Titel:Folkbibliotekens läsecirklar för ungdomar: HBTQ-representation i litteraturvalet.Författare:Elin NordqvistInstitution:Sociologiska institutionen Handledare: Jonas LindahlFärdigställd:2020Sammanfattning:Syftet med uppsatsen var att undersöka i vilken grad som litteratur med centralt HBTQ-innehåll inkluderas i den litteratur som läses i läsecirklar för ungdomar.Totalt ingick 13 stycken bibliotek från 8 av Sveriges län i studien. Vidare syftade uppsatsen på att utröna huruvida  det  fanns någon  relationmellan  den  grupp  som  valde titlarna  och förekomsten  avHBTQ-litteratur.Det  förs  även  en diskussion  angåendeeventuella för-och  nackdelarsom  finnsberoende på vilkasom väljerlitteraturen som ingår i läsecirklarna. Slutligen    undersöktes    även vilka    HBTQ-personer    som representerades i litteraturen.Undersökningen    utfördes    genom    att    litteraturlistor    från läsecirklar för ungdomar under perioden 2018-2019 analyserades med  hjälp  av  LIBRIS  ämnesord  och  bokbloggar,  förlagens-och/eller författarnas hemsidor och Goodreads användarbaserade digitala bokhylla för att söka utröna huruvida titlarna innehöll ett centralt HBTQ-tema.Av  totalt  146  titlar  var  det  17 stycken(11,64  %)som  innehöll HBTQ-relaterade  ämnen,  och  dessa  var  ojämnt  fördelade  på  9 stycken  bibliotek.  Av  dessa  var  det  majoriteten  som  skildrade olika  former  av  homosexualitet.Flest  andel  titlar  med  HBTQ-innehåll  fanns  när  deltagarna  själva  valde  (13,33  %),  och  minst HBTQ-inkluderade var det när bibliotekarierna på egen hand stod för litteraturvalet (7,14 %).

Studies have shown that library employees often choose not to use readers’ advisory tools but to instead rely entirely on their own experience, often doing the library user a disservice. However, very few have looked at why this is so. This thesis looks at to what extent thirty individual employees in thirty Swedish public libraries use readers advisory tools when helping a patron find a good book, with the major focus on what motivates them to use these tools and why some choose not to use them. It was found that readers’ advisory tools where not used with any consistency and that many things influence the library employees’ use of these tools. Among other things, having access to readers’ advisory tools was of course essential, as was that the library employee felt there were no major time constraints. The usability and usefulness of these tools was also central, as was the library employees’ competence and confidence at using them. Many also stated that they had trouble remembering that there were readers’ advisory tools available at all. The optimal tool, according to the participants in this study, is easy to access and easy to use. Outside of these criteria opinions divide on what is most essential, that they are organized by genre and based on the opinions of professionals or that they focus on the reading experience of library patrons. / Program: Bibliotekarie

The purpose of this study is to examine what happened to library storytime sessions during the COVID-19-pandemic. Qualitative interviews were conducted with children's librarians from Sweden and Germany. In total eleven librarians working with children were interviewed. Five librarians from five libraries in Sweden and six librarians from five libraries in Germany took part. A model of three approaches to reading was used to analyze the empirical data collected from the interviews. Several aspects of what the librarians view as important in the storytime session were identified; the theoretic model used was not sufficient to reflect all aspects. Hence a fourth approach was created, putting emphasis on relationships within the reading situation and also the reading experience itself. The way the librarians describe how they adapted their storytime sessions during the COVID-19-pandemic shows that not all aspects could be transferred to the substitutes for storytime used, such as online storytime and outdoor storytime. Especially difficult to sustain was the aspect of building a relationship within the reading situation when resorting to online storytime. In Germany, a less favourable digital infrastructure further hindered transfer. There was also a pattern of viewing children as ”becomings” more often in Germany than in Sweden. The German librarians emphasize the role libraries can play in reducing socio-economic disadvantages for children in need of it and also link storytime ”fun” to possible positive consequences such as intellectual freedom. The Swedish librarians tend to view the reading experience during storytime as important in itself, which essentially is a children as ”beings”-perspective. In both countries, the librarians had to try new ways to reach young children during the pandemic. The study however suggests that in-person meetings is an intrinsic part of both Swedish and German children's librarianship. This is a two years master’s thesis in Library and Information Science.

Skillnader i uppdrag och mål kan orsaka spänningar i samarbetet mellan folkbibliotek och skola. I skolor som dessutom saknar eget skolbibliotek kan den problematiken öka ytterligare då skolan är i behov av skolbibliotekstjänster vilka inte ingår i folkbibliotekets uppdrag. Samtidigt kan ett samarbete med skolorna bidra med många fördelar för folkbibliotekets läsfrämjande arbete. Den här studien ämnar undersöka hur folkbibliotekarier förhåller sig till sitt läsfrämjande uppdrag gentemot barn och unga i samarbete med skolor med bristande skolbiblioteksverksamhet. För undersökningen genomfördes en kvalitativ intervjustudie med ett urval av fyra folkbibliotekarier. Resultatet har analyserats utifrån Hultbergs teori om läsfrämjande strategier. Sammanfattningsvis visar resultatet av undersökningen att folkbibliotekarierna främst förhåller sig till samarbeten med skolor med bristande skolbiblioteksverksamhet utifrån ett eget intresse för det egna läsfrämjande uppdraget. Studien kommer också fram till att de spänningar som folkbibliotekarierna upplever i samarbetet med skolorna beror på bristen av valfrihet, frågan om att kompensera för den bristande skolbiblioteksverksamheten samt missförstånd om vad folkbiblioteket kan erbjuda skolorna. / Differences in missions between public libraries and schools can cause tension while cooperating. For public libraries to cooperate with schools with deficient school libraries can be even more problematic, when the school is in need of school library services that is not a part of the public library mission. Meanwhile, a cooperation between public libraries and school can have several advantages for the public libraries in their mission of reading promotion. This study aims to examine how public librarians relate to their work with reading promotion towards children and young adults in collaborations with schools that have deficient school libraries. Qualitative interviews were carried out with a selection of four public librarians. The results were analysed in comparison to Hultbergs theory of strategies for reading promotion. In conclusion, the results of the study show that mainly relate to the cooperation with schools with deficient school libraries in terms of a self-interest for their reading promoting mission. The study also shows that the tension in cooperating with schools with deficient school libraries, as lived by the public librarians, is caused by a lack of freedom of choice, the question of compensating for the deficient school libraries and a misunderstanding of the public library mission.

This master’s thesis in Library and Information Science examines the phenomenon ”pop up library” and how public libraries are working with projects within this area. The method to collecting data is qualitative interviews with represents from five libraries in Sweden. The theoretical framework mainly consists of theories from mar- keting management especially adapted for non-profit organizations and libraries. The main results of the study shows that the purpose of why the libraries are using this method is to attract new users, make the library more available, marketing the library, work with reading promotion, start up and/or develop cooperation’s with other organizations or units within the municipality. One desire with the pop up libraries is to attract people to also visit the physical main library but there is also a fear among the informants that some people will think that the pop up library is the only library in the community. Common factors seen in my informants view of pop-up library are: temporary, unexpected and adapted for the target audience and the environment. Pop up libraries is much about relationships, to build and develop relationships with both partners and prospective users. Pop up libraries can be seen as buzz marketing, an effective way to advertise with small means. By making them into "a hot topic" it generates a buzz and publicity in local media. The pop up libraries in this study are primarily implemented as projects, funded by external project funding. They do not require as much resources to implement but is more difficult to engage in regular activities. The opportunities that libraries see with the pop up library concept is to continue to reach out to new audiences by using new creative ways. This is a two years master’s thesis in Archive, Library and Museum studies.

<p>The aim of this two years master’s thesis in library and information science is to study how children and librarians recommend books through the website Barnens bibliotek. In the scope of this aim it also tries to answer the following questions: What qualities in books do children and librarians respectively emphasize when they write book recommendations? How do they formulate the recommendations? And finally, how do their respective recommendations differ?</p><p>To examine these aspects a total of 50 book recommendations were chosen and analysed through an hermeneutic approach. Out of these 50, 30 were written by children and 20 were written by librarians. The recommendations were analysed through Louise Rosenblatt's theoretical framework concerning literary responses combined with Alan C. Purves' och Victoria Rippere's model of literary elements. The theoretical workings of Aidan Chambers were also used for drawing conclusions about how to connect the results of literary responses to everyday library work whether it is in a library or on the Internet.</p><p>The main results were that children turn inwards referring to themselves and their personal feelings when communicating a literary experience, while librarians turn outward communicating a literary content. Both parts do seem clearly aware that they are mediating a literary experience to a third part, which of course is expected of the librarians but a bit unexpected in the case of the children. Both parts refer basically to the same qualities when recommending books, even though they do it in different ways. And finally regarding the formula of writing a book recommendation, librarians tend to keep to a set structure of literary responses while children are more likely to mix the set of literary responses. The results also point to how important it is for library workers to understand the readers to better develop collections and programs that adress and respond to reader’s interests.</p>

The aim of this two years master’s thesis in library and information science is to study how children and librarians recommend books through the website Barnens bibliotek. In the scope of this aim it also tries to answer the following questions: What qualities in books do children and librarians respectively emphasize when they write book recommendations? How do they formulate the recommendations? And finally, how do their respective recommendations differ? To examine these aspects a total of 50 book recommendations were chosen and analysed through an hermeneutic approach. Out of these 50, 30 were written by children and 20 were written by librarians. The recommendations were analysed through Louise Rosenblatt's theoretical framework concerning literary responses combined with Alan C. Purves' och Victoria Rippere's model of literary elements. The theoretical workings of Aidan Chambers were also used for drawing conclusions about how to connect the results of literary responses to everyday library work whether it is in a library or on the Internet. The main results were that children turn inwards referring to themselves and their personal feelings when communicating a literary experience, while librarians turn outward communicating a literary content. Both parts do seem clearly aware that they are mediating a literary experience to a third part, which of course is expected of the librarians but a bit unexpected in the case of the children. Both parts refer basically to the same qualities when recommending books, even though they do it in different ways. And finally regarding the formula of writing a book recommendation, librarians tend to keep to a set structure of literary responses while children are more likely to mix the set of literary responses. The results also point to how important it is for library workers to understand the readers to better develop collections and programs that adress and respond to reader’s interests.

The aim of this master thesis is to examine the Swedish term for reading promotion, läsfrämjande, and gain a greater understanding for the meanings inherent in the word. To do this, narrative theory in the form if Harding's typology of six different types of narratives arranged on a scale from general to particular has been used for the analysis.The study focuses on librarians that work with children and young adults in public libraries and their rela-tionships with reading promotion. On the surface the Swedish word for reading promotion is simple, but exam-ined closely it becomes apparent that it is in fact multifaceted. The word consists of many different narratives that interact and in different ways change and affect each other. This study has identified five different types of collective narratives connected to the word läsfrämjande. These are the democratic narrative, the narrative of qualitative litterateur, reading for the soul, the enabling narrative and the literacy narrative. Together with the other types of narratives these form the basis of the personal narrative the librarians form around their reading promotion work and the word läsfrämjande.The personal narrative connected to the word will always be unique to the individual librarian, and it is be-cause of this that the word is so hard to define. The meaning will differ in small ways between different people, but because the personal narratives are built from the same collective narratives there will appear to be consensus in the meaning.This study has been produced as a two years master’s thesis in Library and Information Science.

The purpose of this thesis is to compile and analyze librarian Greta Renborg’s book propaganda in the Dalarna region of Sweden 1956–1958. The overall theoretical perspective is contextual, focusing on the concepts structure and actor. The actor perspective is further developed by an analysis of Renborg’s book propaganda through library researcher Jofrid Karner Smidt’s mediation roles: Critic and literature expert, Social anthropologist, Pedagogue, Marketer and Ordinary person. Source material includes archive documents, journal articles, newspaper articles and literature. Renborg’s own writing holds a special position in the material. The thesis’ results show that the conditions for carrying out book propaganda in Dalarna were good. Sweden was going through a rapid change in the 1950’s and the state library institution was expanding and willing to experiment. The civic society in Dalarna was strong. The region’s central librarian Tora Olsoni was a driving force behind the hiring of a book consultant. Greta Renborg had contacts high up in the library institution and was a well-known name among Swedish librarians. Source material indicate that she could plan and conduct the Dalarna project basically by her own, only supervised by her employer Dalarnas biblioteksförbund. Greta Renborg built up a large network of contacts and focused her propaganda on non-reading groups ac- cording to a state investigation in 1952, especially farmers, foresters and housewives. The source material shows that her book propaganda has features of all Jofrid Karner Smidt’s mediation roles. The medial reception was overwhelmingly positive and often focused on Renborg’s enthusiastic approach. Any statistical effects of the Dalarna Project have not been proven. This thesis shows that the Dalarna Project to a large extent depended on Greta Renborg as a person. This is the thesis’ most important result. This is a two years master’s thesis in Library and Information Science.

Swedish public libraries have offered writing courses and activities for decades. Despite that, writing doesn’t necessarily seem to have an obvious place at all public libraries. The purpose of this thesis is to examine the status of writing promotion at Swedish public libraries. The study is conducted using several methods. Firstly, official library statistics are used to map creative writing activities at public libraries. Secondly, library plans from Swedish regions are used to study how they define writing promotion related to public library. Thirdly, three interviews are conducted with people who have worked with writing promotion. The four-space model from 2012 is used to analyze the motives for writing promotion related to public libraries. The statistic results show that writing activities has a low priority in comparison with other activities at the public library. Moreover, the statistics show that public libraries vary in offering writing activities, both at a national and a regional level. The results based on the library plans show that public libraries in many regions work, or want to work, with writing promotion. In most of the regions the writing promotion can be connected to all four spaces and goals according to The four-space model. Through writing promotion public libraries can offer an inspiration space, a learning space, a meeting space and a performative space, consequently supporting experience, empowerment, involvement and innovation. The status of writing promotion seems, however, to vary among the regions. The interviews reveal, in accordance with the library plans, that writing promotion belongs in public libraries.  In conclusion, the thesis shows that writing promotion is overshadowed by reading promotion at Swedish public libraries. In addition, the thesis shows that the status of writing promotion has potential to increase at Swedish public libraries. This is a two years master ́s thesis in Library and Information Science.