By examining the websites of fourteen public libraries using qualitative content analysis this study aim towards knowledge about how the libraries market that they have implemented a LGBTQ-certification on their library websites. This study is based on the following research questions: How and in which ways has the library which has implemented an LGBTQ-certification market this on its website? How has the library, which has implemented a LGBTQ-certification marketed services and materials aimed at the targetgroup on its website? With the answers to these questions as a basis the study strives to investigate how the libraries marketed and made the certification visible on their websites. The results of the study show that the libraries showed their implemented LGBTQ-certification differently and with varying degrees of visibility and marketing. Some of the libraries in the study do not show anything at the library´s website neither that they have implemented a LGBTQ-certification nor that the library have materials or other services for the targetgroup. Other libraries have a wide scope of marketing and visibility of LGBTQ- materials and services towards the targetgroup.

The fact that the public libraries have a democratic mission is considered to be of course. How is it expressed in municipal library plans that are political documents at municipal level? With this essay, the ambition is to find out how ideas about the public libraries democracy mission are expressed and how they relate to theories of democracy.

The purpose of this thesis is to bring knowledge on how digitalization is produced in Swedish public libraries, by reading library plans of 21 municipalities between 2010 – 2018. Digitalization and information technology have been present in debates concerning different roles of the libraries since the 1980s and has put the role of the library in an uneven balance between information and culture. In the study, digitalization is perceived as something revolutionary that has come to permeate the organization from outside – engaged or not – in its evolutionary process. Issues relating to what aspects of digitalization are being produced –  how they intervene in traditional activities – what social groups they are targeting –  and finally, how digital aspects affect public library assignments – are studied through a discourse analytical approach, inspired by Laclau & Mouffe’s conceptual terminology and Carol Bacchi’s approach "what’s the problem represented to be?". The main findings show that the library plans use digital aspects in different ways, but above all by legitimize their role in society based on user needs, where guidance in information technology is due to individuals ´ participation in the E-society, primarily. In connections to this, future challenges are expressed. To a lesser extent, digital aspects are used for cultural approaches highlighting the mediation of literature, cultural expressions and debates. Although, anchoring digital aspects to these elements, increasingly express opportunities for the future organization.

Previous studies have shown that deaf people are a difficult group for libraries to reach. The purpose of this study is to generate more knowledge about deafs’ usage and expectation of libraries. Three research questions were created: How do deaf people use the library? How can prerequisites of deafs’ usage of libraries be understood through indicators of social sustainability? And How can libraries work to be able to reach deaf as a target group?     A survey was created to gather data and sent out through Sweden’s Deaf National Association’s Facebook-page. Twentythree people answered the survey and nineteen of those were analysed for the results.   The results showed that a majority of the respondents visit the       library in some capacity. They borrow books, read newspapers and magazines. Some of the respondents participate in the activities libraries offer, but a lot of respondents express an interest in participating in a variety of activities if they were accessible through sign interpretation or in Swedish sign language.    The conclusion was that the respondents use the library but would like to see more books, movies and resources that are about deafness and Swedish sign language. To be able to participate in more of the activities libraries usually offers. A few of their requests were about the librarians having more knowledge about deafness and learning to speak Swedish sign language.

The purpose of this study is to investigate how public library managers work with the implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, from strategic, practical and children's rights perspectives. The study aims to explore how the Convention on the Rights of the Child, that became Swedish lan in January 2020, affects public libraries and how they work with its implementation. The theoretical framework is based on four qualitative semi-structured interviews, which are then analysed through qualitative content analysis. The results show that the Children's Convention has begun to influence the strategic work of public libraries and its implementation is to a large extent supported by a strategic model specifically developed for this purpose and directed to public library managers.

The aim of this thesis is to examine how different perceptions of the public library’s democratic role are expressed in the library journal Biblioteksbladet during the years 1996–2019. The concept of democracy is understood as an ideological concept, used to legitimize an ideological stand. Thus, the study also aims to investigate what values the concept contains, as well as if these values are in conflict with each other. The theoretical and methodological framework are based on theories of discourse and democracy. The analysis identifies four discourses during the studied period – the participation discourse, the deliberative discourse, the including discourse and the democracy discourse. The first three discourses appear partly during the same time period, from the 1990s’ until the early 2010’s, when all discourses collide and give rise to a new discourse – the democracy discourse. The main finding is a discursive change in the debate where the concept of democracy previously aimed to legitimize a specific practice now aims to legitimize the whole library. Furthermore, the concept of demoracy has over time come to include more conflicting values that jointly aim to legitimize the library’s role in the democratic society regardless of context. The public library’s democratic mission can thus be understood as a discursive strategy.

The aim of this thesis is to examine how perceptions of the public library are expressed in Swedish debates about the public library during the period of 2016-2018. The debates centered around questions regarding what the public library is, what it should be and to whom it should be for. Two main concerns were formulated within the two greater debates. One was that there is an increasing problem with noisy, threatening and violent groups at the public libraries and the other was that librarians are ideology controlled when making decisions on the media in the library. The main questions posed in this study are: which images of the public library can be found in the debates and who are given the possibility to express these images? The analysis shows that perceptions of the public library as an important institution in a democratic society is consistent through all debates and the discourses within them. But there are different ideas about things that threaten the public library, depending on the view of what the ideal public library should be and what their main concern should involve. Our study also shows that the library has become a place for debates about questions that doesn’t directly relate to the institution as such, but about immigration and the extreme right and that the articles that relate more about that have had far bigger response than the articles about the library as a place and how it should meet new challenges with changes in the media climate and a descending circulation numbers.

The purpose of this thesis is to get a closer look at the relations between representatives from different occupational groups after collaborating in the form of a project. The project, involving professionals from the public library, the centre for culture and the pre-schools in Bollnäs focused on basic values and was clearly linked to the curriculum of the pre-school. My aim was to find out what possibilities and challenges the participants had experienced in collaborating with each other. I also wanted to find out how collaborating in this project might change the participants attitudes towards each others professional competence. I performed a case study using semi-structured inteviews to collect the empirical material. The results were analyzed using Lena Folkessons theory regarding the interaction between school librarians and teachers. The conclusions are that this particular collaboration has contributed to insights which could turn out to have value in future collaborations and that it has generated creative processes which can be further developed.

There is a notion that library and information science (LIS) educated professionals are unwilling to take on leadership responsibilities. However, this has not been systematically documented. Therefore, this study’s aim is to provide empirical knowledge about LIS educated professionals’ willingness to become leaders, and what motivates them to become and stay leaders – or not. Based on research on what leaders do, what motivates people to lead, and former library leadership studies, a survey was conducted among employees in Norwegian public libraries. 210 respondents completed the survey. Most of the respondents were leaders (63,8 %), and 9 % wanted to become leaders. The study provides no evidence that LIS educated professionals are unwilling to take on leadership responsibilities. Further, we find that 70 % of all respondents agree that library leaders are satisfied in their job. The study gives important insight into what motivates LIS professionals to lead or not. Reasons to become a leader are first and foremost a drive to develop and change libraries. Leadership tasks are considered exciting and stimulating. The study also suggests a relatively lower need for affiliation among those who become leaders. Reasons not to become a leader are fear of losing LIS tasks (e.g. fear of losing affiliation to the profession), to avoid budgeting and human resources tasks, lack of competence, to avoid responsibility, stress, and/or a heavy workload, lack of resources in public libraries, not holding “the traits of leaders”, and that the salary doesn’t make up for the disadvantages.

This paper aims to explore the librarian’s visibility on public library websites. This is done by locating the words “librarian” and “library” on randomly chosen library websites using a search service to contrast the word frequency against each other. To further explore the visibility of the librarian keywords representing competencies will be collected using Ørom’s theory of professional identities as coding scheme. The results show that the word “librarian” is mentioned significantly less frequent than the word “library”. All of Ørom’s professional identities were identified within the examined websites in four different contexts. The difference in word frequency is one that has the prospect to diminish the librarian in relation to the library as a place, thus rendering the profession less significant than the institution itself. While all professional identities were confirmed to exist within the websites it is highly possible that the keywords do not accurately or clearly convey the responsibilities of the librarian. Further research is recommended to better confirm the visibility of the librarian.