The usability of the Internet increases for every year. The Weblog phenomenon makes it possible for anyone to easily publish, find information and get in touch with other people through the net. This Essay treats the possibilities the Weblog medium offer Swedish libraries and librarians in library contexts. The purpose of the study is to examine the Web phenomenon: Weblogs, and their significance for a total of eleven Library Heads and librarians together with their view on the Weblog activity at each library connected Weblog, to get comprehension and new knowledge on the usability of Weblogs in the library sector. The foundation for the Essay consists of a qualitative interview study, built on asynchronous e-mail interviews and telephone interviews with blogging librarians and Heads of libraries. Theoretical frames and concepts are taken from Internet Research Theory, Socio-cultural Theory and Theory of Library- and Information Science. From the result and analysis can be found that Weblogs serves a purpose as virtual arenas, where people can meet, communicate, discuss and exchange information along with networking. The Weblog is a complement to other information channels as for example Web, e-mail and intranet. Weblogs are used for the purposes of communication and information, for marketing and for pedagogical activities. My conclusion is that for libraries and librarians the Weblog activity means a new way of communication and dialog with the surrounding world. The Library Sector can make its activities come into sight and the librarians can inform and communicate with colleagues and users. / Uppsatsnivå: D

The aim of this Master’s thesis is to examine three library weblogs to evaluate how they are used and what type of information the libraries publish in these specific weblogs.The following three questions are the basis of this study:• What is the content of the weblogs?• How is the weblog used as a tool by the libraries?• How is the interaction between the library and the readers of the weblogs presented regarding the comment function?The method that has been used in this study is content analysis and the code units have been created during the process. It is mainly a qualitative analysis but it does also contain quantitative elements. With the content analysis, 21 different themes where cut from the three weblogs. These themes where then put into the model of the local library profiles worked out by Marianne Andersson and Dorte Skot-Hansen. The result shows that: • The content of all the three weblogs is strongly connected to the physical library and the services it provides.• All three libraries use the possibility to publish pictures and links in the weblogs.• The comment function is not frequently used and this leads to the interaction between the library and the users being left out.None of the three weblogs where updated daily during the four months period in which they where studied. This might lead to a decreased amount of readers since the main attraction of a weblog is frequent updates.