The purpose of this thesis has been to investigate how librarians perceive nurses as a user group and libraries’ function for nurses. In order to achieve the study’s purpose six qualitative interviews with librarians working at medical libraries were conducted. The study has been performed with a phenomenographical methodological approach. Librarians have different perceptions of nurses’ as a user group, however the majority of them experience that nurses’ information needs have been increasing as has their use of medical libraries. The respondents perceive both barriers and facilities for nurses' information practice. The barriers include lack of time, motivation and organizational support. Facilities include education, increased access to information and changing attitudes. The informants perceive that medical libraries are able to support and improve nurses’ information practice through user customized training, target audience-focused information delivery via the web, communication, outreach work, cooperation and collaboration with other actors in hospital environments and good reference service. Three major categories of perceptions have been identified. According to category A medical libraries and librarians already meet nurses’ needs, overcome barriers and reach out nurses. Librarians are teaching nurses tools and techniques to obtain information. Nurses are given access to considerable amount of nursing literature. Libraries have also evolved some e-services with nurses in mind. Librarians are satisfied with their own effort. Within category B medical libraries aren’t able to overcome barriers completely. According to category C medical libraries will be able to do that thanks to nurses’, librarians’ and other actors’ changing attitudes.

The aim of this master’s thesis is to examine the information needs in the character subjects of the students at a vocationally oriented program in the Swedish upper secondary school. I also examine from which sources the students get the information. I want to create a wider understanding of information seeking processes at a vocationally oriented programme. The main focus is the students’ own thoughts and opinions about their information needs and information seeking processes. The results are related to research on information literacy from a sociocultural perspective as represented by Roger Säljö. The literature that has been used consists of material from research concerning information literacy in a learning context. Two group interviews and eight individual qualitative interviews were conducted with students at the Vehicle Mechanics Programme at a Swedish upper secondary school. The results show that most of the students have a high awareness of their information needs and their information sources. It is distinct in my study that the interaction between teacher, students and context is decisive for what information needs they have and what information sources they have access to. Information needs depend on what school they are in and what tasks the students are getting and whether they are at school or are in a work experience period. The study shows that interaction between the vocationally oriented program and working life and also between teacher and students is missing concerning information practices. / Program: Bibliotekarie

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

This thesis deals with the information-seeking behaviour of occupational therapists. Focus was on three different aspects of information-seeking behaviour. The purpose was to investigate how occupational therapists conceive of work-related information needs, their choice and use of formal and informal information sources and their use of the hospital library. Twelve interviews with occupational therapists were conducted at a rehabilitation clinic in a hospital. The theoretical frame consists of a general model of the information-seeking of professionals by Leckie, Pettigrew and Sylvain. To characterize the various information sources and information needs, two other models was used as a complement in relation to the general model. The study shows that occupational therapists experience a range of information needs due to different work roles and associated tasks. The information needs were mainly of two different kinds: information needs due to clinical praxis and information needs of a more general character. These information needs were both on an regularly and a temporary basis. To meet the information needs, occupational therapists use a wide range of internal and external, informal and formal information sources. The study also shows that the interviewed occupational therapists gave the hospital library three different roles or functions. / Uppsatsnivå: D

The main purpose of this Master’s thesis is to investigate the experience of art students and their attitudes and use of information during the last years of their Master’s degree. I also examine their opinions about the art education in general. The theoretical framework encompasses a sociocultural approach within the field of psychology-pedagogy and library- as well as information science. The empirical material has been collected through qualitative interviews with seven students studying at an art school in Sweden. One of the results of the study is that the students saw their education first and foremost as an opportunity for them to discuss their creative work and art-related issues with other students, artists and teachers. The art students emphasised that their learning above all was a matter of communication and independent learning and they also considered themselves as virtually completely free in their choice of medium and subject in the art courses. Consequently they did research in a wide range of subjects. While searching the Internet, all of them used Google. No other databases were used for creative purposes. The students appreciated browsing as a method to find information on the Internet. Moreover, they considered communication as an important search method, especially to keep up-to-date with new trends within the art field. The students used information as a source of inspiration and they felt that their attitude towards information was freer than other university students. / Uppsatsnivå: D

Resource-based learning or problem-oriented learning are teaching methods that are becoming more and more common in schools today. In order to make these teaching methods work there is a demand to make students information literate. The aim of this thesis is to find out how six teachers at six senior high schools apprehend their professional role of seeking, preparing and developing the course in history of literature. I have used phenomenography which is both a set of theoretical assumptions and a methodology. This means that by doing a limited number of qualitative interviews one is able to describe the variations of the conceptions that have emerged. The results of the study are presented in grouped categories of quotations that reflect various conceptions. Among the mayor findings in my study are that all of the teachers use their own course to develop a new one. Neither none of the teachers in my study have a positive conception to educational science in the process of seeking, preparing and developing the course in history of literature. But the level of collaboration with the school librarian is due to the collaborative cultures that prevail in the particular school, confusion and insufficient planning time. This indicates that the teachers are rather ignorant of the school library and the importance of the school librarian to teaching and learning. / Uppsatsnivå: C

The objective of this Bachelor’s thesis is to investigate how the public library in Luleå has set about implementing an alternative classification system for its children's books section and to explore why this was done. We wanted to investigate both how they have adapted the new system to the children's own way of seeking information and the library personnel's experience of using the new shelving system. We have done seven interviews to answer these questions and our choice of literature is intended to put the process of change into a wider context. The answers show that the library was dissatisfied with the former system and have instead expressed a desire to shift the focus of their classification system to their users. A significant factor behind the change was that they wanted to make children the basis of the new system. Here, they have instigated a change to the whole children's section and this new system is founded upon children's behaviour with regard to searching for information. The broad subject groupings have been given names that the children themselves use when they ask for books and, in order to facilitate the actual finding of the books on the shelves, the books have easily-recognisable symbols on the spine. According to our research, the staff in Luleå has found that both the users and they themselves are pleased with the new system, although an official evaluation has yet to be undertaken. We conclude that the advantages of the alternative systems outweigh the disadvantages. / Uppsatsnivå: C

This Master’s thesis concerns the information behaviour of pastors in nonconformist churches (especially new evangelical and Baptist church communions) in Sweden in their spiritual service to the local parish. The thesis also looks into how the information flow functions in the pastors’ context and why the information need appears as it does. The theory used in this study is contextual analysis based on Buckland’s, Weber’s and Patrick Wilson’s theories on authority and power structures. Interviews with open-question approach were conducted with 6 pastors. Analysis showed that the pastors use different sources in their effort to intermediate information to their congregation. The most common source is literature, i.e. the Bible or other Christian literature and reference books. The pastors express the importance of meditation and prayer to access divine information, as well as the influence of important cognitive authorities. What the pastors lack is a clear view on how sermons are received, but most importantly a way of accessing information through sources they are unfamiliar with. They tend to walk the same information path as they have before. I propose that national church communions work together in establishing means for pastors to access said information. The literary circulation within the Christian church appears to be strong in the way that they hardly use any non-Christian resources and that the pastors in high regard use the same literature that other pastors do. There is also a need to further study how information flows within the small congregation as well as to study meditative and spiritual information search. / Uppsatsnivå: D

The purpose of this Master’s thesis is to investigate how librarians solve difficult reference questions. The aim is to discuss the nature of reference work – do librarians make conscious decisions regarding search strategies or do they rely principally on their instincts, or simply chance. The thesis is a qualitative study. The main material consists of 36 actual reference transactions that were gathered using the observation method during a five week period at two public libraries in 1994-95. Since the study was undertaken before “the Internet revolution” its main focus is on manual searches. To gain a deeper understanding of the reference process and the librarians’ views on search strategies five interviews with a selection of the observed librarians were also performed. This empirical material was then used to compare with the reference process as described in theory by – mainly – William A. Katz, Denis Grogan and Marcia J. Bates. The study shows that answering difficult reference questions can be a highly creative task and that the approach favoured by Grogan and Bates, which consists of search strategies and tactics rather than detailed charts, is the most consistent with actual practice. The study further shows that librarians’ views on whether or not they consciously use search strategies vary greatly and that either way they have a difficult time expressing these strategies.

This thesis deals with information practices of first time parents. The term information practice covers topics ranging from the information a parent need and use, the information they actively seek for through to information attained through browsing, monitoring or simply being aware. Four problem areas have been formulated. What information do first time parents need? How do they get hold of information and how do they use it? What factors decide what sources they use? How do the first time parents validate the information they get? The following theoretical framework have been used; Marcia J Bates’ model of information practice and Reijo Savolainen’s Mastery of Life theory. In order to get an overview of what subjects interest first time parents I visited a parent group at a child health centre. Seven parents were later interviewed in semistructured interviews. Childbirth, child care, health issues, economy and child products were the areas parents felt a need for information. I found that most parents preferred personal contacts, and that the nurse at the health centre was an important source, as used of some of the parents, as were books and booklets. They sought out competent sources, while the information itself could vary from scientific to commonplace. Some parents felt that they sometimes get to much information and some felt that they lack reliable information. Sometimes vital information was ascertained by accident.