The purpose of this Bachelor’s thesis is to examine university librarians’ perceptions of information literacy, of students’ information literacy and of education in information literacy. The focus is on how they perceive the students’ information literacy development during their university studies. Also of interest in this study is how librarians think that their teaching in information literacy should be included in the students’ other courses.   Three librarians at a Swedish university library were interviewed using qualitative interviews. The material from the interviews was then analyzed with Bruce’s model of different conceptions of information literacy and Limberg’s and Folkesson’s categories for methods and goals for education in information seeking.                       The results show that information literacy is of high importance for the students to be able to graduate. The students’ information literacy level differs amongst them, but it is clear that it actually develops during their university studies. The education in information literacy should be integrated gradually with the students’ other courses and there should also be a connection with what the students study at the time. To make this work, the teachers have to inform the librarians about the students’ tasks. This also shows that it is very important to have a working collaboration between teachers and librarians, between university departments and libraries. The responsibility for students’ developing in information literacy should be shared by librarians, teachers, the university and students themselves.

<p>The purpose of this Bachelor’s thesis is to examine university librarians’ perceptions of information literacy, of students’ information literacy and of education in information literacy. The focus is on how they perceive the students’ information literacy development during their university studies. Also of interest in this study is how librarians think that their teaching in information literacy should be included in the students’ other courses.</p><p> </p><p>Three librarians at a Swedish university library were interviewed using qualitative interviews. The material from the interviews was then analyzed with Bruce’s model of different conceptions of information literacy and Limberg’s and Folkesson’s categories for methods and goals for education in information seeking.</p><p>                     </p><p>The results show that information literacy is of high importance for the students to be able to graduate. The students’ information literacy level differs amongst them, but it is clear that it actually develops during their university studies. The education in information literacy should be integrated gradually with the students’ other courses and there should also be a connection with what the students study at the time. To make this work, the teachers have to inform the librarians about the students’ tasks. This also shows that it is very important to have a working collaboration between teachers and librarians, between university departments and libraries. The responsibility for students’ developing in information literacy should be shared by librarians, teachers, the university and students themselves.</p>

This master's thesis examines information literacy and students in secondary education. The study is framed within a sociocultural perspective of learning and the method used is questionnaires. The major question posed is how and where students seek information. Other questions are if the students critically evaluate and analyse in­formation sources and if teachers and school librarians cooperate with each other in order to help the students with their assignments. The findings indicate that most students regard information seeking as fact-finding or finding the right an­swers to the question. Only one third of students experienced information seeking as seeking and using informa­tion for understanding a topic. The first place the students look for information is the Internet. Half of the stu­dents think they have been trained in information seeking. More boys than girls believe they have been trained. Three quarters of the students do not think they need more training in information seeking. Two thirds of the students think they have been sufficiently trained in source evaluation and more boys than girls believe they have been sufficiently trained. Just over half of the students do not think they need more training in source evaluation. A good half of the students think the school library is quite important and almost half of the girls and one third of the boys visit the library once or twice per month. The cooperation between the teachers and the librari­ans does not work as well in the schools as the teachers and librarians wish but is improving. The majority of the teachers and librarians think their cooperation needs to be improved. The majority of the teachers think there is a correlation between information seeking and learning outcomes. All the librarians think the library is a resource that ought to be integrated in the students' education. My conclusion is that the majority of the students are not information literate. To be information literate, the students need to have the ability to locate and evaluate the required information. Information seeking as scruti­nizing and analysing is a pre-requisite for lifelong learning.

The purpose of this study is to examine if digital public libraries are serendipitous environments. Serendipity in this instance is defined as finding something unexpected and valuable, while searching for something else. A survey was conducted at two Swedish digital public libraries, where the patrons were asked to fill in a questionnaire online. The questions were based on the work on serendipitous digital environments by Lori McCay-Peet, as well as considerations of human factors that could possibly influence serendipity. The result indicate that a majority of patrons experience serendipity at the digital library, although it’s still more common to do so at the physical library or on other web sites. The result also confirms the importance of taking human factors into account when studying serendipity. The patrons who said they didn’t experience serendipity at the physical library or on other web sites, didn’t experience it at the digital library either – or at least only partially. However, the patrons who didn’t experience serendipity at the digital library still did so in other environments. A digital library is an environment with many possibilities for serendipitous encounters and discoveries, but what is missing is a better understanding of how serendipity can actually help in finding information. By teaching patrons to actively seek out serendipity, and by offering a serendipitous digital environment in which to do so, the library can further information literacy in our society.

The subject of this two year Master's thesis in Library and Information Science is the information practices of illiterate immigrants in everyday life. The purpose is to examine how immigrants seek, identify, understand and value information sources and information, and how the practices have changed with their arrival in Sweden. It furthermore focuses on the barriers that illiterate immigrants meet in accessing and understanding information. It moreover investigates the strategies they use to overcome them. For this purpose twelve qualitative research interviews were carried out, with illiterate immigrants as well as with service providers. The theoretical concepts of the essay is information practices, which means that the information process is within a context, and information poverty, that people in different context do not have adequate and equal access to information and information sources. Using McKenzie's model of information practices, the essay concludes that illiterate immigrants are active in their information process, especially when they interact with information. The most commonly used information practice is to seek out and ask for help in their social network. They use service providers to explain written information. In addition to actively seeking out people to help them, they use a variety of information practices. They use Internet on their smartphones. Some of them use a translator app to translate letters and communicate with others. They use Facebook and watch TV. They also use other visual sources. Their information practices function as strategies to cope with barriers connected to illiteracy. They utilize their social network that possesses writing and reading skills to help them read and explain. Other strategies are to use numbers and to learn things by heart. Although the illiterate immigrants use a variety of practices and strategies, they still do not get adequate and equal access to information and therefore can be called information poor. Their social network is a resource, but it can also be a limitation. They risk lacking information about intangible things. But they do not, opposed to Chatman's theory, keep their needs concealed. One participant differed from the others in this aspect, since he expressed an unwillingness to ask. He was also troubled by his illiteracy. He perceived himself as being more limited because of it. The interpretation of this is that he lives in a more literate world than the other participants. Therefore is he able to realize what he lacks. It is important to give illiterate immigrants adequate and equal information. This essay thus suggests that institutions seek to adapt their information services to the practices and strategies that the group acquires and uses.

With the technological development of the last decades, an increasing number of genealogists are carrying out their research online. The purpose of this master’s thesis is to examine how and why genealogists' information behavior has been influenced by the use of online services for genealogy. Using a conceptual model of genealogists' information behavior as theoretical basis for the study, I examine how the use of online services affect genealogists’ search process, what information they are looking for and what information resources they use. Data is collected by seven qualitative interviews with experienced genealogists.The interviews indicate that online services have not completely taken over the genealogists’ search for information. Genealogists still went to physical repositories for a number of reasons. However, all participants in the study agreed that their visits to physical repositories and their use of physical records had declined since they began to use online services. The search for information was perceived to have become easier and more convenient with online services, although participants also acknowledged the risks of misleading information. Online services for genealogy also seem to have an influence on the contact between genealogists, especially on international contacts. This, together with the increasing research on foreign material, indicates that genealogy has been internationalized as a result of the use of online services. To the extent that the use of online services affects genealogists' information behavior, it seems in large part to be a result of online services removing geographical barriers that previously influenced genealogists’ information behavior. This is a two years master’s thesis in Archival Science.

The buying decision process describes how the consumer makes a purchase decision through a rational process (Markin, 1979) and an understanding for how consumers make a purchase decision can according to Sands et al. (2010) be obtained by increased knowledge for the information search process (the second part of the buying decision process) before a purchase. Today’s society offers great opportunity to obtain information (Rahim &amp; Clemens, 2012; Bawden &amp; Robinson, 2009) and by that there are in other words good opportunities for a rational acting by the consumers. However, there are factors working against that consumers act rationally and seek information prior to their purchases primarily in the form of the concept of information overload (Bawden &amp; Robinson, 2009) which claims that consumers are limited in their information search because there is too much information but also other factors such as lack of time (Wood &amp; Neal, 2009) and ability to find information (Slegers et al. 2012) are believed to affect the information search process. The purpose of this essay is to describe the information search behavior of consumers prior to a purchase considering irrational purchase decisions or the possibility of rational purchase decisions linked to product category and age because these variables are assumed to have an impact on the information search behavior prior to a purchase (Nelson, 1970; Phillips &amp; Sternthal, 1977; Sledgers et al., 2012). The method applied in this essay is structured interviews conducted in a shopping center in the central parts of Örebro and the participating respondents are consumers who just made a purchase. The results of the study indicate that the majority of the consumers are making irrational purchase decisions and that they therefore do not use the opportunity to act rationally, although today’s society provide good opportunities. The information search behavior doesn’t seem to depend on product category except that the information sources used differ among categories. The result also shows that younger consumers search more information in comparison with older consumers. Another finding is that neither ability to find information, lack of time or information overload seem to be reasons for that the majority of the consumers have not searched for information and nor do it seem to be the reason for why the consumers that do search for information stop to search. That they are not seeking seems instead to be because they feel that they know enough about the kind of product they have bought and the main reason that those who search stop to search is that they feel that they have found enough information to make a purchase decision. Key words: Consumer behavior, purchase decisions, the buying decision process, information search, rationality, irrationality, search goods, experience goods, information overload

I dagens skola har de digitala verktygen en växande roll. Likaså söker, möter och förhåller sig dagens elever till information på internet, både i och utanför skolan. I och med att Läroplan för grundskolan, förskoleklassen och fritidshemmet 2011 år 2018 revideras med nya skrivelser om digitala verktyg och källkritik väcktes intresse att undersöka hur lärare och elever förhåller sig till källkritik i de samhällsorienterade ämnena i dag. Syftet och frågeställningarna har handlat om att kartlägga olika beskrivningar av källkritik i undervisningen för de samhällsorienterade ämnena, samt elevers beskrivningar av källkritiskt tänkande, och därmed belysa framgångsfaktorer och utmaningar i arbetet med källkritik. Studien har en sociokulturell ansats och har genomförts med en kvalitativ metod i form av intervjuer. Materialet har därefter bearbetats med hjälp av en fenomenografisk analysmodell. Resultatet stärker tidigare forskning inom området, som visar att förförståelse är viktigt för att eleverna ska kunna tillämpa källkritik i praktiken. Kontinuitet i arbetet, som föregåtts av ett riktat arbetsområde mot källkritik, framkommer i studien som goda förutsättningar för att eleverna ska tillämpa källkritik när de söker information på internet i de samhällsorienterade ämnena. Elevers läsförståelse i digitala medier nämns som en utmaning som hindrar deras förmåga att resonera källkritiskt. Dessutom visar studien att ett sociokulturellt arbetssätt, med läraren som stöd och möjligheter till samarbete med klasskamrater, tycks stärka elevernas förståelse för och förmåga att resonera kring olika källor.

The aim for this bachelor thesis is to examine how school librarians assist first to sixth grade elementary students with their information seeking in a digital environment. The study also focuses on the need for suitable digital tools to aid the students in their information seeking using a digital system or the internet. To reach the purposes two research questions was designed: What assist are the school librarians providing to the students? What problems can be identified with the student’s information seeking when using the internet? In order to understand how school librarians assisting the students with their information seeking process, semi-structured interviews was conducted with five school librarians from five different schools. Their response was then analyzed using qualitative content analysis. Carol Kuhlthaus Zones of intervention and ISP model worked as the framework for the analysis. It became clear that the support from the school librarians engaged the students with their information seeking. Also, school librarian’s support isn’t only about showing or handing them useful sources, it is also of importance to locate the sources within the library, particularly on the internet. Such work included exploring steps where the school librarian acted as guide for the students. Furthermore, student’s digital information seeking skills was not to be assumed only because they have skills and knowledge using the internet in everyday life, outside the school.

The aim of this study is to investigate how teachers, at secondary schools,think about children’s information literacy. This is explored based on three questions: What do teachers consider information literacy to be? How do teachers work to develop student’s information literacy? How do teachers view children’s information literacy? The reason for this study sprung form the lack of former research in the area of teacher's view of information literacy. The reason why this is a problem is because students are viewed to benefit from a partnership between thelibrarians and teachers when learning information literacy. It’s also necessarythat children develop information skills to make sure that they can be a part of a democratic society. To answer these questions nine teachers are interviewed. The way these interviews were structured were in line with whatis written about “semi-structured interviews”. To analyze the results from the interviews performed, Christine Bruce’s “Seven faces of informationliteracy” is applied. The results and analysis showed that teachers often view information literacy as the ability to search for information, evaluate it from a critical standpoint and handle digital tools. When it comes to how they explain these differentconcepts it’s often connected to a specific task. The teachers explain whatthey consider the students to know at this point in their life. A few times the teachers view on information literacy differs from Bruce, but for the most time Bruce categories of information literacy are still relevant despite the differences in context and time.