The aim of this Master thesis is to make a survey of the public library staff-relations at work and discuss relationship marketing as it applies to public libraries. Relationship marketing involves the establishment, maintenance and development of users and other library-related relationships, including the relations among the library staff itself. Good relations among the library staff is a necessary condition for good relations with others. The focus of relationship marketing is at the user’s needs, wants and demands instead of the library collections and services. The method used is qualitative case study: semi-structured interviews with the library staff (librarians, assistants and a library manager), observation of the public library’s physical environment and analysis of documents directing the library activities. Among other things the study points out that the public library is appropriate for relationship marketing, partly because the library staff daily handles many relations and partly because the library staff is very service minded. However to live up to all the principles of relationship marketing they have to go further and implement a relationship marketing culture that puts the user in first place and encourages cooperation with each other and other professions. The library staff was not familiar with relationship marketing and to begin with they have to discuss what a relation is and what difference it could make working consciously with relationship marketing. / Uppsatsnivå: D

This master’s degree thesis stems from the new possibilities that digitization offers preserving and increased public accessibility of our cultural heritage, but also how a lack of co-ordination and standardization may result in short-term projects and lack of quality. The purpose of this thesis is to examine a selection of public libraries’ digitization projects. The two questions posed are:How does a selection of public libraries conduct their digitization projects concerning a) goals and objectives, b) execution c) what resources they encompass?How well does their work agree with the recommendations that exists for goals, objectives and execution?To answer the questions interviews were conducted with persons in various ways involved with the digitization projects. In addition to the result of the interviews, material from guiding principles and recommendations by a selection of actors within the fields of digitization was used. The study shows first of all how publication of the digitized material, rather than preservation, was the most common goal and objective and that local material was prioritized.The execution, concerning technical aspects, differed somewhat among the participating libraries, and also choices made regarding for example file-format. These differences can partly be explained by different ambitions among the participating libraries but also due to lack of standardization. Furthermore, all libraries, except one, had financed their projects with external contributions. / Uppsatsnivå: D

In this master thesis I investigate different views on literary quality in two quite different library journals; Biblioteksbladet and Bibliotek i Samhälle. One aim of the study is to see whether the ambiguity of the term literary quality is considered. Since there is no universally accepted definition of literary quality to be found the analysis is inspired by discourse analysis. This theoretical frame work starts off in the assumption that our views of the world are much dependent the way we describe it. The work of Finnish scholar Sanna Talja is presented and the results of this thesis are compared with the three perspectives on music culture that are presented in her book. The results of the thesis show that it is quite common to regard official definitions of quality as valid. Further, the collection of the library is also considered to be a good measure of quality. There is little regard for the opinions of the library user on the matter. Results also show that there isn’t much overall consideration of the complexity of the term. / Uppsatsnivå: D

The aim of this study is to look closer at collection development and the use of collection development policies in Swedish public libraries, with the help of a few examples. Through interviews with three librarians in three different public libraries and an analysis of these libraries’ collection development policies, the authors try to find out how the creation of collection development policies takes place in these libraries, how these librarians use the policy, how these policies have been followed up and revised, and also to see what the policies of these libraries include. The material of the study suggests that a lot of work is required to write the policies, and that the written policy itself is seldom used by the librarians. The interviewed librarians still find the policies useful because the writing of them gave a detailed understanding of what the collection of the library contains. The staff was positive to work with creating the policies. The policies are not linked to the goals and missions declared in other documents concerning the libraries’ work. The policies have not been revised or followed up since they were written a few years back. The policies contain details concerning the present state of the collections, but contain very little information aimed at persons outside the library staff. Neither detailed guidelines on selection and deselection nor detailed plans for how the sections of the collections should develop are included. / Program: Bibliotekarie

The aim of this thesis is to research if and in that case how, marketing of Swedish public libraries is used as a possible work method in a time when they are marked by changes in the form of cut backs and technical innovations. With a strive to get an overview by the possible debate I have chosen to do a closer exam of 20 texts published in five of the biggest Swedish library publications during a period of 20 years. My research is based mainly upon Philip Kotler’s marketing theories regarding non-profit organization as well as Eileen Elliot de Saéz interpretations of these to a library context. The first part of the essay therefore consists of an introduction of these, as well as a rendering of their method of work, which shows the width of the conception of marketing. These models are therefore a base for the second part of the essay, which consists of a text – and idea analysis of the publication texts. Another aspect of my research is whether the ideas of marketing are interlinked with the view of the libraries role and their main tasks. My result shows that a development has occurred during the years, which the articles were published. The use of marketing foremost as Public Relations and outreach programme has evolved into a wider understanding of the subject. The influences of Kotler’s theories are visible in the articles both indirect and explicit. Overall, a positive view to marketing as a work method is adopted in the articles but a wider knowledge of the subject is often sought after. The articles also show that a positive attitude towards marketing is often interlinked with a customer oriented view of the libraries role. / Uppsatsnivå: D

The purpose of this thesis is to examine whether or not the publiclibraries under review can make use of Frans Melin’s strategicbranding platform to create or strengthen their brands by meansof their programme activities. The study addresses two issues;how are the programme activities relevant to the way librariescan work with their brands, and what potential do these librarieshave to create and/or reinforce their brands through programmeactivities?The empirical material has been obtained through qualitativeinterviews structured around Melin’s platform. This has alsobeen used to discuss and analyse the results. Melin’s platformis comprised of six interactive factors: product attributes, brandidentity, core value, positioning, market communication andinternal brand loyalty. The respondents in the interviews werelimited to library staff members.The results showed huge variation in how the libraries in thestudy work with their brand. The analysis revealed thatvery few of the libraries were working actively with their brandor even discussing how they could approach such a task.It also disclosed that the public’s confusion over the locallibraries’ identity and image is shared by some of the staffworking at the libraries under review. This presents a problemwhen creating a brand through programme activities. However,discussion and conclusions revealed that public libraries havegreat potential to benefit from Melin’s platform and withadditional work and restructuring they can create a brand throughtheir programme activities that is representative for the library’sorganisation as a whole. / Program: Bibliotekarie

The aim of this Bachelor's thesis is to examine library directors'views on weeding in Swedish public libraries. The researchquestions posed are: What formal goals and criteria govern theweeding process?; How are these goals and criteria accountedfor?; How do the library directors view the weeding in relationto the roles of the collections?The theoretical framework consists of a division of weedingcriteria inspired by Stanley J. Slote, and a slight adaptation ofMichael K. Buckland's roles of collections. The empiricalmaterial was gathered through semistructured interviews withlibrary directors and analyzed using the above theories asstructural tools.The results show that written guidelines and criteria are deemedunnecessary and awkward and are consequently not used. Theweeding process described mainly uses circulation-based liststo identify weeding candidates, which are then judged on anindividual basis using a mixture of subjective and objectivecriteria. The primary motives for weeding are that the materialshould be up-to-date and inviting to the users. Weeding isregarded as important for the distributing role of thecollections. Unused material is viewed as problematic as itprevents browsing users from finding material that interestthem. Weeding decisions invoking the archival andbibliographical roles of the collections are seen as hard tojustify when conflicting with the distributing role. Adiscrepancy between an objective and a subjective stancetowards the weeding process is prominent in much of thelibrary directors' reasoning. / Program: Bibliotekarie

The purpose of this bachelor's thesis is to see how public libraries have adopted the new e-book readers and how the libraries think the e-readers will affect them in the future. There are three different theories in this study which are used to see how the e-book reader influences the libraries as an innovation and as a remediation from the paper book as well as its evolution. The authors have used four qualitative interviews where they have tried to find the most relevant librarians for the purpose. It was found that all the libraries in the study think that they need to learn about the e-reader and its functions to be able to understand users’ needs, but they haven´t agreed if they should have the e-reader as a library loan. The staff seems to think that the e-reader is a good innovation but some criticism has arisen, like the fact that there are technical issues. The libraries hope for more beneficial licenses as the e-book market grows since they today pay a relatively high amount for every downloaded e-book. This can also become an issue when the budget is made.

The aim of this essay is to examine three separate Swedish public libraries and their respective websites on the grounds of the usability sciences. I firstly had to summarize the main properties of the usability-field in order to gain an extended knowledge of its purposes and possible usage for today’s library systems. I was then able to apply the extended knowledge in the examination of the three library websites and the purpose of determining whether or not they were designed according to the standards set by the usability-sciences. Usability is a rather new science that deals with the dissection and examination of computer-based systems, in order to find the key components that make systems user-friendlier. With user needs being the main focus of its research, usability tries to meet all the different needs of the modern user and construct systems that are less system-centered and more user-centered. As a result, the field of usability has been forced to rely on other scientific fields that have long dealt with human behaviour, such as the fields of Sociology and Psychology to be able to grasp the complexities of human information behaviour. For the field of Library- and Information Science (LIS), the introduction of usability has been fairly recent and may therefore take a while to fully implement into the practice. However as this essay will show, several Swedish public libraries have already made the daring leap and  are well on the road to evolving more user-friendly websites and systems. Hopefully, this new transition will also give them an edge in the highly competitive information-sphere of today.

The aim of this Master´s thesis is to examine the debate in Swedish library press concerning outsourcing of public libraries. The two magazines studied are BBL (Biblioteksbladet) and bis (bibliotek i samhälle). The period of time covered by the selected articles is 2005 to 2011. Although there are still quite few cases of tendering arrangements in Sweden, the question has been raised in the last years by the decision of the Municipality of Nacka (Stockholm) to outsource their public libraries. Another important factor for bringing the question into focus has been the general elections of 2006, which brought an alliance of right-wing parties to power.      In this thesis the arguments of the participants are documented and analyzed. The premises of the arguments are also analyzed. The premises are equivalent to the ambiguous and mutually connected concepts of democracy, culture, freedom and power. The results show that the debate is determined by what I call “the conventional concept of public libraries”. According to this concept, the role of a public library is to promote democracy. Democracy, then, is defined in a social liberal way. It is this view of the role of public libraries that is being defended by the opponents of tendering arrangements. Even the arguments of the advocates of outsourcing must be understood in light of  liberal democratic tradition. However, the advocates represent the neoliberal view of democracy, which makes them define the concepts of freedom and power in a different way compared to their antagonists. Inspired by the theory of meaning proposed by Michael Dummett, I show that there are strong reasons for stating that the debate is won by the opponents of outsourcing. The word “public library” can only be used for a very specific kind of institution, provided that it is still meaningful. Furthermore, using the theory of power elaborated by the North American political and social theorist Steven Lukes, I also show that the arguments of the participants in the debate essentially are to be understood in light of the power that the participants claim is being exercised over the users by the two opposite ways of managing public libraries. Last of all, the debate can be seen as an expression of a secular liberal democratic discussion concerning the relation between the state, the market and the civil society.