The purpose of this master thesis was to study the librarians’assignment at the public accesses computers, especially howthe librarians perceive what their task is and what their taskshould be.In order to answer these questions a series of ten qualitativeinterviews –inspired by the phenomenographic approach –was conducted with librarians who were employed at smallpublic libraries in municipalities with 5 000 - 25 000residents in Sweden.The conclusions in the master thesis were that librarianshave both similarities and differences in how they perceivetheir tasks at the public computers. The most essential taskwas helping the user with information seeking. Thelibrarians also perceived that it should be included in theirduties to help users with the technical/practical issues at thepublic computers. Competence, time and assets were finallythree outlying factors which affected in what extent thelibrarians were able to help the users. / Program: Bibliotekarie

The purpose of this study is to investigate the ways in which relevant personnel view dataveillance and user privacy, in the context of providing internet access via desktop computers at public libraries. Two research questions are put forth: 1. ”In what ways do relevant personnel engage with user privacy, in relation to dataveillance?” and 2. ”What obstacles and opportunities do relevant personnel experience in this line of work?”. Purposeful sampling was employed and semi-structured interviews were conducted with seven individuals either employed by a public library or by the municipality at large in supporting- or executive-roles. The interviews were analyzed using Tavani’s (2007; 2008) and related theories of privacy as well as previous research on the topic. Among the findings were that personnel found themselves prohibited, due to several factors, in the extent to which they were able to customize desktop access to guard against dataveillance’s privacy-intrusions. Furthermore, awareness of the particulars of dataveillance was limited amongst personnel as well as in the most frequent desktop users. Obstacles discerned from the analysis included a lack of personnel training, dataveillance-companies vertical integration, as well as the potential of privacy protection-technologies to mask illegal activities. Opportunities discerned from the analysis included the potential for an expanded approach to raise awareness amongst users about dataveillance as well as a firm dedication across the institution to tackle the issue. Limitations of the study’s results include the narrow scope of its sampling.