There is a growing interest among libraries for using assistance of dogs in reading training for children. Many Swedish school libraries and public libraries are already today using this kind of pedagogy. From study results we can see that humans feel relaxed and calm together with kind animals. This affects humans physically and psychologically in different ways for example; lowering the blood pressure and set off calming hormones oxytocin. As we all know that reading out loud can be a very stressful situation so taking assistance of a reading dog or an assisting dog can be very helpful. Designed as a qualitative interview study, by interviewing project leaders, school and children’s librarians working with this kind of reading activity, this study examines the questions: how is reading stimulation using reading dogs depicted in practice? How does the projects and how function and how does the Project’s librarians experience this kind of pedagogy? Finally how do reading dogs affect reading activities in the school libraries and public libraries looking through the sociocultural view and the literacy concept? The interviews made in this study suggest that research in the field is needed and financial help is crucial for them to survive so the ongoing or finished projects with assistance or reading dogs can continue in the future. Though the positive results from trying the method gave a wanting for a continuation but sometimes there is no clear plan how to proceed. The guidance from research and financial help could make a huge difference for the librarians working with this pedagogy.

Children's library's primary task is to encourage children to read. Promoted readingleads to increased reading skills. A common method for this purpose is booktalk. This studyaims to examine how children’s librarians work with booktalk aimed towards children andhow it can be developed as a working method to support the library's reading promotionactivities. By conducting five qualitative interviews with the intension of investigating howvarious children’s librarians within a municipality works with booktalk and by making use ofthe theoretical framework of the thesis (which consist of literacy, child perspective and AidanChambers “The Reading Circle”) we could examine development opportunities for themethod. The results of this study show that children’s librarians in the studied municipality iskeen to adapt their booktalk for its target audience reading levels but where the book is itsprimary medium. What also occurred was that the various children’s librarians have differentconditions for development, depending on their workplace but all emphasized the importanceof booktalk. In accordance with the thesis theoretical framework the importance ofconversation about books where children's participation is equal was stated as a developmentopportunity. With an emphasis that those methods just as easily could include other mediathan the printed book, with the help of a broader concept of text to reach the child's cultureand media use and consider it to be a step in the right direction when developing the booktalkas a method.

The purpose of this master’s thesis is to investigate the culture for children in the age of 10-12 year-old at the library in a small town and to see if the library and children shared the same view of the libraries missions. We have interviewed 3 groups of 5-7 children at two times. We have also interviewed a children librarian about her opinion of her work and childrenculture. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child works as our theory in this thesis. We thought that the convention could have an impact on the work of the children libraries. The issues studied are:· How does the children experience the culture offered by the library?· Which culture for children exists in the library? What do the children use?· What do the children think about the mission of the library and of thelibrary as an intermediary link to culture?· What does the library think about their mission and of the library as an intermediary link between children and culture?· How does the work of the library accord to the Convention on the Rights of the Child?The study shows that the children associate the library with the school. This is something that the librarian knew and wanted to change. We also saw that the children wanted to take part in the library work such as purchase, activities and selections. The library does work with the convention as aguideline but wanted to increase the influence of the convention partly bymaking the children participate more. / Uppsatsnivå: D

This thesis examines which function the information technology may have in thechildren's library, with the example from two library computer programmes. One is anexpert system, Hedvig, which will help children to choose and to find books, and theother is a computer game, The mysterious signs, that will teach children library user education.The main question is: What conceptions do the project-leaders, the children'slibrarians and the children have concerning the function of these two programmes in thechildren's library?The study is based upon qualitative interviews with two projects-leaders, fourlibrarians, three computer programmers and twenty-eight children.The theoretical material consists of examples on other library computer programmesfor children developed in Denmark and USA, some American studies in children'sabilities to use computerized information retrieval systems, and studies concerningchildren's relations to computers.The adult's conceptions of the computer programmes are divided into categories asfollows: Democracy, aspect of sex, complement, marketing, reading promotion,development of competence, information technology development, pedagogics, adulteducational activities, compensation and armusement, pedagogics, usefulness,effectiveness and information. These categories shall be seen as the conclusions of the thesis.

The topic of this bachelor thesis is the art of book talk. Book talk is when a librarian orally presents a book in front of a group of people, in this thesis, a group of children. The first part of the thesis treats book talk as a method and its development. It will also go through which role book talk plays in the daily work of a children's librarian today, and if they got any education in book talk during their librarian education. The purpose of this study is to investigate and compare Lev Vygotskij's pedagogical theories on fantasy and creativity to book talk performed by children's librarians. Interviews were made with three children's librarians at two libraries in a quite big town in Sweden. Book talks were also observed at some occasions. The result of this study is that the interviewed librarians are not mainly aware of which pedagogical methods used in their book talks (and in preparing them). Yet it is possible, by analysing the material from the interviews and observations, to find similarities between book talk and Vygotskij's theories. / Uppsatsnivå: C

The purpose of this master thesis is to examine if booktalk is a good method for stimulating reading based on interviews and observations with two classes of pupils in the intermediate level of the Swedish nine-year compulsory school. Our aim is also to study the reading environment regarding of Aidan Chambers' factors about what is indispensable for a good environment for the children. The factors are: Time for reading, time for reading aloud, the stock of books and conversations about books. The study is based on interviews with 38 pupils, two booktalkers and two teachers in two different cities. It also contains two observations of booktalk. The results show that the children in both schools like to listen to the booktalk and that they gladly take a book when they leave the library. In this case there is no difference between boys and girls. The study also shows that the children do not have enough time in school to read quietly for themselves instead the teachers read aloud for them. / 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 aim of this study is to examine how important a factor the environment and the interior is to the creation of a user-friendly children’s library. In this study, environment is taken to mean the furnishing and the equipment in the children’s area at the library. The environment plays an important role in society today and because of that this is a current topic. The case study was made at the public library in Halmstad, which is a newly built public library. We interviewed ten people who were connected to the children's division of the library; most of them employees. We wanted to know what they thought was a user-friendly environment for children at the library. We also wanted to know how they used the furnishing, colour, sound and light to establish a user-friendly environment. This study consists of both qualitative interviews and documents, mostly from the planning stage of the library. We subjected the interview material to different analyses which were based upon theories mainly from our own field, library and information science, but also from environmental psychology. We found out that the environment plays an important role at the children's division of the library. The flexibility of the environment was an important factor in optimizing the potential uses for the children's division, which created many possibilities for the successful execution of an extensive activity program. We concluded that it is important to be able to use the environment for many different purposes. / Uppsatsnivå: D

The main purpose of this thesis is to investigate four children’s librarians’ literature view and their collaboration with pre-schools. My main question at issue is “What literature view do children’s librarians in this thesis have and how does this reflect their collaboration with pre-schools?”. Another purpose is to study the canon process in relation to children’s libraries and pre-schools. I have applied two theories on my analysis. The first is the view of Lennart Hellsing on a good children’s book and the second is three different views on literature, the pragmatic, the traditional and the emancipated views. My results show that people indirectly influence small children in their selection of literature. Adults are encouraged when they realise that the books they read themselves when they were children still exist and willingly read them for their own children. This is one reason why some children’s books have been popular for so many years in pre-schools. It is important to successively change the canon because more vintage books can give their children wrong conceptions as they do not deal with the present era of the children. My results also show that the children’s librarians readily want the children to take part of literature with different presentations of a problem. The books should deal with life and take place in present time, however the children’s pleasure of reading is most important. The collaboration between libraries and pre-schools is not especially good at the moment but is now increasing by means of the project LekaSpråkaLära. / Uppsatsnivå: D

This Master’s Thesis aims to examine the attitudes concerning gender issues among children’s librarians. The main purpose is to examine what their views on the subject are, and if they consider gender issues when acquiring and mediating books. We are also interested in their opinions about gender stereotyping in children’s books. We have chosen to interview eight children’s librarians. This is our primary method, which we will combine with theories on gender and reading. The interviews showed that the biggest gender issue in general is the predominance of female librarians. Other than that there were few discussions on the subject at the libraries. The role as mediator was more reflected upon. The general view was that there is a delicate balance between too much interference and too little. The librarians consider promoting the children’s interest in reading to be their greatest concern, and this means gender issues might be overlooked. Their greatest influence is achieved through their choice of which books to acquire, and how they promote these. There are differing opinions on gender stereotyping in books among the librarians. The stereotypes can facilitate reading comprehension, as the children easily recognise the characters and identify with them. They can also limitate the child’s frame of reference.