The aim of this bachelor thesis is to examine the methods used for reading promotion work at public libraries in Sweden for children and adolescents up to the age of 18 years. Part of the background is the results from international studies where the results show decreasing literacy skills among children. A low literacy might limit individuals opportunities to be a part of the society, and therefore the reading promotion work and ways of understanding how to imbibe and use knowledge and information are important. Semi-structured interviews were used as a method for collecting the data needed for answering the question of what kind of reading promotion work is done today for this lending- group. The number of interviews for this study are 10 and the number of informants are 12. All the informants are working with focus on children and adolescents reading. The study has a sociocultural perspective using three sociocultural concepts as a tool for analysing the results from the interviews; appropriation, instrument and social context. The conclusions possible to make from this study is that there is an aim from the librarians to do this reading promotion work both as projects and as regular activities. They want to tempt both young children with their parents and adolescents to visit the library and find ways into the literature. It turned out that there are more focus on the youngest children because when the children get older and become adolescents, the informants feel that it is difficult to reach them, since there are many other activities that compete with their time. The reading-promotion methods that the librarians used are all well-known and the librarians get positive feedback from participants in the activities, even if there still are challenges left to work with.

The thesis focuses on the book club for children aged 9 to12 years.The objectives of the work are to investigate the meanings of thebook club activities for children at this age and to find out thechildren’s experience. The work is also linked to their readinginterest, what kind of books they prefer and how they choose their books. The collection methods of the empirical material in this work are qualitative observation and focus interview, conducted with sixc hildren attending the book club. The theory and the analytical method used are based on Chambers’ “Reading Circle”. It consists of different parts of the reading process: to choose, to read and to respond to literature with adult’s support. The study shows that all of these assist in stimulating children’s interest in reading and each one plays an important role. My conclusions are that the book club has great meanings for the children aged 9-12 years and it provides multiple ways to fulfil their needs. All the participants in the interview expressed that they were satisfied with the book club.

The aim of this bachelor's thesis is to study how libraries make it possible for people with Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) to visit. The library law says that everyone is welcome to the library. But people with ASD have a sensory overload, which means that they have problems with loud noise and bright lights, but can themselves be quite loud. Many libraries have gone from a quiet place to a more lively place or meeting area and that has become a problem for people with ASD to visit. The libraries have made some adjustments to make it accessible for people with ASD, but they still have a long way to go. The main reason is lack of education to make the library more accessible.

This thesis is based on the question of how ideas expressed in the documents that control public libraries are embodied in the physical library, thus making it possible for said ideas to make a real social difference. The purpose of the study is to investigate if and how library space design promotes certain patron behaviour and how this relates to multilingualism. The thesis takes as its point of departure French philosopher Michel de Certeau’s way of looking at how sites are managed and used: a producer creates place through an overall strategy and a consumer creates space by using the site tactically. Methodologically, the study was conducted using analysis of library usage through ideal type cases constructed based on participant observations at a Swedish public library. The results of the study and the analysis of said results are organized thematically, focusing mainly on library space and patron behaviour. Some of the conclusions that can be drawn from the study are that the library as place expresses the intellectual content of laws and guiding documents and that the patrons/consumers using the library in a manner consistent with the producer’s strategy benefit from its design and that those who do not are hence disfavoured. Another conclusion is that patron multilingualism should be considered when analysing library usage from this point of view.

Our aim with this study was to investigate children’s librarians' opinions and working methods, in regard to the children’s library section in public libraries, for children 0-6 years old. We did this through semistructured interviews with five children’s librarians. The results were analyzed using thematic analysis and a theoretical model. The results we gathered were largely related to the theoretical model we used and could also be related to earlier research in this field. We found that most of our participants wanted the children’s library section to be calm, cozy and exciting, which the librarians actively worked to contribute to. We also related our findings to participation and empowerment of children. Our conclusion in this study was that our sample of participants was too small to make generalizations, but we have contributed with more knowledge in this research field. Although more research is needed to make generalizations.

The aim of this bachelor thesis is to examine how public librarians perceives the library role towards young people. This is done by interviews with four youth librarians in various cities in Sweden and the interviews were analysed with the aid of “the four spaces”.  The central questions for this thesis are: How do the librarians perceive the library role towards young people? Which role has the book in the library’s youth activities? What kind of library do the librarians believe the young people want?    The study identified a change in the library role from a “knowledge institution” to a “experience institution” which affected how the librarians thought of the library role towards young people. The study showed that most of the activities toward young people were based on creative experiences, in terms of music studios, theatre scenes and social events, and less activities were based on reading promotion and books. The book had overall a split position as a symbol for democracy and free speech on one hand, and on the other hand a symbol for the “old library” and the “knowledge institution”. The study also showed that young people tend to use the library as a place to socialize rather than taking part of the media supply the library offers. Finally we problematize the picture of young people and conflicts in the library and give an account of the library’s barriers where we establish that it is especially hard for library’s to reach out to young people from exposed socio- economic groups.

The purpose of this thesis is to contribute to the understanding of how Swedish libraries work with the mission of accessibility for people with disabilities. This qualitative study tries to extend the knowledge by examining how six Swedish libraries use their resources for people with disabilities and how the libraries interpret the guidelines set by the government and organizations. As each library has its own routines around this work the libraries have to prioritize according to need and opportunity. It is of interest to see various aids in the work progress taking action at the libraries in this study. Do the libraries work in a structured and similar way when working for people with disabilities?  How do libraries plan their resources?  Who makes and how are the decisions made when prioritizing resources for people with disabilities? Based on earlier research the study looks for these answers using a semi structured interview guide. The study uses Bucklands barrier theory to focus on the areas of work and disabilities. The results in this study show that resources are the main barrier for a more active way of working with people with disabilities. The resources include allocating time for working with disabilities, funding and having enough staff to be able to focus on the library users with disabilities.

In the spring of 2019 a proposal for a new national library strategy, The treasure trove of democracy, was handed over to the Swedish government. In this study the municipal response to this document is analyzed from a legitimacy perspective with a focus on the role of the Swedish public library today. Through a thematic analysis of eight of the municipal organization the study shows how conflicts between the proposal’s authors, representing the National Library of Sweden, and the perspectives of the municipal actors. This conflict revolves around a different view on the degree of control on the national level and a response that views the proposal as insufficient to coordinate the Swedish library system. The strategy proposal can be seen as having an insufficient level of legitimacy from a municipal perspective, mainly based on their interpretation of it as difficult to implement but also due to its challenge to the well-established legitimacy of the municipal sovereignty. Since the public library system is such a significant part of the Swedish welfare system the responses analyzed in this study can be a significant hurdle for the implementation of the proposed strategy.

Syftet med den här uppsasen är att undersöka hur bibliotek arbetar med läsfrämjande och litteratur för grupper med särskilda funktionsnedsättningar. Frågeställningarna jag använder mig av för att undersöka det här är: Hur arbetar bibliotek med läsfrämjande för grupper med särskilda funktionsnedsättningar? och Hur kan bibliotekarier bidra till att lyfta fram litteratur för grupper med särskilda funktionsnedsättningar. Den litteraur jag har valt att fokusera på är TAKK-böcker och de särskilda funktionsnedsättningarna är till exempel förseningar i talutveckling. För att undersöka det här valde jag att intervjua tre stycken bibliotekarier som arbetar på barnavdelningen på ett bibliotek. Dessa bibliotekarier valdes ut eftersom det är på barnavdelningen som TAKK-böckerna är placerade. Utifrån det material jag fick fram från intervjuerna kunde jag plocka ut olika teman att analysera utirån mina frågeställningar. Temana blev det demokratiska uppdraget, att erbjuda litteratur, kompetens, tid, och rummet. Det jag fick fram ut min analys är att bibliotek arbetar med läsfrämjande och litteratur för grupper med särskilda funktionsnedsättningar men att det finns svårigheter med det. Bland annat att det inte ges ut några mängder av litteratur som är anpassade för funktionsnedsättningarna eller att bibliotekarierna har den rätta kompetensen eller ens den tid som behövs för att arbeta med litteraturen. Allt det här även emot det demokratiska uppdraget. För att det ska bli en skillnad är det viktigt att fortsätta lyfta upp och forska i ämnet. Det går bland annat att göra genom att undersöka läsfrämjande verksamheter som bibliotek har och undersöka hur tillgängliga de är för grupper med särskilda funktionsnedsättningar.

The purpose of this dissertation is to examine a number ofaspects of the Swedish public library system in relation to aproposed future assignment in the Swedish total defenseorganization. The first aspect is if there exist a consensus amongemployees in the Swedish public library system on what such atotal defense assignment could be. The second and third aspectsare how Swedish public libraries currently work to convey media and information literacy (MIL) and to counteract exclusion fromsociety. The final aspect examined is how practices based onthese objectives can be adapted for an assignment for theSwedish library system within the Swedish total defenseorganization. The study is based on thematic analysis ofempirical data collected through six interviews with librariansand administrators working at public libraries in Sweden. Practice theory have been used to understand how the conceptsof MIL and social infrastructure are translated into action in theday-to-day activities at public libraries. The analysis shows thatthere is currently no clear consensus among the participants inthe study on what a total defense assignment could be, or what it would mean for the Swedish public library system. Furthermore,the participants in this study make a distinction between theterms or theories of MIL and social infrastructure and thepractice thereof. The terms and theories are used in controldocuments such as the local library plans, but not in theplanning and execution of the day-to-day work. This despite theparticipants' assertions that both MIL and the libraries’ role asSocial Infrastructure are foundational to the Swedish librarysystem.