The purpose of the present Bachelor’s thesis is to contribute to the library and information science research on how author visits for an adult target group at public libraries in Sweden as a phenomenon can be understood in relation to the public library’s societal function. The questions asked were, firstly: which goals are present in the author visit activities? And secondly: what functions does the public library hold in regard to the author visit activities? Qualitative interviews with representatives from five public libraries have been employed as a method for collecting data. The empirical data was analyzed using a qualitative content analysis method. The theoretical framework consists of the concepts in “the four space” model by Henrik Jochumsen, Casper Hvenegaard Rasmussen and Dorte Skot-Hansen. It is found that the public library through the author visit activities supports several, but not all, of the goals presented in the model. It is also found that the public library through the author visit activities to a greater degree works as inspiration and meeting space than learning and performative space. The study concluded that author visit activities at the public library holds many possibilities in regard to goals and functions of the library.

The aim of this study is to examine adolescents relationships and expectations toward activities in the public library in a Swedish town. Earlier research has shown that it’s a problem in many public libraries that adolescents don't show up or use the library. Since we have met a number of librarians that mention this problem with adolescent’s not showing up for their activities, we wanted to get the adolescents own points of view as well.To study this area we asked students from several colleges to fill out a survey. In this survey we had questions about if they for one know about what kind of activities the public library has to offer, if they’re interested in them and if not, why aren’t they? We also asked them questions about where they got the information about the activities and where they most wanted to receive it.Our study shows that a great number of our target group didn't know about the activities the public library organized. If they knew but weren’t interested, a common reason was because they don’t like to read. Many of them also said that they would like to receive the information about the activities on Facebook or on other social media. What they didn’t seem to be aware about was that the public library in our town actually has a Facebook page. This implies that the library has a marketing problem, since they don’t manage to reach out to this age group.

This thesis aims to examine what strategies can be identified at LBGTQ-certified libraries in Sweden when arranging public events. The strategies are based on Douglas Rabers (1996) theory about library identities. To answer the purpose of this thesis we interviewed four librarians, who at the moment of the thesis worked at different LGBTQ-certified libraries. The results showed that all the strategies could be identified and that the librarians used all of them while working with the libraries' public events. The individual libraries had different purposes with the public events that had LGBTQ-theme; they wanted to create encounters between marginalised groups and others, broaden their events, or educate the local community. We also found that quality, marketing and the way librarians treated LGBTQ-people also were important to the interviewed librarians. In the interviews with the librarians we could also identify conflicts between the strategies. This thesis concluded that the librarians needed to use all three strategies to accomplish the different purposes of the public events at their libraries. We also concluded that the different strategies could be connected to the LGBTQ-certificate

The purpose of this thesis is to examine whether or not the publiclibraries under review can make use of Frans Melin’s strategicbranding platform to create or strengthen their brands by meansof their programme activities. The study addresses two issues;how are the programme activities relevant to the way librariescan work with their brands, and what potential do these librarieshave to create and/or reinforce their brands through programmeactivities?The empirical material has been obtained through qualitativeinterviews structured around Melin’s platform. This has alsobeen used to discuss and analyse the results. Melin’s platformis comprised of six interactive factors: product attributes, brandidentity, core value, positioning, market communication andinternal brand loyalty. The respondents in the interviews werelimited to library staff members.The results showed huge variation in how the libraries in thestudy work with their brand. The analysis revealed thatvery few of the libraries were working actively with their brandor even discussing how they could approach such a task.It also disclosed that the public’s confusion over the locallibraries’ identity and image is shared by some of the staffworking at the libraries under review. This presents a problemwhen creating a brand through programme activities. However,discussion and conclusions revealed that public libraries havegreat potential to benefit from Melin’s platform and withadditional work and restructuring they can create a brand throughtheir programme activities that is representative for the library’sorganisation as a whole. / Program: Bibliotekarie

The aim of this Bachelor’s thesis is to investigate the public librarian’s professional identity and its relation to the public library as an experience centre. The development of the library as an experience centre raises questions about how public librarians understand their professional identity, and about their motives for working with activities like workshops and qigong, activities that have no significant connection with the librarian’s traditional tasks. The data was collected via semi-structured interviews exploring the perspectives and points of view of four public librarians. A phenomenological approach was taken. The expressed experiences of the participants were categorized according to the model of Anders Ørom and Trine Schreiber, and they are the foundation for interpretation. The interviews with the public librarians revealed that the librarian’s professional identity consists of many different aspects. The librarians express different missions like mediating culture, mediating information and mediating experiences. The librarians express different motives for working with experiences; one is to attract more users. The way the librarians express their motives shows their professional identity in relation to the library as an experience centre. Arranging activities can be used as a means to mediate not only experiences but also information. The interviews also revealed that marketing can be a librarians’ mission. The model used was not sufficient to describe this mission and we have therefore created a new category that we call the marketing identity.

This thesis is a contribution to the discussion on the public library’s institutional identity in late modernity. The aim is to shed light on the public library’s identity as expressed through its public events. The thesis seeks to answer the following questions: What kind of public events are offered at public libraries? What themes distinguish the content of these events? What characterizes the institutional identity expressed through these events? In addition to the concept of institutional identity, a model of four library spaces, developed by Skot-Hansen, Hvenegaard Rasmussen, and Jochumsen, constitutes the theoretical framework of this thesis. Qualitative content analysis is applied to entries gathered from the joint events calendar of the public libraries in Stockholm. The entries pertain to events taking place during the first four months of 2013. Common events at the libraries studied include: homework help; instruction in e-book, smartphone, and internet use; legal advice; book clubs; language cafés; story times; sing-alongs; interactive children’s plays; author visits; lectures; musical and theatrical performances; film screenings; exhibitions; arts and crafts; and creative writing workshops. The analysis results in five themes that encapsulate the content of the public events: help center, café, playground, stage, and workshop. The themes are metaphors for the public library’s implied relation to the events in question. The public library’s institutional identity can be characterized as a composite of these themes. Furthermore, it is concluded that the public library is an institution with a relatively stable identity grounded in the ordinary rather than the spectacular. / Program: Bibliotekarie

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Youth crime is a subject widely discussed in media as well as in the academic field of criminology. One of the topics within the research field of youth crime discusses how to effectively help young people leave a criminal lifestyle behind. It is within this topic that the focus of this essay lies. This qualitative study examines a community based program in the Swedish city of Malmö called Nya Vägvalet (The New Choice of Path, own translation), which works with juvenile delinquents and the issues that surround the youths lifestyle. The aim of the essay is to explore the foundations and methodology of the program, how the methods of the program are put into practice and how these methods compare to what current research findings claim to be effective factors in successful interventions. The empirical data is based on interviews with the two counselors who work with the youth and two young men who have undergone the program. The empirical data also consists of current and historical research findings and literature on the subject. The general conclusion is that the methodology used is in tune with what current research appears to define as successful intervention factors. There are, however, some aspects of the methods used that may not correspond with research findings. These aspects primarily have to do with the implementation of manual-based programs that are used. In summary the work that is carried out at “Nya vägvalet” is, with few exceptions, greatly supported by both theoretical and practical findings in the literature reviewed as well as, and maybe most importantly, by the two young men who were interviewed.

The study intends to create and contribute to knowledge about how public libraries in Sweden have developed their digital reading promotion in a time characterized by pandemic restrictions. This has been achieved by the study being based on semi-structured interviews with representatives of 8 Swedish public libraries around the country. A compilation of their results shows that the libraries have been able to continue reaching out to participants by developing their digital working methods. There have been obstacles in the form of a lack of digital user habits on the part of certain participants as well as on the part of the libraries themselves. The libraries have not always been able to reach out to the same people as before. But they have discovered target groups that were previously overlooked. The new experiences have also opened up to work with more digital and hybrid ways of working now and in the future. They have also strengthened their public profile as digitization has made their services and their role in society more visible. Libraries have expanded their communication options and increased their digital competence. In addition, their importance has increased by playing an active role in the municipality and helping to solve problems for other institutions and participants who have been involved in their activities

This thesis contributes to the discussion on the use of library plans in public libraries in Sweden. Library plans were made mandatory 15 years ago, and the thesis’ aim is to further our knowledge about whether or not library plans of public libraries in Sweden are being used as an instrument of effectiveness or as something else. The study was carried out by applying qualitative document analysis to ten up-to-date public libraries’ library plans and by reviewing them through the lens of organizational theory. The goals in each library plan were compared to the public activities offered at the library in order to examine to what extent the public activities could be means to achieve the goals in the corresponding library plan. The results show that the ten library plans hardly functioned as an instrument of effectiveness. According to organizational theory, the goals could be considered to be of an official, symbolic, visionary and complex character, which made the analysis of the public activities as means to achieve the goals difficult to carry out. Goals of an operational, realistic or simple character, which according to the theoretical framework would imply the use of the plan as an instrument of effectiveness, were rare. Rather, the libraries seemed to use the plans for communicating their purpose and their importance to their external environment, which in turn implies that the plans were being used for attaining legitimacy.