The purpose of this master's thesis is to examine and compare the process of starting a school library at schools which haven't had a school library before, and to examine and compare the experience of this process according to the principals and the persons responsible for the school library. I have examined two Swedish independent primary schools (age 6-15 years). I have made qualitative interviews with the principals and the persons responsible for the new school library. In all, I have made seven interviews. As requested by the new Swedish Educational Act, both schools had recently started creating school libraries. One of the schools had recruited a half-time teacher-librarian and the other had no staffing at all. In the interviews, I have examined the attitudes of the informants towards school libraries, if this attitude has changed during the process of starting the school library, the informants' experiences during this process and the informants' views on the school library as an agent for student achievement. I have used David V. Loertscher's taxonomies for the principal, the school librarian and the student, to analyze the statements of the informants. The result of the study shows that at the school without library staff, the person responsible for the library had a hard time starting it as there were no time allocated. The work was easier and quicker done at the school with the part-time teacher-librarian. The views of the school library and of its possibilities for student achievement, that the informants expressed, were positive at the school with the staffed library,as well as their experiences. At the other school, the attitudes and experiences were more negative. The conclusion of the study is that staffing is an important factor for a successful school library, and that starting a school library requires a great amount of planning, knowledge, time and resources. This is a two years master's thesis in Archive, Library and Museum studies.

The purpose of this bachelor's thesis is to investigate how working librariansmanage controversial media. It builds on three debates in the media about libraries and booksthat have taken place during the years of 2012 and 2013. The questiones asked were: How dolibrarians manage racist media? How do librarians manage media that instructs on how tocommit crimes? How do librarians manage sexually explicit media? And lastly, how dolibrarians manage pressure from outside of the library? The theoretical framework consists ofRobert Hauptmans division of the two kinds of ethical strands of librarianship, in this thesiscalled ”Free information” and ”Information responsibly”. The method used to collectempirical material was qualitative interviews. Three librarians were interviewed during themonths of April and May 2013. The librarians studied were all responsible for purchasingadult media. The study showed that librarians, at least the ones studied, were divided in theirethical thinking. On one side they considered free information to be a cornerstone in what thelibrary stood for, but on the other side they all considered there to be media which should notbe offered at their library. However, on one question they all stood firm in their belief:libraries should never remove media from its collection when told to do so by the media or thepublic. This division has been documented in earlier studies.

In this two years master's thesis a regional project, Futurum.kom, is studied through the experiences of eight librarians from two of the participating libraries. The interviewees have all attended local and regional seminars where questions about core values, target groups and the role of the public library were discussed, among others. The seminars resulted in a number of core values and target groups. During the project, a number of advertising campaigns are to be conducted. The first one of these had recently been implemented at the time of the present study.  The aim of the thesis is to investigate the interviewees organizational self-perception in relation to the project. Potential outcomes regarding the professional role are also studied. The thesis takes its theoretical premiss in theories of organizational identity, as well as in the concept of marketing culture. A qualitative method of semi-structured interviews is used. Results show an increased self-reflection, expressed through questioning what the library is, and who it is for. Also, an increased communicative awareness seems to have been developed, partly through the project. Although results are vague, there seems to be an ongoing shift in the organizational self-perception, manifested by an identified need of changed work procedures. In this respect, results indicate that the way of thinking about the library tends to be somewhat less library-centered and reactive, and more customer-focused and proactive, which is generally positively perceived. It is argued that the project can be understood as “management of meaning”; i.e. the project, its target groups and core values, supports a shift towards a stronger marketing culture. Although the core values as such seem to have had various impact, they do play a part in the questioning-process described above. Regarding the larger library, the project in many ways can be said to support the market-oriented approach that has previously been implemented. It therefore seems plausible that the change in organizational self-perception is more profound to the smaller library.

The main focal point of this study is about public libraries and its possible roles in today's society. Going from having had a clear educational orientation, public libraries has with time amassed several other roles, which all need to relate to the swedish law regarding libraries and other governing documents, as well as business plans. This thesis focus on a qualitative investigation, which was conducted through in-depth interviews with librarians and other staff at a public library in Stockholm, named bibliotek Plattan, to ascertain the prevailing opinions within this facility about the role of libraries and librarians. The choice of examine this particular library was based on the fact that bibliotek Plattan differs from the public library in general and only offers material for adults. Their collection of litterature is primarily based on fiction novels. As theoretical framework and analytical tool for this study a model of Jochumsen, Hvenegaard Rasmussen and Skot-Hansen is used to analyse what the library can be. The model consists of four spaces: the inspiration space, the learning space, the meeting space, and the performative space. The results show that bibliotek Plattan has characteristics of all four space, though the characterisation library as inspiration space is the strongest influence. Other discoveries which were made showed that the informants wanted to a certain degree to return to a traditional role for libraries with reading and silence as the main elements, and the general view was that in the context of libraries, using the term meeting place was generally seen as negative, as well as that it can be problematic to be a specialised library as there are manyvying ideas and concepts of what a library is and should be. This is a two year's master thesis.

This research has identified elements of the social memory of librarianship from the last half of the twentieth century by collecting and examining thirty-four oral history interviews of librarians at the end of their careers. These professional life stories trace an important arc through the history of library and information science. Many of these librarians began their careers prior to the use of any form of computer technology in libraries. This cohort ushered in a wave of technological innovations that has revolutionized the access to information. These oral history interviews are part of the Capturing Our Stories Oral History Program of Retiring/Retired Librarians sponsored by the American Library Association and the School of Information at the University of Texas. The social memory includes regret and nostalgia for the librarianship practiced at the beginning of their careers, excitement and wonder about how technology has fundamentally changed the profession, and perspectives on the popular stereotype associated with their careers. / text

published_or_final_version / Politics and Public Administration / Master / Master of Public Administration

Women are underrepresented among the top echelons of management at Hong Kong academic libraries. This is in contrast with the situation in the United States and certain other countries, where the representation of women in senior management is broadly in line with the profession as a whole. The present study addresses the possible role that the gender stereotyping of leaders might have in accounting for this situation. To this end, the beliefs of academic library professionals were surveyed so as to determine whether they endorsed a masculine, feminine, or androgynous (gender-neutral) sex role for an ideal library manager. This was achieved through the development of a modified form of the Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI), with particular care taken to ensure the measure remained valid in a Chinese cultural context. The results showed that 50% of respondents believed that a masculine personality type makes for an ideal leader, compared to just 12% that endorsed a female personality type. A preference for male leadership was therefore widespread among respondents. Additionally, there was little difference between male and female respondents, and women were just as likely as men to endorse a masculine role for good leaders. The possible impact of cultural factors on gender stereotypes among Hong Kong librarians is suggested as a potentially fruitful area for further investigation. Based on the results, a key recommendation of the paper is for managers and administrators in academic libraries and the higher education sector more generally to be made aware of the potentially unconscious impact that gender stereotyping can have on hiring and promotion decisions. / published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

Open access to scientific literature on Internet is a concept which is supposed to change librarians' work. The aim of the thesis was to examine librarians' perception of Open access. A questionnaire survey was conducted among librarians at libraries with specialisation in technique, natural sciences, medicine and pharmacy in Sweden. Even though Open access can be regarded as an alarming for librarians' work, the results of the survey showed that the future of the librarians' profession can be positive if they flexibly adopt their work routines according to changes in publication forms and library users' needs.

The aim of this bachelor thesis is to examine the collaboration between school librarians and teachers in primary school, in order to illustrate how the two professions can work together, how they see their own roles and how they look at the other professionals´ roles. We also discuss earlier studies in LIS concerning collaboration between teachers and librarians. The method of investigation is qualitative interviews with practicing school librarians and teachers, we interviewed three school librarians and three teachers from three different schools in the same county.  As a basis of the discussion and analysis Andrew Abbott's theory of professions is used. The thesis shows that collaboration differs between the schools. The difference in itself depends on the schools principal views of the school library. The professions need to develop their understanding for each other´s roles and competences in order to develop the best possible collaboration.

Social exclusion is a problem in today’s society that we feel public libraries can help resolve since they are based on the idea of equality and openness. The purpose of this essay is to examine how public librarians think and reason about the concept “integration” as well as what role public libraries can play in immigrants’ integration process. With Jose Alberto Diaz’ theory on the integration process, and Marianne Andersson and Dorte Skot-Hansen’s model for analysis of the local library profile as theoretical framework, we analyzed the responses from two qualitative interviews in small groups of 2-3 librarians from two different public libraries. The result of this study shows that some public librarians cannot give an accurate definition of the word integration; instead they define integration as mutual respect for cultural differences. Only two librarians included in their definition that integration means to become participants in society. Despite this lack of a comprehensive understanding of the concept the librarians have a positive attitude towards the public libraries’ ability to support the integration process through book collection and program activities. The librarians think that public libraries mostly support the integration by: 1) increasing the understanding between different cultures and thereby decreasing prejudice and fear in the society (personal integration), 2) help immigrants develop a social network with the majority culture (social integration), and 3) help immigrants with language development(communicative integration). This is done mostly by focusing on the public libraries’ role of knowledge and education as well as their social role.