The purpose of this thesis is to examine how five public libraries reason about the use of social media in their day-to-day work. This thesis aim to answer three research questions: What is the libraries use of social media today? How do libraries look upon their own use of social media? And have the libraries formulated any goals about their use of social media, and what are their thoughts on this? The methodology used in this thesis is a content analysis of the libraries social media and a questionnaire interview which was sent by mail to all of the libraries involved. The theoretical framework for the thesis is a model developed by Jochumsen, Hvenegaard Rasmussen and Skot-Hansen.The results of our study shows that the room of meetings, from the theoretical framework, are the most represented in the content of the social media used by the libraries. The libraries find that social media is a good way to connect and communicate with their users, but they feel that the time they spend on their social media is not enough.Our study also shows that most of the libraries have not formulated any goals for their use of social media, and that they do not have any intentions to do so. / Program: Bibliotekarie

The purpose of this Master’s thesis is to describe how Swedish public libraries use Web 2.0-tools and their experiences of using the tools. Focus of the study lies in the contact between public libraries and their patrons on the Web 2.0-tools. For the purposes of the study, the use of weblogs and MySpace were chosen for examination. The methodology used for this study was qualitative interviews. Eight qualitative interviews were conducted with public librarians in seven public libraries in Sweden. The theoretical frame for this thesis consists primarily of theories on social networks and virtual communities. Results of this study indicate that using weblogs and MySpace in public libraries are resourceful means to connect with patrons in new ways. It is concluded that, weblogs are mainly used for mediating fiction and MySpace for marketing library services. Weblogs are not seen as places for networking while MySpace is. The contacts created on the Web 2.0-tools are weak since the communication is scarce. The study also shows that in order to increase patrons’ low use of the Web 2.0-tools, the libraries need to regard them as online communities and broaden their target group. This information can be of significance for other public libraries who intend to start using weblogs and MySpace. / Uppsatsnivå: D