The purpose of this Master’s thesis is to investigate the library needs of fourteen-to-fifteen-year-olds. We have limited the investigation to the significance of libraries for the teenagers in their leisure time. Our focus is the public library with a particular reference to the plans for a new local public library with a youth profile in Malmö. With a departure point in the idea that young people’s use and view of libraries is to a large extent depending on factors such as social and cultural background and lifestyle, we chose to do a qualitative interview study with eight teenagers. The theoretical framework is informed by the work of lifestyle researcher Pierre Bourdieu, youth culture researcher Thomas Ziehe and Library and Information Science researchers Henrik Jochumsen and Casper Hvenegaard Rasmussen. In the analysis part of our thesis, we use concepts such as identity, lifestyle and everyday barriers to discern how the young people view and use libraries. We have come to the conclusion that these teenagers’ views on libraries are strongly connected with reading, books and schoolwork. Some of them felt at home in a library but some of them were not really aware of how a library can be used. Factors such as lack of time and lifestyle create barriers that prevent the teenagers from visiting the library. We found that some of the teenagers at issue still want books to be in focus in a library. A few of them do not seem to have an explicit need to participate in culturally creative activities in a library. / Uppsatsnivå: D

The aim of this Master’s thesis is to investigate what kinds of writing activities that are offered to children and young people in Sweden and if, how and why libraries are involved with them. The issues illuminated in this thesis are how children and youth can be motivated and advance in their writing, what the purpose of writing activities can be, and if writing activities can be suitable as a part of the work in libraries. The theory is based on a study with writing youth made by Catharina Nyström. In order to study the issues six interviews have been completed with persons who all have played a part in writing activities for children and youth. The answers from the interviews were compared with the theory, former research and other literature relevant for the subject. The conclusions are that the informants along with opinions in parts of the literature apprehend that the participating children feel motivated to write with a free kind of creative writing where the children get to make their own choices in their writing work without demands and grading from adults. A different point of view among the literature and the theory state the importance of process writing as a teaching method, and that young people identify themselves with writers in order to develop and motivate their writing. The ambitions of writing activities emphasised by the informants are that the children and youth will improve linguistic abilities and feel a greater interest in reading. As a result of these activities the informants have noticed that their aspirations have been fulfilled. Since these positive effects correspond to the library’s aim to offer children and youth cultural activities, the means to develop their linguistic usage and to encourage them to read, it suggests that writing very well can be encompassed within the libraries children and youth activities. / Uppsatsnivå: D

The aim of this Master’s thesis is to investigate the library habits of young people, age 15 to 24. Our empirical data are gathered in a survey distributed to 104 young men and women at three different public libraries. The questions are about how young people use the public library, what media and services they use and whether or not they are content with what the public library can offer them. In our analysis we have compared our results to previous research and used a model by Marianne Andersson and Dorte Skot-Hansen to determine how they use the library. The previous research we have found deals with the library habits of young people, and their music, movie and book preferences. The model describes different ways in which you can use the public library. This model divides the functions of the public library in four different categories. These four categories are the cultural center, the knowledge center, the information center and the social center. The result of our survey shows that the young people use the library to borrow books and to study. Our result was in most parts consistent with what previous research have shown. Finally we came to the conclusion that the young people in our study use the library mostly like a knowledge center or a cultural centre. / Uppsatsnivå: D

This essay aims to investigate how Swedish Public Libraries market their activities in video games for youths. It also highlights how the library, on the basis of the unique opportunities of the video game medium, can develop this marketing to build a relationship with youths. The empiric evidence is based on a survey of answers given by 30 librarians responsible for video game collections, and qualitative telephone interviews with three of them. The essay’s theoretical framework is based on Philip Kotler and his co-authors’ marketing theory which consists of five stages: Marketing research, segmentation, marketing mix, implementation and development. Youths were the central target group for the video games activities in two thirds of the libraries. However, there were no differences in marketing between the libraries who had youths as a central target group and those who didn’t. The result showed shortcomings in the library’s long term marketing strategies – for example in goals and development. Many libraries had a marketing strategy characterized by one-way communication and therefore lost out on opportunities to get a response from the youths and involve them in their activities. The main plans for development concerned game events and the possibility of playing games in the building. On the basis of the data collected and from earlier research, it was shown that libraries can use the video game events to their advantage. Through gaming events the libraries can also make use of the mediums’ interactive opportunities and increase its accessibility.

The aim of this Master’s thesis is to examine how the lifestyle of youth between the ages of 15-17 is influenced by electronic media and also what view and opinions youth has regarding electronic media and lifestyle. We intend to examine how and when the youth use electronic media in their everyday lives, what purpose the electronic media has in the life of the youth, and finally what views and opinions regarding electronic media and questions regarding lifestyle the youth express. We as librarians and adults need more knowledge on how youth use electronic media and also what thoughts they have regarding media and lifestyle. We would like to bring some knowledge to the discussion in this area with our study to librarians as well as parents. The method we have used is group interviews with youth in the ages 15-17 from different cities, backgrounds and gender. The findings are related to five different themes: modernity, self-identification, lifestyle, the future and the role of the body. The material has been analyzed and interpreted from these theories and earlier research. Major findings in the study is that the use of electronic media plays an important part in the life of youth and especially the Internet and cell phones are important in the social and cultural networks of youth. We also find that the youth do not find themselves affected by the media in their lifestyle; however our study shows that they are unconsciously affected by the images shown in different media. / Uppsatsnivå: D

The aim of this Master’s thesis is to examine the reading support activities performed by the school libraries of five Swedish upper secondary schools. It focuses upon fiction reading. Two main research questions are asked: the first one in order to find out what kind of ideas of fiction, fiction reading and young people that are held by the librarians of the five libraries, the second one in order to find out what the motives behind the reading support activities are. One additional research question is asked to examine how the librarians estimate the results of the reading support activities, and furthermore how the students seem to respond to them. The research method used is longer, qualitative interviews with altogether five school librarians and one school library assistant. The interviews have later been analyzed, mainly out of two theoretical perspectives: the theories of fiction reading with young students by Louise Rosenblatt, and the theory of young people’s cultural behaviour in late modern society by Thomas Ziehe. The result of the analysis shows that the librarians’ view of young people is foremost flexible, and that they adjust their approach to individual students as well as to their own method of working. The motives behind the reading support activities seem to be both personal and related to educational goals of the school organisation. The librarians reading support activities are often well received by the students and also have positive implications for their schooling.

Bakgrund:Studien handlar om barns relationsskapande i skolmiljö. Hur man som barn gör för att knytanya kontakter, bibehåller, och livnär dem. Att man trots olikheter och svårigheter gör allt för att inte förlora sin kompis, samt att den sanna definitionen av vänskap diskuteras, reflekteras, och blir sedd ur ett barns perspektiv.Syftet :Syftet med studien är att undersöka hur barn samspelar ihop med jämnåriga, hur de går tillväga för att behålla sina befintliga relationer, samt hur de skapar nya relationer.Metod:Då samma företeelse sedd ur olika perspektiv skulle kunna utgöra ett mer tillförlitligtresultat och på sätt förstärka dess validitet, så valde vi en kvalitativ metod för att på så sätt nyttja både intervju och observation.Resultat:Det informationsflöde som utvanns ifrån studien påvisade ett minst sagt slående resultat.För trots ett tämligen olikt tänk mellan killar och tjejer, så strävade de ändå efter samma mål. Dilemmat i klassen var sålunda inte vad de ville uppnå, utan snarare hur de skulle kunna uppnå det. Barnen berättade öppenhjärtigt att de ville vara sams och bemötas med respekt ifrån så väl vuxna som barn, men att det ibland kunde inträffa missförstånd och dylika komplikationer. / Program: Lärarutbildningen

In the paper we bring up and analyse the attitudes librarianshave towards youth and youth programs in the public library.The purpose is to raise awareness among librarians and tomake the process of change and development. We have usedsemi structured interviews in order to answer our researchquestions and conducted the interviews with five librarians incharge of the youth programs in different public libraries. Inthese interviews we asked about their views on youth as auser group, youth programs and how this affects theiropinions on the roles of the public library. We have also triedto see how the librarian’s opinions differ from how thelibrary runs their youth programs today.We have used two different models as theoretic framework.One of them has defined three different roles of the publiclibrarian and is constructed by Maj Klasson and the other is adeveloped version of Andersson & Skot-Hansen’s classicmodel of the roles of the public library made by Jochumsen,Rasmussen & Skot-Hansen. These models have been used tostructure the analysis of the material gathered from theinterviews.The informants in this paper show a positive attitude towardsyouth as a group and express a wish to make theirexperiences with the public library as good as possible.Overall they are satisfied with the way the youth programs intheir libraries work today but would like to develop it furthergiven more time and resources. / Program: Bibliotekarie

The object of this bachelor thesis is to examine how publiclibraries are working to reach out to boys in their early teens,and from a relationship marketing perspective see howlibraries are using marketing as a tool in creating long-termrelationships with this user group. The following questionsare asked: How do public libraries market themselves toboys in their early teens? How are children’s and youthlibrarians working to create long-term relationships with thisuser group? How do children’s and youth librarians viewmarketing as a way to create long-term relationships with theuser group? The theoretical framework of the study is EvertGummesson’s model of relationship marketing. Interviewswith five children’s and youth librarians make up theempirical data. The results from the study include that noneof the libraries have strategic plans for their marketing andthat the librarians do not seem to have adopted the view ofrelationship marketing. The results also indicate a differencein the professional roles, where the youth librarians giveboys in their early teens a higher priority in their work thanthe children’s and youth librarians. A certain confusion as towhat role libraries should have in relation to boys in theirearly teens can also be discerned, where the main purposesof marketing to this user group are seen as promotion ofreading as well as a wish to change this user group’sperceived image of the library as merely a collection ofbooks. / Program: Bibliotekarie

The aim of this study was about how librarians in Sweden work with their web page to reach young people between the ages of fifteen and nineteen. Most of the youths in Sweden today use Internet every day for several reasons, and the library should have an obvious place there as well. It shouldbe obvious because almost all youths uses Internet every day and therefore the library needs to be seen there as well to reach out to them. Earlier research has shown that librarians and youths think differently in this question. Youths think that the library web page is more important for the librarythan the librarians do.How do the librarians work with marketing for youths on the web page? Do their policy documents help them in their work?To study this area we have interviewed librarians from six quite large public libraries from different parts of thecountry. We also collected their policy documents for the library activities and goals which we analyzed through content analysis. By using a marketing theory on how to make an effective web page, to get the users to revisit and use the page, we have analyzed our results from the interviews and the content analysis.The conclusions of this study are that all the libraries work with Internet to reach out to youths, even though they workin different ways and have different opportunities to work with Internet. Not all of them work with the web page to reach out to the youths. Instead they work a lot with blogs which is an easy and free tool to use. / Program: Bibliotekarie