This thesis examines how school libraries and academic libraries work with certain aspects of academic literacy in order to prepare pupils for higher education. The starting point of the thesis is the proposal for a new national strategy for Swedish libraries, published in March 2019, where educational libraries are presented as a coherent chain. The aim with the thesis is to find out whether there is a gap between upper secondary school libraries and academic libraries, in how they work with academic preparation. The purpose is to map the work already executed in the area and how the libraries’ mission has been stated. Data is collected in two web surveys: one sent out to staff at upper secondary school libraries and one to staff at academic libraries. The respondents answered questions about their current work and how the mission is perceived. The scientific method used is influenced by on-going evaluation. To define preparation areas, theory about academic literacy is applied.   To define the mission of educational libraries related laws, documents and other relevant information has been analysed. Responses from  the surveys help answering questions about executed work, perception of mission and experiences of a possible knowledge gap.   In documents related to statements of the libraries’ mission it is clear that school libraries play a part in helping schools reach common goals such as academic preparation. Academic libraries have less of pedagogical missions stated for them but out of tradition both libraries already work pedagogically with academic literacy. A gap could be surmised when staff at the school libraries say they work with a specific area of literacy and staff at academic libraries perceive new students to have insufficient knowledge in the same area. The thesis concludes with suggestions to improve the libraries’ work with college preparation. On a national and municipal level there is a need for a more clearly defined mission to assure equivalence for all pupils. Schools are suggested to develop business plans on their own to adapt the national and municipal mission statements to local conditions. Academic libraries are suggested to start cooperating with upper secondary schools. This is a two years master’s thesis in Library and Information Science.

This thesis aims to study the level and scale of literacy as it expanded in Viking towns during the 8th-12th century. In order to get an understanding of this spread, I have worked with two case-studies of Viking towns, as they were founded and prospered during and by the end of the Viking Age in Sweden; the town of Birka located in Björkö Island in Lake Mälaren, and the town of Sigtuna located in the province of Uppland, in central Sweden. Through the study of selected archaeological material, this paper aims to bring together scattered information and shed light on what we know about the level and spread of literacy in Viking society. The purpose of this endeavour, is to question not only the notion of an illiterate pagan society that the Viking Age Scandinavians are considered to have been, but also question both the methodology in which the scholarly archaeological community studies literacy, as well as the way literacy itself is defined in the study of the ancient world. The paper includes a bibliographic and a material-studying approach, as well as a section where digital archaeological research methods are used with Geographical Information Systems (GIS) software in order to illustrate the level and scale of literary expansion in Viking Age Sweden. / <p>The proceedings of the Thesis defence were undertaken in the form of a web meeting via Zoom, in accordance to the local restrictions due to the Covid-19 pandemic.</p>

The aim of this study is to investigate Swedish upper secondary school teachers’ statements regarding reading and teaching choices in the English courses. The methods used were a survey in the form of a qualitative questionnaire, and a qualitative content analysis which was then applied to the survey data gathered. Reception theory and literary socialization theory were applied to the results. The four main research questions were: 1. What English literature do teachers in Swedish college preparatory programs choose for their students? 2. What English literature do teachers in Swedish vocational programs choose for their students? 3. What aspects of reception theory and literary socialization theory correspond to the teachers’ questionnaire answers regarding what skills they wish their students to acquire from reading English literature? 4. What are teachers’ attitudes towards students reading books of cultural, historical, and literary significance? The results concluded that there was no significant difference in the types of books chosen for the two programs. The college preparatory programs read a little more classical fiction, but the vocational courses did not lag far behind. When it came to the theories, a majority of teachers mentioned aspects brought up within literary socialization theory, while reception theory was barely touched upon. Books of literary, cultural, and historical significance were expected to be read in both the college preparatory and vocational programs. However, students in the college preparatory programs were expected to read these books slightly more than students in the vocational programs. One suggestion for future research is to examine the number of books teachers read within or outside of their preferred genre and how choice of genre may affect their literacy teaching in the classroom. / Syftet med den här studien är att undersöka svenska gymnasielärares läs- och undervisningsval i engelskundervisningen. Metoderna som användes var en enkätundersökning i form av ett kvalitativt frågeformulär och en kvalitativ innehållsanalys som sedan tillämpades på den insamlade enkätdatan. Receptionsteori och litterär socialisationsteori tillämpades på resultatet. De fyra huvudsakliga forskningsfrågorna var: 1. Vilken engelsk litteratur väljer lärare för elever på svenska högskoleförberedande program? 2. Vilken engelsk litteratur väljer lärare för elever på svenska yrkesprogram? 3. Vilka aspekter av receptionsteorin och litterär socialisationsteori stämmer överens med lärarnas enkätsvar om vilka färdigheter de önskar att deras elever ska förvärva genom att läsa engelsk litteratur? 4. Vilka är lärarnas attityder till att eleverna läser böcker av kulturell, historisk och litterär betydelse? Genom resultaten drogs slutsatsen att det inte fanns någon större skillnad i de typer av böcker som valdes för högskoleförberedande gentemot yrkesprogram. De högskoleförberedande programmen läste i ringa mängd mer klassisk skönlitteratur, men yrkesprogrammen hamnade inte långt efter. När det gällde teorierna nämnde majoriteten av lärarna aspekter som togs upp inom den litterära socialisationsteorin, medan aspekter inom receptionsteorin knappt berördes.Böcker av litterär, kulturell och historisk betydelse förväntades bli lästa i både de högskoleförberedande programmen och yrkesprogrammen. De högskoleförberedande programmen förväntades dock läsa dessa böcker i något större utsträckning än yrkesprogrammen. Ett förslag till framtida forskning är att undersöka hur många böcker lärare läser inom eller utanför den genre de föredrar och hur vald genreläsning kan påverka deras läs- och skrivundervisning (litteracitet) i klassrummet.