In this master’s thesis we examine how the public libraries’ role and mission has been interpreted during the covid-19 pandemic and how the public libraries adapted to the situation. Public libraries are communal spaces meant for the public and according to the Swedish library law the public libraries should work especially towards a few specified prioritized target groups. Therefore, we also wanted to consider which groups needs that have been fulfilled or not, through the adjustments during the pandemic. The material of the study consists of interviews with 14 public library directors and 1 developer of public libraries services. We applied Fairclough’s framework for critical discourse analysis on our interview material. This framework was supplemented with Habermas term the public sphere and with the discourses about public libraries identified by Hedemark.  In the thesis we identified reasons and arguments for how the public libraries readjusted their library activities and prioritized services. We also identified which discourses about libraries were noticeable in the library directors’ descriptions of the libraries’ role during the pandemic. Several discourses about libraries identified by Hedemark were common in the material. We also found a discourse that had not been identified by previous research, which we named the social meeting place discourse. We interpreted the prevalence of this discourse about libraries, which focuses on the social aspect of the library as a meeting place, as an effect of the pandemic. Since the libraries have not been able to function as meeting places during the pandemic, this function has become more noticeable. The closing of the libraries as meeting places has affected all the library users but has affected the libraries work towards the prioritized groups the most. In some areas of Sweden the public libraries have replaced some of the meeting place functions with new digital services. These adaptions vary greatly between different counties, which has meant that people have had different access to library services depending on where they live.  This is a two years master's thesis in Library and information science.

This master thesis has examined a user’s capabilities to utilize the Swedish national web archive Kulturarw³ for research purposes. The aim was also to identify any potential areas of improvement in the user’s capabilities working with Kulturarw³. The research questions are: 1. How does Kulturarw³ operate? 2. What are the main factors which affect Kulturarw³ structure and function? 3. What capabilities exist for researchers and students to utilize Kulturarw³ for their research? Are there any potential areas of improvement to the web archives user capabilities? The author has analyzed the web archive altogether using institutional theory in organization studies. The analysis has been loosely structured after Staffan Furusten’s model of the outside world in using institutional theory in organization studies. The purpose of this is to explain why the web archive looks the way it does today. An understanding of the web archive will better illuminate why any potential areas of improvement identified may or may not be possible for KW3 to implement. The author has conducted email interviews, in-person interviews as well as digital interviews with the staff responsible for working with Kulturarw³ at the Swedish National Library, Kungliga biblioteket. A draft of guidelines concerning Kulturarw³ from Kungliga biblioteket and a video-interview at Internetmuseum with one of the the founders of the web archive has also been used as source-material for this master thesis. The author concluded that Kulturarw³ is a national web archive with a long history. Its functions and limitations are complex. Kulturarw³s operation has changed greatly throughout its lifetime because of the surrounding environment. Several main factors which affect Kulturarw³ were identified. Several Swedish laws, international charters and initiatives, collaborations between and relations to other web archives, use of open-source software and digitalization’s impact on Kulturarw³ is discussed in detail. Kulturarw³'s long history of archiving the Swedish web makes it a valuable and plentiful source for research. Its collections and functions should be sufficient for anyone to conduct qualitative research. Yet at the current moment, the web archive is too inaccessible to live up to user’s expectations. That makes it an unviable option for research purposes. Unfortunately, there is not a lot Kulturarw³ can currently change to make it more assessable. The lack of information readily available also hinders users from using the web archive at max efficiency. There is a lot of opportunities for KB to better inform its users of its value and capabilities. An increased collaboration with Swedish research institutions would also benefit both researchers and the web archive in the long run.

Vad denna utvärdering försökt få svar på är hur tillgängligheten för HBT-litteratur ser ut i de system som används hos privata och offentliga aktörer – internetbokhandlar och bibliotekskataloger tillgängliga via internet. Detta medförde ett antal mer praktiskta underliggande frågor om hur trädstrukturen är designad, vilket typ av språk som används och hur lätt det är att förstå, huruvida det finns särskilda kategorier för litteratur med HBT-innehåll och huruvida det finns direktlänkar mellan litteratur med HBT- innehåll. De system som testades var internetbokhandlarna Amazon (både den amerikanska versionen och det brittiska dotterbolaget), The Book Depository och Adlibris samt de klassificeringssystem som används av nationalbiblioteken i de länder där dessa bokhandlar har sitt säte (USA, Storbritannien och Sverige): Library of Congress Classification, Dewey Decimal Classification och Klassifikationssystem för svenska bibliotek. Två av bibliotekssystemen (LC och DDC) hade inte en trädstruktur som var tillgänglig för kunderna att se och navigera igenom, medan den tredje (SAB) erbjöd en struktur med både klassifikationskoden och svenska ord, även om det inte var optimalt konstruerade kategorier och förgreningar. Ingen av dem hade gott om länkar, om ens några, till annan litteratur med liknande innehåll. Internetbokhandlarna hade välutvecklade men inte för specifika trädstrukturer med lättförstådda namn och gott om länkar till annan litteratur. Två av dem (The Book Depository och Adlibris) hade inga huvudkategorier tillägnade HBT-material vilket däremot Amazon UK och Amazon US hade. Alla bibliotekssystemen skulle behöva omarbetas för att tillgängligheten för litteratur, och i synnerhet HBT-litteratur som var fokus i denna utvärdering, ska bli god. Library of Congress och British Library skulle behöva upprätta trädstrukturer för kunderna att använda sig av och alla tre behöver se till att en kategori där all HBT- litteratur samlas finns på den högsta nivån. Internetbokhandlarna å andra sidan behöver inte göra mycket för att tillgängligheten i deras system ska bli god: Adlibris och The Book Depository behöver precis som bibliotekssystemen upprätta en HBT-kategori i trädstrukturen men i övrigt är de privata aktörerna fullt godkända. De båda Amazon- filialerna var de aktörer visade sig ha den bästa tillgängligheten av alla. / What this investigation has tried to find out is how easily availabie LGBT literature is in the systems that are used by private companies and the public sector - online book shops and library catalogues available online (OPACs). This entailed a number of more practical underlying factors regarding the design of the tree structure, what kind of language is used and how easy it is to understand, whether or not there are special categories for LGBT-related literature and whether or not there are direct links between literature with LGBT content. The systems investigated were the online book shops Amazon (both the American version and the British subsidiary), The Book Depository and Adlibris along with the classification systems used by the national libraries in the countries where these book shops reside (the US, the UK and Sweden): Library of Congress Classification (LC), Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) and Klassifikationssystem för svenska bibliotek (SAB). Two of the library systems (LC and DDC) did not have a tree structure available for the customers to see and navigate through, while the third one (SAB) offered a structure with both the classification code and Swedish words explaining what the codes meant, even if the categories and subdivisions were not optimally constructed. None of them had very many links to other literature. Two of them (The Book Depository and Adlibris) did not have main categories specifically for LGBT content which both Amazon US and Amazon UK did. All the library systems could use a revision to ensure that literature, and particularly LGBT literature as that was the focal point of this investigation, is easily available. The Library of Congress and the British Library need to establish a tree structure their clients could use and all three need to make sure they have a category where LGBT literature is collected and available at the root. The online book shops on the other hand do not need to do much to improve the availability of their systems: like the library systems, Adlibris and The Book Shop need to create a category of LGBT literature in the tree structure but besides that the private companies pass with credit. The systems used by the Amazon branches proved to have the greatest availability of all the systems investigated.

This is a two years master’s thesis that studies five libraries. The purpose with the paper was to look at a specific material and study how it expresses itself around the architecture of the buildings, an if the descriptions were different depending on the library, public library or university library.  The conclusion is that the ways of describing the library buildings have varied; depending on one part time and one part evolution. The way library buildings look and have been used has changed over time also, and as well how people perceive and talk, or in this case write about them.

Jag söker det vackra i det som gör så jävla ont. tvetydigt vackert Jag kallar det för en sorgens separatism. Att bli utestängd från alla andra på grund av sin sorg, för att sedan börja stänga in alla de som av sorgen inte stängts ut. Zarah var en av många som grät en tår och den föll genom staden bort till mitt öga. De som gråter över sorgen, sorgen som är. De gråter i mina ögon. Men när jag väl kommer gråtandes, kommer du då tillåta mig att gråta i ditt? Min konst kanske kan få vara mellanrummet mellan våra tårar, som de kvävda andetagen mitt där i. Det är en sorgens separatisms och jag är osäker på om varken vi sorgsna eller vi sorgliga förstår mer om vad det innebär än om hur det faktiskt känns.