practice of organizing knowledge and the construction of classification systems, claiming it represents some phenomenon while leaving others out. According to some scholars, the practice of classification will always be bias, since it builds upon a subjective kind of worldview. This thesis – Abortion, pregnancy and childbirth in Dewey Decimal Classification – The representation of women in a normative system - focuses on the Dewey decimal classification system (DDC) and its representation of women, in relation to social and medical aspects. Three terms, traditionally linked to women, have been chosen; Abortion, Pregnancy and Childbirth. The three terms have been analyzed in three editions of the DDC to give an overview of a linear development of the representation of women in DDC. The editions are the 8th from the year 1913, the 12th abridged version from the year 1990 and finally the current upgraded version of the 23rd Swedish WebDewey. The question this thesis aims to answer is 1) How does the representation of women manifest in the chosen editions of DDC, in relation to terms linked to social and medical aspects? and 2) What kind of differences appear in the transfer of the international versions of the DDC to a Swedish social context? The editions of DDC are analyzed with the theoretical concept of the Swedish historian Yvonne Hirdman and the method of critical text analysis. Based on this, this thesis concludes that 1) the representation of women in DDC is inadequate and 2) the social aspects of the representation of women has undergone the greatest change in the transfer of the international version of the DDC to the current Swedish version.

The essay examines the expression ”bildung” (”bildning” in Swedish) in relation to book circles. The essay argues that the definition of bildung is not constant. The essay puts the expression in different historical contexts. With empirical evidence, the meaning of the expression can be investigated. A survey has been conducted in the form of four qualitative interviews. The public libraries' goal of promoting interest in bildung can be examined by analyzing the reasoning of the informants. The purpose of the essay is to examine the circle participants' perception of literary bildung and the librarians' goals for literary bildung. The purpose is also to compare the librarians' goals with the circle participants' perception of bildung. A model extracted from Judith Langer's theories is used as the analytical method. The results show that literary bildung is something the participants experienced in that the circle helped them understand others and make things more human. It is also argued that the circle provides tools for them to define and redefine themselves and others. They have not experienced to the same extent that the circle helps them find themselves or that it challenges them intellectually.

The use of smartphones, computers and tablets among teenagers in the ages of 13-16 are increasing and their time to read in their leisure time are decreasing. The aim of this study is to examine if the public libraries can increase this target group´s leisure reading with electronic media. To aquire this information, four questions were asked; what kind of reading comprehension does they have today? What kind of digital habits do they have? How do they use the library today? How can libraries increase the availability of electronic media for this target group? Group interviews were used to answer these questions and qualitative content analysis to analyze the empirical information. The theory used for analyzing the results were literacy. The conclusion is that their reading comprehension was depending on how much they read in school, on schedule. As long as they had reading on schedule they more often brought their books home to read. Most of them experienced that they didn´t get enough information about electronic media from the library and what they are offering. Most of them thought that they would use electronic media more if they got more information and education about it. The majority had used or used audio books. The supply of electronic media and above all e-books, in the public libraries are dependent of their budgets because the costs of e-books are still relatively expensive. A consequence is that the libraries tightens their supply instead of increasing it.

The development of digitization and technology has brought new opportunities to produce and access research data. This has generated the need to be able to use and manage data. Data literacy has been listed as one of the great current trends in the library world as a result of new opportunities for spreading and managing data. The purpose of the present thesis has thus been to investigate librarians’ reflection on data literacy. Five librarians at a university library have been interviewed through semi-structured interviews. Interviewees view data literacy as a concept that is closely related to information literacy. Data literacy is said to be about saving, analyzing, citing and reusing data. At the university library, data literacy is viewed through both skills’ development and activities. Since the phenomenon is relatively new, the staff has been given the opportunity to develop skills through workshops in data analysis tools. In addition, the university library has opened two digital labs at two libraries that aim to contribute to creative learning environments for data management and data usage. The library has offered workshops in data analysis programs for users. Data literacy has not been fully implemented in the library’s teaching yet. One of the major challenges in implementing data literacy is to find time to develop skills but at the same time prioritize the library’s core functions. However, informants believe that data literacy will entail new roles for university libraries in the future and that it will affect more than just teaching librarians.

Förmågan att läsa, förvärva, förstå och använda hälsoinformation utgör konceptet Health literacy, på svenska hälsolitteracitet. Dessa förmågor blir av allt större vikt i ett intensivt informationssamhälle. Ökade krav ställs på förmågan att kunna välja, värdera och använda sig av information i sitt dagliga liv, hälso- och sjukvården är inget undantag. Hälsolitteracitet är en förutsättning för att kunna göra hälsomedvetna val och ta välgrundade beslut i relation till hälsan. Syftet med denna studie är att öka kunskapen om individers Hälsoinformationsbeteenden i relation till egenskattad nivå av hälsolitteracitet och i relation till sociodemografiska bakgrundsfaktorer och subjektiv hälsa, i en svensk kontext. Studiens resultat visar att samband finns mellan koncepten hälsolitteracitet och olika Hälsoinformationsbeteenden. Högre Funktionell hälsolitteracitet är förknippad med lägre frekvens av fem av sex Hälsoinformationsbeteenden. Högre Kommunikativ och kritisk hälsolitteracitet är förknippad med en högre frekvens av Hälsoinformationsbeteenden och då främst med aktiva hälsoinformationsbeteenden. Den huvudsakliga slutsatsen av studien är att nivå av hälsolitteracitet har betydelse för i vilken grad en individ ägnar sig åt ett visst Hälsoinformationsbeteende. Praktiska implikationer: Insikter om Hälsolitteracitet och dess betydelse för Hälsoinformationsbeteenden kan vara användbara för informationsspecialister och bibliotekarier, såväl som för hälso- och sjukvården samt andra som arbetar med hälsoinformation.