This study examines a selection of library grant applications submitted to the Swedish Arts Council from two regions, Stockholm and Dalarna, during the period of 2018-2022. Employing content and document analysis, the essay investigates how the 20 applications for library grants address questions related to local needs, norm criticism, accessibility, and long-term impact. Through comparative analysis with relevant paragraphs from the Swedish library law, it becomes evident that the application responses closely align with the stipulations outlined in the law, and other governing documents. Additionally, this essay argues that the formulation of application questions restricts applicants from freely expressing their needs and ideas, potentially indicating control exerted by the Swedish government, specifically through the Swedish Arts Council, over local library operations and municipal cultural politics. This is a two-year master's thesis in Library and Information Science.

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The aim of this master’s thesis is to examine how collaboration is represented in guiding documents and practice concerning reading promotional work towards children and youth within Sandviken’s cultural center’s public library and the house of literature. This is examined through a case study of the public library’s and the house of literature’s activities for children and youth, with a focus on how collaboration affects the organizations work towards these target groups. The empirical material consists of legal texts from national, regional and municipal levels, documents, and guidelines for the two organizations, as well as qualitative interviews with librarians and activity developers within the library and house of literature’s practices. The empirical material is analyzed with the use of Kajsa Lindberg’s organizational definition of collaboration and focuses on how collaboration is perceived, motivated, what unifying objects that exist between different professions and which promoting and inhibitory aspects that can be identified. The analysis shows that motives behind collaboration often involve different categories of motives at once and that they synergize with one another. Librarians and developers experience collaboration as more fruitful when sprung from practice rather than from directives stated in documents. However, the result from this thesis indicates that the documents have a valuable function in putting collaboration on the agenda within public libraries and making decisions to establish and invest in such activities more legitimate. The results further indicate that the organizations within the case have promoting prerequisites that are specific for their local context such as engaged politicians and a strong local cultural tradition, but that the benefits that can be identified in some measures can be achieved elsewhere using the prerequisites at hand. This is a two years master’s thesis in Library and Information science.

This two years master's thesis examines the experience of children who read to a dog. The theoretical framework is inspired by sociocultural theory developed by Roger Säljö and the concept carnival inspired by Mikhail Bakhtin. The sociocultural theory has been chosen because it emphasizes the role of practice, instruments and communication in learning and the concept carnival has been chosen to analyze the experience of reading to a dog. The method used is qualitative interview and observation. A total of eight interviews and two observations when children read to a dog have been collected. One interview is with a teacher and seven interviews are with the children (six children participated and one child was interviewed twice). The method of analysis is a process in three stages where the first stage is to explore what the children say, the next stage examines the meaning of what is being said and the third stage understands it in relation to the theoretical framework and prior done research. Important results are that most of the children participating in this thesis have a positive experience of reading to a dog. The children read to a dog in different rooms, at different times and the children read to several dogs. The instrument used was fiction books. Since the purpose was to read only to the dogs the role of the teacher who was in the room during the sessions was described by the children as passive. The observations showed a more active role where the teacher helped the children with difficult words. Most children pet the dog while reading and they gave the dog a treat afterwards. The discussion of this thesis focuses on the role of the libraries. It also gives examples on how to develop reading to dogs and what studies can be done in the future. For the program to evolve more literacy activities can be incorporated and the role of the adult and the dog can be more active. This is a two years master’s thesis in Archive, Library and Museum studies.