This master's thesis asks two main questions concerning the history of the City and UniversityLibrary of Gothenburg: what was the prevailing view of the library and its role? Whateconomic support did the library receive and from whom?By critically examining extensive source material mainly from the library archives and cityand state records, these conclusions are drawn: the City and University Library was regardedas a purely scientific library by all involved except the state as early as the 1920s. The state didnot express this view until 1946. The support came almost exclusively from the city ofGothenburg, the state not extending support on a larger scale until 1946 and then onlysporadically. The widely-held view of the library as a scientific one was ignored by the statein its repeated refusals to grant the library support both before and after 1946. ·

This Master’s thesis examines the discussions about the new Swedish legal deposit legislation for electronicdocuments, related to Jürgen Habermas’ theories around the public sphere. In 2009, a draft of the law proposal was sent out to various authorities and organizations who were asked tocontribute their views on this matter. This study looks at who has responded of those asked, and what commonviews are apparent within these responses. The responses from two different categories are focused on –universities and other authorities, examining if any similarities or differences can be noticed in the arguments inthe different categories’ responses to the proposed law change. This information has been first analyzed through content analysis, providing an overview to the respondentsof the draft, and the different views which have arisen. Argumentation analysis has then been used to examinehow specific respondents have argued their views, focusing on the National Library of Sweden and the NationalArchives of Sweden. The most common views and arguments revolve around the definitions suggested in the proposal, regardingwhich documents are to be collected and who is responsible for their delivery. Many respondents also mentionedtheir desire to be able to fulfill their legal deposit obligations by delivering documents through networks. Habermas’ theories on the public sphere, which he claims to exist in today’s society, are very similar to thetheories of the public sphere addressed within this study. The authorities and organizations which have beenasked to contribute opinions towards this proposal are the same one who will be directly involved with the legaldeposit itself; while the future users of these collected electronic documents, namely scholars and the public,have been excluded from this discussion. Some respondents remarked upon the importance of the documentsbeing available to those to which they will be of use. However, the discussion has primarily concentrated on howthe delivery of these documents can be affected in the easiest possible manner for those involved.

The aim of this master thesis is to examine discourses and practices in the handling of materials from the ex-treme right in the Swedish national collection at Kungliga biblioteket (the Swedish national library). Questions posed in this study concern what practices have been used in the handling of the material, the discourse sur-rounding the material and its relation to power structures. The source documents in this study come from the library’s archive records between the years 2000 and 2010. As a complement, the study also uses correspond-ence with librarians active during the time period as well as an interview with an expert on the Swedish extreme right. This study uses Foucauldian discourse analysis as a method and searches for discursive patterns and power structures in the source documents. The essay sees a complex progression in how materials from the extreme right have been handled throughout the time period 2000-2010. In summary, the researched material contains two discursive patterns. Although on opposite terms, they can both be linked to the restrictions of the material. During the time period, a separate collection was set up for extremist material, a collection which is now taken apart. This study argues that “extremism” is a relative term by definition and therefor unsuitable for labelling any material in the long run. This study is a two-year master‘s thesis in Library and Information Science at Uppsala University.

The aim of this two years master’s thesis in Archive, Library and Museum studies is to investigate how the National Library of Sweden collects, arranges and provides access to its collection of printed ephemera. As a comparison, the thesis also looks at how Lund University Library is working with the same tasks. The main sources of information in this thesis comes from participant observations and interviews conducted with informants within the two libraries mentioned above. Document studies of the library’s internal documents and the Swedish Legal Deposit Law has also been used to get additional information. The findings in this thesis has been analyzed with a model based on a practice theory and a knowledge organization theory. The starting point in the investigation was to look at how these two libraries receives printed ephemera through legal deposits, if there are any problems connected to the legal deposits and if that possibly has an influence on the printed ephemera collections. The next part of the investigation focuses on how these collections has been organized with various classification systems over the years. In addition to this the survey wanted to find out if- and in what way these different systems have had an effect on the availability of this material and what tools the libraries uses to make it easier to find specific material within the collections and make it available for users. The results of the investigation show that National Library of Sweden and Lund University Library resave a wide range of material throw legal deposits but not nearly as much as they should get. One big problem is that many producers print their material outside of Sweden and are not aware that they are obligated to give copies of this to the Swedish Legal Deposit Library’s. The survey also reached the conclusion that the way the material is arranged and stored has a big impact on how accessible it is. However, by using cataloguing and digitalization the libraries can make this material more visible, and thus also more accessible.