A qualitative study of high school student teachers' ideas about libraries and school libraries.Interviews have been conducted with future teachers about the library's role in their education,their views on library functions in high school and whether they as teachers will use theschool library. The results show that the students have had some instruction concerninghow to use the library as students, but very little as regards their future teaching. The professorsof teacher education focus on the fact that the library should be used in high schoolteaching, not how to use it. Despite this, the student teachers look very positively upon libraries.Libraries play an important part in their education and they are all sure that they asteachers will use the school library, which includes interacting with the librarian. To them, themost important school library function is to allow pupils to seek information.

This thesis investigates collaboration between teachers and librarians concerning reading support activities in senior high schools in Sweden. The following questions were posed: 1. How do the teachers and school librarians cooperate when it comes to promoting reading? 2. To what degree of cooperation is that? And how is the level of cooperation perceived? 3. What factors determine the level of cooperation? The research method used is semistructured qualitative interviews with altogether two school librarians and two teachers. The interviews have been analyzed out of two theoretical perspectives: Lena Folkessons’s three professional dimensions and Patricia Montiel-Overall’s four models of teacher and librarian collaborations. The results are in line with previous research and an important conclusion is that the cooperation between teachers and librarians doesn’t exist as much as one could imagine concerning reading support activities. Personal contacts in school between teachers and librarians will develop lower grades of collaboration. When the school library has got an obvious place in the school organisation and when the school management is highly supportive to cooperation, a higher grade of collaboration is reached and also more reading support activities can take place in school. / Program: Bibliotekarie

The purpose of this study is to investigate how students in a Swedishjunior high school (grade 7-9) view their possibility to participate in thecollection management of their school library, and how the schoollibrary works to involve the students when purchasing media. The studyhas resulted in a model for easy and effective involvement of studentsin the collection development.To achieve this aim both quantitative and qualitative methods are used.A survey in three classes in the school, observations at the schoollibrary and a qualitative interview with the library assistant have beenperformed. The collection management at the school library isdescribed using the School Library Taxonomies developed by DavidLoertscher and two models for participation developed by Roger A Hartand Harry Shier. In the survey, the students are asked about their libraryand reading habits, their perception of their own participation in thecollection management of the library and their opinions of theimportance of student participation in the library.The results show that all students view the possibility of participation as something important, but not all of the students are willing to be active themselves. The proposed model for effective involvement of students in the library focuses on simplicity, voluntariness, distinct information and visible results. / Program: Masterprogram: Biblioteks- och informationsvetenskap, Digitala bibliotek och informationstjänster

The purpose of this paper has been to study the relationships and attitudes of a few teachers and librarians as to their co-operation in a combined public and upper secondary school library and to find out what circumstances there may be to exert an influence on their work. The paper has been based upon qualitative interviews with upper secondary school teachers and librarians as well as on studies of literature relating to our issue. We believe there may be different approaches to the learning process, as these are the relations and attitudes of two professions from different trades. That is why our point of departure has been Roger Säljö's theory about learning and, in our analysis, a few of Jean Donham van Deusen's ideas of joint planning and flexible timetabling. All respondents agreed that co-operation could be better, but the teachers were of the opinion that it must not interfere with their time. There was also some hesitation to letting the librarian take an active part in planning the teaching, but she was still regarded as an asset in the working party because of her great skills in information retrieval. Our research shows that a number of circumstances influence to co-operation. These can be summed up as follows:- different attitudes to knowledge, to the idea of a life-long learning and to an enquiring methodology- the attitude of the two managements towards co-operation- the teachers' experience of being short of timeTeachers and librarians equally agreed that the purpose of a school library should be to show the way to life-long learning and that school and library are together responsible for this task. / Uppsatsnivå: D

The aim of this Master’s thesis is to investigate the importance of a school library for youths, age 14-16, from their perspective. We intend to study how they use and experience the school library both for educational- and leisure related purposes. We also intend to inquire their possibility to influence their school library. The literature that has been used consists of material from research concerning youth culture and school library. The method used is interviews with twelve youths from four different classes on one school, an extensive interview with a school librarian and a shorter, less extensive interview with a teacher. The theoretical framework in this thesis comes from Elisabeth Tallaksen Rafste’s concepts about which the users are, how they use it and the importance of the school library. The study shows that all the youths in the study use the school library for educational purposes, a place for work. Only the regular users also use the library as a meeting place and for other leisure related purposes. The regular users represents foremost of the boys in the study and they decide the norms. The girls do not use the school library for leisure related purposes. In addition, the school librarian is significant for how the youths experience and use the school library in different ways. / Uppsatsnivå: D

The purpose of this Master’s thesis is to present a survey of how Swedish libraries provide information services for children. In this thesis “information” means non-fiction material and “children” do not include preschool children. The method used is knowledge overview and the material (mostly Master theses in LIS published January 2001-June 2006) is related to user studies of children as information seekers. From the result and analysis can be found that librarians often adjust the common Swedish classification system, SAB, to children’s needs and that librarians have a clear view of how to achieve good reference interviews with children. Our material indicates that libraries seldom have plans for their acquisitions in order to develop the collection of children’s material, and we have found only a few libraries using other materials than books to find information suitable for children. In Sweden there exists no database which includes children’s journals. There are some library catalogues for children; one of them has been investigated by LIS-students and was found partially corresponding to children’s needs. The current Swedish list of subject headings for children is developed for fiction, and there is a need for discussing the indexing of non-fiction material. The providing of Internet for children varies a lot among libraries. There is a need for analysing children’s use of the big web portal Länkskafferiet. Only a few studies were found that investigate Swedish children’s interaction with information services, which leads to the conclusion that there is a clear need for such research. / Uppsatsnivå: D

The purpose of this study is to investigate• how a professional librarian can support the work with pupils, age six to twelve years, in their reading and linguistic development• how the conditions at the school have to be for this to become possible• what kind of attitudes the teachers have, and how they relate to the impact of a librarian for the pupils reading and linguistic development.The methods used are analyses of steering documents concerning school libraries and analyses of the means of the local school culture. The latter has been carried out by literature studies and through interviews of eight teachers and two school librarians. The result of the interviews showed a limited insight into how a professional librarian can support and assist teachers and pupils in the work with reading and linguistic development. They also showed the influence of existing traditions and local school culture for the use of a librarian’s services, and also how all the teachers, once they have become used to the services a librarian can provide, now find their support invaluable. Our final conclusions are that Swedish schools today easily can choose to rationalize school library activities, including to renounce the engagement of a professional librarian. The documents that govern the school activities allow great potential for school leaders and/or school politicians to encourage good library activities with a professional librarian. But this potential can be jeopardized by the teachers involved and their attitudes towards the usefulness of a professional librarian. The attitudes seem to originate from local traditions, and a lack of knowledge about the librarians´ competence. We found this a matter of not knowing what to demand – once experienced you know its benefits. / Uppsatsnivå: D

The subject of this master thesis is the school library and how we find its potential unutilized. We look at this problem in connection to the democratic assignment that the Swedish school has. The purpose is to elucidate what the democratic assignment consists of and to establish the role that the school library ought to have in this assignment. To describe the democratic assignment we examine and interpret the documents that regulate school and library activities today, including UNESCO/IFLA School Library Manifesto and United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. We use critical ideology analysis because we consider democracy to be a sort of ideology and have a critical view of how the school library is used or rather not used in school. To help us fulfil the purpose we have three questions:What role should the School Library have in school’s democratic assignment?a)What does the democratic assignment consist of?b)How is the School Library’s role described in the regulative documents of school and library activities and in IFLA/Unesco’s School Library Manifesto?The analysis is done by trying to interpret what’s said and what’s implicit. According to this master thesis the school library is not a natural part of school society and the existence of a school library is very much dependent on the headmasters view on school libraries. It’s quite clear that the school library can be a tool and a pedagogic resource in helping school to achieve the aims of the democratic assignment. / Uppsatsnivå: D

The purpose of this thesis is to contribute to the understanding of the work of school librarians with pupils with dyslexia. In addition, the study investigates the cooperation between school librarians and pedagogues concerning the pupils with dyslexia. The two theoretical points of departure are: theory of profession and a model of cooperation built upon Louise Limberg’s and Lena Folkesson’s three categories of librarians’ experiences of cooperation with teachers. Qualitative semi- structured interviews with eight qualified librarians constitute the empirical material. The empirical material has been analysed both descriptively and theoretically. The major findings are that school librarians regard their competence, when working with pupils with dyslexia, to be the knowledge of literature and technical means of assistance. They understand their role to be mediating and consulting as they connect the library resources with the pupil or the pedagogue. The lack of academically achieved knowledge is experienced as an obstacle when working with dyslectic pupils and limits the cooperation with both teachers and special education teachers. A shift in the behaviour of school librarians is recognized as they tend to renounce their jurisdictional claims concerning information seeking and book-matching in a greater extent towards the special educationalist than to the teacher. Another result is that the school librarian experiences the attitude of the pupil with dyslexia as the most important factor conditioning their work. The understanding is that it is nearly impossible to aid a person who does not want to be helped or who fails to recognize his handicap. / Uppsatsnivå: D

The purpose of this master thesis is to investigate if and how the school library in Linnéskolan in Älmhult is working towards the learning goals that can be find in the different school documents that are represented by the municipality of Älmhult. This includes goals for the school, for the school library and for the subject of social studies in the ninth grade. We also want to investigate if the school library helps the students to reach the learning goals and if there are any factors that can be improved in the school library. We have used an evidence based approach to define factors in the school library that can be improved. In the chapter that describes our theoretical approach, we have also discussed three different pedagogical theories; teacher-centered teaching, individual constructivism and social constructivism. Our intention is to define the learning goals in the different school documents and connect these to the most adaptable pedagogical theories. Our empirical data consists of observations and qualitative interviews. We have also analyzed the school documents to define the pedagogical theories in these. Our results show that it is an individual constructivism that can be defined in the different school documents. Although, we realized that this is not always the fact when it comes to the real practice in the school library. Our study also showed us that the school library is indeed working towards the learning goals, and is helping the students reach their goals. Although, we found a few factors that we believe can be improved.