The aim for this master’s thesis is to clarify users’ and librarians’ views on patient libraries today. This aim is achieved by answering the following research questions: Which are the most important functions and tasks of the patient library, according to users and librarians? Which views on the patient library’s activity come with these functions and tasks? How does the connection to different cultural institutions, such as the library and the hospital, affect users’ and librarians’ views on the patient library? In what ways is the patient library regarded as an asset for health care? As a background for my study, and to give a context to the results, a historical background on the evolvement of hospital libraries in general, and of the case of S:t Görans patient library in particular, is given. Previous research on the subject of hospital libraries from different perspectives is presented and discussed. Aspects such as the hospital library as a bearer of cultural activity, hospital libraries as information centers and collaboration between library and hospital are discussed. Studies from the field of culture and health, about how cultural activity can improve patients’ health and about how health professionals can benefit from reading fiction, are included in the background of the thesis. The theoretical framework is a sociocultural perspective based on the works of Roger Säljö, with the concept of cultural institutions as a tool to analyze the views on the patient library. The method used is qualitative semistructured interviews with library users and librarians.  One of the tasks and functions that arise from the interview is to make literature available for more people. Another is to be a calm room within the hospital. The conclusion is that the patient library has a strong connection to the public library as well as to the hospital. Users connect the patient library more to the public library, but the function of being a part of the hospital is important too. The librarians connect the patient library strongly to the public library. At the same time, they express loyalty towards the hospital.

The purpose of this thesis is to compile and analyze librarian Greta Renborg’s book propaganda in the Dalarna region of Sweden 1956–1958. The overall theoretical perspective is contextual, focusing on the concepts structure and actor. The actor perspective is further developed by an analysis of Renborg’s book propaganda through library researcher Jofrid Karner Smidt’s mediation roles: Critic and literature expert, Social anthropologist, Pedagogue, Marketer and Ordinary person. Source material includes archive documents, journal articles, newspaper articles and literature. Renborg’s own writing holds a special position in the material. The thesis’ results show that the conditions for carrying out book propaganda in Dalarna were good. Sweden was going through a rapid change in the 1950’s and the state library institution was expanding and willing to experiment. The civic society in Dalarna was strong. The region’s central librarian Tora Olsoni was a driving force behind the hiring of a book consultant. Greta Renborg had contacts high up in the library institution and was a well-known name among Swedish librarians. Source material indicate that she could plan and conduct the Dalarna project basically by her own, only supervised by her employer Dalarnas biblioteksförbund. Greta Renborg built up a large network of contacts and focused her propaganda on non-reading groups ac- cording to a state investigation in 1952, especially farmers, foresters and housewives. The source material shows that her book propaganda has features of all Jofrid Karner Smidt’s mediation roles. The medial reception was overwhelmingly positive and often focused on Renborg’s enthusiastic approach. Any statistical effects of the Dalarna Project have not been proven. This thesis shows that the Dalarna Project to a large extent depended on Greta Renborg as a person. This is the thesis’ most important result. This is a two years master’s thesis in Library and Information Science.