The purpose of this Bachelor Thesis is to examine what happens when the solitary reading experience becomes a social activity. The study is based on semi-structured interviews with three women belonging to the same reading group. I have used Sten Furhammar’s reading dimensions and categories to explain their reading experience, and Jenny Hartley, Elizabeth Long and Immi Lundin to explain the function that the reading group has for them, and the relationship between reading experiences in a book-discussion.My result shows that they started the reading group because they lacked an opportunity to discuss their readings with people that had the same interest in books. They do all have different ways to read, which is displayed by Furhammar’s categories personal and impersonal reading for experience. Their different reading experience is essential for a good book-discussion. Through their conversation in the reading group their personal reading experiences blends and result in new perspectives and angles in possible reading approaches. This enriches their reading, and sometimes changes their personal reading experience. / Program: Bibliotekarie

The aim of this Master’s thesis is to investigate the meaning the reading group of the public library has to a number of users. To fulfill the aim the following three questions have been formulated: 1) What do a number of users expect from the reading group of the public library? 2) Which approach/attitude or approaches/attitudes do a number of users have to reading and to talking about reading? 3) How do a number of users experience the ongoing reading group?The research is founded on qualitative interviews with five users that take part in three different reading groups in public libraries. The theories that are used is the theory of three so called strategies - the pragmatic, the traditionalistic, the emancipatory – and the theory of flow. The theories have been used to analyze the results and as a way to describe the meaning of the reading group to a number of users. In the review of the literature existing studies of reading groups and relevant literature about reading and reading promotion activities have been examined.Several meanings of the reading group of the public library to a number of users have been discovered and described. The part of the emancipatory strategy that concern personal development is an important meaning. The reading group also turned out to have, outside the theories, a clear social meaning. The meaning can also be described with flow and with the pragmatic strategy. The traditionalistic meaning is limited. / Program: Bibliotekarie

The main aim of this thesis is to study how and in which way the library personnel works with reading groups and their view of reading groups. I also want to study which role the governing- and policy documents have in the library personnel’s work. The following questions were asked.Which similarities and differences between the different library personals outlooks and acting can be interpreted from the following aspects:• Promoting reading, book selections and the leader's role?• To talk about personal subjects and to create possibilities for personal growth and increased empathy?• To promote language development and reading comprehension?The methods used in the study are a combination of interviews and observations. Aidan Chamber's “three ingredients in a talk" and “the teachers' four main tasks” during reading groups; recommendations of the promotion of reading and its obstacles that originates from Eriksson Barajas' studies over reading groups in school is used as a theoretical framework.The conclusions showed that the library personnel thought that it was important to make it possible for all the children to talk and that there are limitations for how many goals you could have for a reading group. The personnel of the school libraries let the children choose more books for themselves than the childrens' librarians. All the library personnel related the text to our reality, which gave the children preconditions for self-insight. Several of the library personnel gave the children possibility’s to exercise reading between the lines ore to predict the synopses. If the informants who held in reading groups during the children’s school time had summarized, they would've had a clearer connection to the requirements of knowledge in Swedish. / Program: Bibliotekarie

The purpose of this Master’s thesis is to examine similarities and differences in qualitative experiences between formal and informal reading groups from the participants’ point of view. The empirical data was acquired from interviews with nine reading group participants, of whom four of them participated in formal reading groups and five in informal reading groups. To analyze the empirical data, Louise M. Rosenblatt’s theory concerning reading and a method concerning reading groups by Immi Lundin were used. Björn Nilsson’s and Anna-Karin Waldemarson’s theory concerning the group has also been used. The results of the interviews show that the motive to participate in a reading group is the joy to discuss the novels and to find out the other participants opinion about the same novel, this motive is the same for both formal and informal reading groups. The meeting form of the reading groups differ between the formal and informal reading groups, the formal reading groups have their meeting in the library and the librarian participates as a leader. The informal reading groups have their meeting in the home of the participants and had no leader. Both the formal and informal reading groups find the discussion of the novel to be the most important thing about the reading group but the informal reading groups also finds the social aspects as equally important. / Uppsatsnivå: D

The purpose of this master’s thesis is to examine reading groups participants’ motivations for and expectations on participating in reading groups. The focus is on why the respondents read and take part in reading groups in a time of decreased reading. The theoretic framework in the thesis is Furhammar’s analysis model of why one is reading. Semistructured interviews have been held with four respondents from free-standing reading groups and four respondents from library reading groups, to see how and if their view on literature and motivations differ, and also if this differs between the two different kind of reading groups. The empirical data have been analysed through qualitative content analysis. The empirical data shows that there are some differences between how the two different types of reading groups work and therefore also in the participants view of reading and motivations, which is based on the participants’ personal lives.