The aim of this thesis is to study the conditions three public libraries have to be a resource for university students. The libraries are all situated at a distance from universities that allow the students to commute between the university and their homes. These students often make the same demands on the public library as they do on the university library. In order to conduct this study the frame factor theory has been used. This theory was developed by pedagogic scholars during the 1960s and focuses on how the framework surrounding the school affects the learning results. By means of using this theory it is possible to study how the framework surrounding the public libraries affects their abilities to assist the students. The frame factors are divided in two main parts, which are organizational frames and the participant’s conceptions. These frames are studied on a national as well as on a local level. The method that has been used is qualitative interviews with local politicians, librarians and university students. The purpose for choosing these three groups is to get their different points of view of how the public library can be a resource for the students. The thesis shows that although co-operations between public and university libraries already exist these co-operations must be more developed than they are today. It also shows that the conceptions that the different participants carry not always are in accordance and that the public libraries therefore must be better on marketing themselves. / Uppsatsnivå: D

The aim of this Master’s thesis is to investigate different ways of illustrating the information literacy of librarians and with a pragmatic view survey what has been written about marketing the librarians. The thesis is based on a marketing theory introduced by Philip Kotler. He believes that marketing is a social process and that everything can be marketed. I have reviewed three marketing strategies and their significance in marketing the information literacy of librarians. The strategies are marketing mix, event marketing and services marketing. The thesis has two parts and the first is a literature exposition of the marketing and the economic frames, investigations about the role, identity and rank of librarians and the marketing of librarians. The second part is an investigation that consists of interviews with four librarians with different experiences of marketing within the library. My conclusion is that there are useful strategies for marketing the information literacy of the librarians. Services marketing in combination with event marketing have good potential for success. A second conclusion is that it is necessary for librarians to market their competence and in that way indirectly also promote the library. With an effective marketing of the librarian competence there is also a reason to keep the title “librarian”. The competence lies not in the name, but within the person. / Uppsatsnivå: D

This master’s thesis deals with the issue of children’s theatre at the public library. I want to examine what purpose children’s theatre play for the children according to the children’s librarians, what different factors that may influence the purchase of plays to the public library and what the children’s librarians think of the children’s theatre at the public library at present and in the future. Interviews have been conducted with four children’s librarians, at different libraries, who are somehow involved in the purchase of children’s plays to the library. The material has then been analysed with the help of the theories and earlier research. The theories applied consist of two different parts. Firstly, I look into the new way of looking at childhood as a social construction, which has emerged in the last couple of decades. This is used as a framework and is applied on the thesis as a whole. I also apply Karin Helander’s theory of the three purposes of children’s theatre. The findings show that the librarians think that all three purposes of children’s theatre are important, but the most important one is the educational purpose. At the purchase of children’s theatre there are a lot of factors to take in consideration, the librarians find the most important ones to be those of practical origin, for example the premises available and the price of the performances. All of the librarians think that the children’s theatre is important at the public library but time and money are the biggest threats towards it. / Uppsatsnivå: D

The aim of this Master’s thesis is to examine the profession of librarianship by studying tasks in Swedish public libraries. The method is a textual analysis of articles inspired by the critical discourse analysis of Norman Fairclough. The theory applied consists of the profession theory of Andrew Abbott and the gender theory of Yvonne Hirdman. The questions raised are: how do librarians speak about their tasks, which discourses can be constructed and how can profession theory and gender theory explain the result. 61 articles from three Swedish library journals, Biblioteksbladet, DIK-Forum and bis, from the period 1990 to 2000 are analysed. Three discourses concerning the tasks of librarians are identified: a traditional discourse, an information technology discourse and a market economy discourse. The traditional discourse focus on traditional public librarian values with an anxiety towards the new technology as threatening to the profession. The information technology discourse sees the new technology merely as a tool to simplify the work and to make time for more demanding professional tasks. The market economy discourse centres on service and satisfying the demands of the users, who are seen and treated as customers. Application of profession theory results in showing how the information technology discourse is being part of a progress of the librarian profession, whereas the traditional discourse indicates a remaining position and the market economy discourse results in a professional decline. Application of gender theory results in showing how the gender contract is being renegotiated when information technology is introduced at the workplaces. / Uppsatsnivå: D

The purpose of this master’s thesis is to examine whether the role of a public library in a rural community is different from that of a town library. To answer this, a case studie of two public libraries has been made. Interviews, collection of documents and observations were carried out on location in one public library located in a rural area, and one public library, situated in a town. A modified version of an analysis model, originally developed by Andersson and Skot-Hansen, was used to analyse the data. Andersson’s and Skot-Hansen’s model is designed to categorize the roles of the public library as (1) a cultural centre (2) a knowledge centre (3) an information centre, and (4) a social centre. The analytical findings show that the rural library examined in this study clearly possess all of the roles of the model, while the town library of this study is more distinct in the roles of being information centre and knowledge centre. The remaining two roles does appear in the sample, but not to the same extent. The results also show that the roles a public library takes on does not solely depend on the surroundings being rural or urbanized, but on many other circumstances as well. Some other determinants are the character of the municipality, and organizational issues such as management of both the municipality and the library. / Uppsatsnivå: D

The object of this master thesis is to question why the sheet music heldby libraries is not used more than it is. I have mainly studied the inc idenceof any cooperation between the music schools and libraries,whether there has been consultation on the purchase of sheet musicand whether the music schools borrowed sheet music from the libraries.For the thesis qualitative methods were used in the form of interviewswith ten leaders in music or cultural schools in Sweden. The mainstudy has been focused on the library and music school in Vänersborg.To compare my results and draw conclusions I have used the work ofSanna Taljas: Music, Culture and the Library: an analysis of Discourses.The result of the study showed that there is very little cooperation betweenthe library section for music and the music school. The greatestinterest for cooperation appears to come from the library personnel.Both the library and the music school personnel claim insufficient timeand money for their lack of cooperation. / Uppsatsnivå: D

The aim of this Master’s thesis is to examine seven public librarians’ attitudes towards manga as a new kind of literature in public libraries. Manga is an art form, originally from Japan, but in recent years manga has become very popular in the Western societies. The main issue of this thesis is how the librarians’ look at manga and what they think about manga. In this thesis I also discuss to what extension the public libraries in this study have manga in their collections, what the librarians think that public libraries today should offer their visitors and what is important to discuss when the librarians purchase books and other new media to the library. In order to answer these questions I conducted interviews with seven public librarians in children and youth departments in five public libraries in the north of Sweden. This study shows that the librarians are positive in their attitudes towards manga. Their opinion is that the public libraries could offer manga, but they think that quality is very important and they will be sure about the top-quality in the manga they offer. The librarians’ main opinion is that their lack of knowledge in manga is a problem. In this thesis I use Herbert J. Gans theory about taste cultures and taste publics and my conclusion is that there is a relation between the librarians’ knowledge and to which taste culture they belong. / Uppsatsnivå: D

The purpose of this thesis is to describe and analyse the development of the public library in the district of Österåker during a period of 1958-1983. The main goals have been to identify the crucial events in the history of the library within their historical context and to analyse the factors that have been important for the development: financing, location, staffing, stock of books, book-lending level and different activities for children, youngsters and adults. The consideration has been taken to reasons and consequences of these events. The hermeneutic interpretation model of interaction between parts and wholes, between reasons and results is the basic method in this research which leans mainly upon local archives in Österåker. The public library in Österåker was established in 1952 as a fusion of previously existing small libraries: the parish library in Östra Ryd, the Labour Movement’s library and the temperance movement’s library. This public library, which was small and neglected in the fifties, developed to a relative big and modern cultural community centre in the seventies. The most important milestones in the development were: moving to Municipal Hall in 1955, employment of the very first professionally skilled librarian in1969, receiving of a Government subsidy for developing of regional libraries in 1970, moving to the larger premises in 1971 and moving to the permanent location in Folkets hus in 1978. The library fortune depended on the local conditions and the national politics, both constituting the framework for possibilities to grow and develop. The research shows that a good economy together with appropriate premises and skilled staff provides a good base for a successful development. / 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 purpose of this master’s thesis is to investigate children’s access to specific children’s activities at Swedish public libraries 2005. The thesis is based on literature studies and qualitative interviews with children’s librarians, library directors and local politicians at two demographically different libraries in Gothenburg.The sub questions are: What measures exist to promote children’s access to public libraries and children’s activities when it comes to: law and other political statements: different efforts on the state level and different efforts on the municipal level in the direct activity with children at public libraries? What driving forces and needs justify activities for children at public libraries? How will the responsible persons judge that the efforts are sufficient? The result of the study shows that children’s access to library activity has increased in the last couple of years due to reorganization, economic savings with closing down of library affiliates and because libraries have given priority to other things, like IT and new media. Children’s librarians have got new assignments and less time for children’s activity.The conclusion of our investigation is that children’s librarians are ambitious in their work, but unfortunately don’t give children’s library activity adequate resources. Maybe due to the unwillingness of library directors and politicians to give priority to any target group before another group, despite their commission that children shall be given priority at Swedish public libraries. / Uppsatsnivå: D