This study was conducted to ascertain library media specialists' perceptions of the trends in challenges to intellectual freedom in Texas public school libraries and the factors influencing the outcome of challenged materials.

In the discipline of librarianship there is very little existing research from which conclusions regarding attitudes toward computers and related technology can be drawn. Furthermore, there is no significant data available which indicates that attitudes differ between various groups or types of librarians. It is reasonable to assume that librarians' attitudes toward computers vary. This study examines a group of academic librarians and a group of public librarians and tests for significant differences in their respective attitudes toward computers, desktop publishing systems and expert systems.

The purpose of this study, in addition to measuring and comparing attitudes of teachers, principals and library media specialists toward the role of the school library media specialist, was to identify and measure factors contributing to those attitudes. Nine factors were identified. Further path analysis revealed that the performance level of the library media specialist had the most influence on principals' and teachers' attitudes toward the Consultant, Technological and Instructional Roles. For principals and teachers, staff development had the most influence on attitudes toward the Management Role, while involvement in the school-wide program was most influential for library media specialists.

The study is based on the assumption that there is an underutilisation of ICT resources in the university libraries of KwaZulu-Natal amongst subject librarians due to a lack of appropriate ICT knowledge and skills. The subject librarian's role has changed rapidly in recent years, in response to new forms of information and new methods of teaching and learning. Therefore, for subject librarians to perform their roles effectively and efficiently in such a demanding electronic environment they will need the necessary ICT knowledge and skills, that is, they will have to be computer literate. Also, the explosion of electronic information requires subject librarians to continuously update their knowledge and skills. A study population consisting of 43 subject librarians, in the university libraries of the Universities of Durban-Westville, Natal (Durban and Pietermaritzburg), and Zululand were surveyed by means of a mailed questionnaire to establish in what ways the subject librarians were using ICT, what the level of lCT knowledge and skill was amongst the subject librarians, what the ICT education and staff training and development needs were amongst the subject librarians and what problems the subject librarians faced in the use of ICT. A total of 3l subject librarians (representing 72.1 %) responded. Results were analysed in terms of frequency of responses. Results are graphically displayed in the form of pie charts and tables. Interpretation of the results reveals a low level of lCT knowledge and skill amongst subject librarians and a general lack of formal training for ICT amongst the subject librarians. Problems experienced by subject librarians were the result of a lack of ICT knowledge and skills and training. Recommendations for lCT education and staff training and development are made in light of the results of the survey and the literature review. / Thesis (M.I.S)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2002.

Today, librarians are confronted with new roles during the execution of their work. The emerging roles require practical and technical skills, professional competencies and ability to perform and to constantly be in touch with those emerging technologies to stay afloat. The purpose of this research was to investigate the changing roles of academic librarians at the University of Nairobi (UoN) and its constituent college libraries in the current information age so that challenges can be established and measures put in place to overcome them. The current study employed both qualitative and quantitative approaches. The study was descriptive in nature and a survey research method was adopted. Purposive sampling was used to select respondents from each of the 13 libraries. Data was collected using a questionnaire and an interview schedule. A population of 70 respondents was to be surveyed but only 54 of them responded to the questionnaire. Quantitative data was descriptively analysed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) while qualitative data was analysed using content analysis. The study revealed that the role of librarians at the UoN has not necessarily changed in terms of duties, responsibilities, functions and processes, but what has changed is the intensity and manner of conducting the role. The main challenge remains that of re-training of staff in the use of Information Communication Technologies (ICTs). Therefore the study recommended training of staff in the use of ICTs, acquiring powerful servers to increase bandwidth connectivity and allocating more funds towards various activities. The study recommends that a similar research be replicated using different groups of librarians, for example those who started working when the services were already automated to find out whether they are also as challenged as their counterparts. A further research should also be carried out to investigate current jobs that exist elsewhere in the profession, such as knowledge management, ICT management in libraries, research data management and data curation. / Information Science / M.A. (Information Science)

The purpose of this research was to study job satisfaction among public school library media specialists based on the psychological needs of social needs, security needs, esteem needs, autonomy needs, and self actualization needs, according to Maslow's Hierarchy. Subjects were requested to respond to a questionnaire of 30 items pertaining to job satisfaction. Each item required two responses: first, as to the level of importance the item held; and secondly, the satisfaction currently received from that particular item.

This study investigated relationships between the extent to which elementary classroom teachers tend to choose school library media specialists for cooperation on instructional problems and several school climate and faculty related characteristics including the general academic effectiveness of the school, the overall cohesion and cooperativeness of the teaching faculty on instructional matters, and the propensity of the group and individual faculty to seek cooperation to solve instructional problems. The instructional choice status of the school library media specialist was also studied in relation to various individual personality factors, as measured by Cattell's 16 Personality Factor Questionnaire, as well as school media specialist status variables including degreed or non-degreed status, total years of experience as a school library media specialist, years of experience on campus as a school library media specialist, and total number of years of experience in the field of education. The instructional status of the school library media specialist was also examined in relationship to the size of the school served. The study included 1,079 elementary classroom teachers and thirty-nine school library media specialists from thirty-nine Texas elementary schools similar in important wealth, size, and student demographic characteristics. Twenty of the schools ranked in the bottom 25% of all schools in the state as to how well their students performed on the 1988 Texas Educational Assessment of Minimum Skills (TEAMS) test. Nineteen schools ranked among the top 25%of all schools in the state in academic effectiveness. As compared to the low academic schools, the high academic schools were found to be significantly more instructionally cohesive, and classroom teachers in those schools were significantly more disposed to choose the school library media specialist to cooperate with them on instructional problems. No significant relationships were discovered between the instructional choice status of the school media specialist and his or her measured personality characteristics.

This thesis aims to answer the question of how the library is represented in the Librarian franchise, not only focusing on the films/tv-series but also how it is represented in print. The analysis of the library representation uses a background of the theory and method found in semiotics and iconography, as well as qualitative content analysis, to examine not only the literal/denoted representation, but also the symbolic/connoted, and then compar-ing these findings to the representation of libraries and librarians (with a focus on the stereotypes) found in former research on the subject. The libraries depicted in this franchise all adhere to the stereotypes in some ways, especially the grandeur or spaciousness, at times labyrinthine but there is always someone experienced to ask to help find what you are looking for. The library is represented in a positive light, it is not a place to be feared, it is a place of knowledge and adventure. The characters see these libraries as home or as a social “hub” for the community, they are signs of safety, comfort, and peaceful entertainment. A world without libraries is depicted as a dystopian nightmare. In the franchise there are some characters that can be interpreted as personification of the Library, in this thesis I am focusing on Judson, Charlene, and Ray (the spirit of the library), all of which embody several of the librarian stereotypes, such as intelligence and order, these characters signify in various ways how much the library depends on librarians. In conclusion, this franchise, although unrealistic, shows that the library does not have to be a boring place, and neither does the librarian profession. This is a two years master’s thesis in Library and Information Science. / Målet med denna uppsats är att besvara frågan hur biblioteket representeras i Librarian-franchisen, inte bara hur det representeras i filmerna/tv-serien men också hur det representeras i de tryckta berättelserna. I analysen av biblioteksrepresentationen använder jag mig av teoretiska utgångspunkter och metodik från semiotik och ikonografi samt kvalitativ innehållsanalys, för att utforska både den bokstavliga/denoterade representationen och den symboliska/konnoterade, och sedan jämföra resultatet med hur tidigare forskning beskrivit biblioteks- och bibliotekarierepresentationen (med fokus på stereotyper) i fiktion. Alla biblioteken som representeras i denna franchise kopplas till viss del ihop med biblioteksstereotyperna, speciellt prakt och rymlighet, och ibland även labyrinter men det finns alltid någon erfaren att fråga om hjälp för att hitta det du söker. Biblioteken är positivt representerade i denna franchise, biblioteket är inte en skrämmande plats, det är en plats som symboliserar kunskap och äventyr. Karaktärerna ser biblioteket som ett hem eller ett socialt nav, biblioteket symboliserar säkerhet, bekvämlighet och stillsam underhållning. En värld utan biblioteken representeras i serien som en dystopisk mardröm. I denna franchise går det att finna några karaktärer som inte bara är bibliotekarierepresentationer men också agerar som personifikationer av biblioteket, i denna uppsats har jag valt att fokusera på Judson, Charlene och Ray (bibliotekets ande), som alla faller in i flera bibliotekariestereotyper, exempelvis intelligens och ordningsamhet. Dessa karaktärer signifierar även på olika sätt hur mycket biblioteket är beroende av bibliotekarier. Slutligen visar denna franchise, trots dess surrealism, att biblioteket inte måste vara en tråkig plats, och bib-liotekarieyrket behöver inte heller vara tråkigt. Detta är en två års masteruppsats i biblioteks- och informationsvetenskap.

This two-year master thesis in Library and information science, explores how femininity is created within the librarian profession year 1900-1930 in Sweden. By using three Swedish female librarians as case studies I study how female librarians responded to norms for women within the profession. I also ask if the librarians were able to break these norms or if the standards for women formed how the librarian profession was shaped.The thesis has a queer theoretical framework and uses hermeneutic methodology together with Judith But-lers performativity theory and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivaks deconstruktivism. Queer theory and hermeneutic methodology can be used on historical sources to gain new perspectives and still be aware of the ideals and norms that existed within the historical period. I use “woman” and “femininity” as socially constructed gender categories that changes according to the context they are created within and in relation to.My main source material consists of articles and letters written by the librarians together with a rich materi-al of women’s rights history and Swedish public library history. By using the female librarians own words I try to get a first-hand perspective, described by the women who worked and lived as librarians during the first dec-ades of the 20th century. They worked in an important and ground-breaking time for public libraries and wom-en´s self-sufficiency.My thesis shows that the female librarians used different pronouns and adjectives to describe their profes-sion depending on which context they spoke or published their texts. Greta Linder, Hildur Lundberg and Maria Larsen used different strategies to survive within the profession. In some cases, it was important to emphasize the category “woman”, but in many cases their professional identity as librarians was of greater significance. As self-sufficient and unmarried librarians, they could create other possibilities than within the limited space that existed for married women.

This thesis discusses the subject knowledge of university librarians, gained through education and/or experience in the field. The aim was to investigate the subject knowledge for university librarians, how the existence of subject knowledge or the lack thereof affects the librarians’ work and how the users’ view on the librarians' subject knowledge. I also wanted to investigate if there were differences between librarians at the interdisciplinary libraries and special librarians and whether there were differences between disciplines. This thesis is based on professional theory and librarian occupation as a profession or semi-profession. Additionally I explored what previous studies (mostly American) had said about the subject knowledge of university libraries, both general and divided into different disciplines. For this study I used online questionnaires to 274 librarians, library assistants and other staff of university libraries and 169 users. The questionnaire for the libraries was sent out to contacts at selected libraries, which in their turn asked the staff at these libraries to participate. For user survey I asked users in the libraries personally to participate and then sent out email to them. The responses were analysed mainly on the basis of computer generated results in the web tool and these results was published in the form of tables and diagrams in the study. The results of this survey was mainly that the portion of librarians with subject background was quite low, particularly in terms of subject specific degree, and that experience was relatively high. They are also differences between librarians on interdisciplinary libraries and librarians on subject specialized libraries, mainly that the proportion of completed degree in library science is higher for the subject librarians and the proportion who think that subject knowledge is important is lower in the same group. There are also differences between different disciplines, mainly in the terms of degree, both in library science and other topics, experience, and if the subject knowledge is important in the field. Based on these findings I could conclude that the librarian occupation is a semi-profession rather than a profession. The main conclusions was that librarians think that subject knowledge is important but that this is not seen to the same extent in their education or training although that it partially counterbalanced by experience. Its users find the librarians' subject knowledge partly is quite poor but that they nonetheless receive sufficient help. There are according to me possible methods to raise the subject knowledge of university librarians, mainly by trying to associate librarians with appropriate education to subject libraries and to create a specialisation on university librarianship.