The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the function of the museum library. The methodused consisted partly of literary studies, and partly of field investigations, conducted mainlyin the form of interviews.Two different sets of field studies have been conducted. The first one is an investigation ofthe museum libraries in Goteborg. After a preliminary study, three of these have been selectedfor further investigation. These are the libraries of Göteborgs Konstmuseum, GöteborgsStadsmuseum and Röhsska museet. Five employees from each museum have been interviewed,and asked to give their opinions of the library and its function, and also to describehow they used it. To broaden the perspective of the essay, an additional field study wasmade. In this, the libraries of Byggnadsvård Nääs, Stockholms Stadsmuseum and SkaraLänsmuseum were investigated. All these libraries exhibit a slightly different function thanthe others, mostly in giving greater attention to the public part of their work. The thesis concludesthat museum libraries can have served different functions, but the fundamental onemust always be to provide information services for the museum itself. The library is a tool forthe museum personnel, and their access to the information must be the topmost priority ofevery museum library. Once this is seen to, however, the library can have several other functions.Museum libraries are a source of information for researchers. It can become a way forthe museum to open up its collections to the museum visitor. Pictures and archival materialcan be computerized and made accessible through the museum library. The library can alsobe a way for the museum to market itself, by attracting visitors to the museum. In addition tothis, the library can be an arena for other activities to take place in, a gateway between themuseum and the visitor.

The purpose of this Master's thesis is to examine how the Swedish Seamen's library, situated in Rosenhill Gothenburg, communicates with its users; i.e. the seamen. There has been a dramatic decrease in the lending statistics over the years, and the library staff are interested to know what reasons lay behind this, and if something more can be done to promote the library and its services. The questions used to fulfill this purpose are as follows; in what way does the Seamen's library market themselves today, and are the patrons aware of the services the library offers? What can be the cause of the decrease in the lending statistics? In this study the focus will be on the Swedish sailors as almost all of the literature is in Swedish. The main theories are internal marketing by Christan Grönroos, and the marketing mix as it is presented by Philip Kotler. A SWOT- analysis is performed to evaluate the library's internal and external environment. Both qualitative and quantitative methods are used to collect information. The chief librarian and the staff working at the Seamen's center are interviewed, as they are the link between the library and their patrons. In addition, a survey was sent out to ships for the seamen to conclude. The empirical evidence led to the conclusion that the seamen are aware of the existence of the library, but the library need to market their services more, for example trough social media. The internal communication between the library and rest of the staff at Rosenhill also needs to improve.

The Open Access (OA) movement came to be as a reaction against the enclosure of information resources, facilitated by new distribution technologies. The purpose of the OA movement is to make research results freely available. The aim of this master´s thesis is to increase the understanding of how libraries outside of the academic sphere and within research institutes relates to OA. As a theoretical framework I created two different ideologies, the OA ideology and the nonsharing ideology. I also conducted six interviews with librarians. Through an idea and ideology analysis I relate the materials to the two different ideologies. The theories used concern information commons and gifting economies. My study shows that the informants have different views of the OA ideas depending on what aspects that is in question. Especially when it comes to economics and copyright issues the informants express a great degree of criticism against the traditional publishing models. In some other aspects the informants relied on the traditional publishing and thereby on the nonsharing ideology. The idea to make research results freely available was positively viewed upon by many of the informants. They sometimes plan and have ideas connected to the OA ideology. In a few cases they also work with OA materials, but the context that the libraries functions within makes it complicated and sometimes less urgent than it is in the universities to adopt to OA to a larger extent.

This thesis deals with the question of why the Swedish Academy Dictionary has its own Library when, for almost a hundred years, it has been located at the University Library of Lund. Looking at the library functions: librarian, users, room and books and their external factors: economy, internal actors, external actors and the development of the Swedish Academy Dictionary helped to shed light upon which relations between these factors have been important in the development of the library. The results show that there has not been a conscious plan behind the Library. A large number of the books in the Library was given by those who have worked at the Dictionary and also by their friends and collegues. Another part was given by the Swedish Academy and was partly gathered when the project was still in Stockholm. Being so close to the books belonging to Lunds University Library has been a factor in not buying so many needed books, like expensive lexica. When the Dictionary moved from Lunds University Library a development into what can be described as a Special Library in Lexicology took place. One factor that was not considered but has proven to be important is the relation between the editors and other people in the society of Lund, and the desire to spread one's name.

The purpose of this study was to discover patterns and variations of service requirementsamong various groups of users at the Swedish Academy's Nobel Library. Twenty-nine personswere interviewed and divided into different groups with regard to their purpose of usingthe Nobel Library. The groups of users were members of the Swedish Academy and thepublic. The public were subdivided into the following three groups of users: persons whopursue formalised studies, persons who read as a hobby, persons who work with literature asa profession.The data reveals that the members of the Swedish Academy were very satisfied with theservice at their library and positive to a limited increase of users. Persons who pursue formalisedstudies and persons who work with literature as a profession emphasized that the NobelLibrary is outstanding within its subject field. These two groups also spent much time atother information centres since they often need material dealing with other fields of knowledge.Persons who read as a hobby found almost all the material they need at the Nobel Library.

The Open Access (OA) movement came to be as a reaction against the enclosure of information resources, facilitated by new distribution technologies. The purpose of the OA movement is to make research results freely available. The aim of this master´s thesis is to increase the understanding of how libraries outside of the academic sphere and within research institutes relates to OA. As a theoretical framework I created two different ideologies, the OA ideology and the nonsharing ideology. I also conducted six interviews with librarians. Through an idea and ideology analysis I relate the materials to the two different ideologies. The theories used concern information commons and gifting economies. My study shows that the informants have different views of the OA ideas depending on what aspects that is in question. Especially when it comes to economics and copyright issues the informants express a great degree of criticism against the traditional publishing models. In some other aspects the informants relied on the traditional publishing and thereby on the nonsharing ideology. The idea to make research results freely available was positively viewed upon by many of the informants. They sometimes plan and have ideas connected to the OA ideology. In a few cases they also work with OA materials, but the context that the libraries functions within makes it complicated and sometimes less urgent than it is in the universities to adopt to OA to a larger extent.

Det finns idag en kunskapslucka om specialbibliotekens verksamheter, vilken roll de har för moderorganisationen och vilka förutsättningar de har. Som exempel på ett specialbibliotek finns Svenska Institutets bibliotek i Rom. Rominstitutets specialbiblioteks uppdrag är tydligt förankrat med institutets syfte och specialbiblioteket har en betydande roll för Rominstitutet. Biblioteket fungerar som ett arbetsrum där forskarna dels har tillgång till material för sin forskning men där de också kan interagera med andra forskare samtidigt som biblioteket också kan användas vid föreläsningar och andra aktiviteter. Rominstitutets specialbibliotekarie har en stor roll för specialbiblioteket när det kommer till klassificering, digitalisering och hantering av grå litteratur. Specialbibliotekariens roll går att identifiera i Øroms alla sex olika bibliotekarieidentiteter.

The aim of this thesis is to examine the construction of Nordic and organizational identities performed by the libraries of two Nordic cultural institutions: the Nordic Culture Point in Helsinki, Finland, and the Nordic House in Reykjavik, Iceland. To do this, three main methods were used: (a) Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis was employed to interpret the institutions’ self-representations, (b) the topics of debates and talks organized by the institutions were analysed and (c) interviews were performed with librarians currently working at these libraries. The results show that the institutions are (re)presented as two separate units rather than two parts of the same organization. The Nordic Culture Point is more explicitly connected to the Nordic Council of Ministers while the Nordic House presents itself as an iconic building in a marketing manner. The institutions are affected by politically defined themes and values, which permeate their events. The most common themes for talks and debates were literature, environmental issues or sustainable development, and politics. Even though there is a clear influence from political strategy documents, many topics with little or no connection to these documents were found. In addition, the literature selection processes at these libraries do not seem to be largely affected by politically defined priorities, based on the librarians’ views. According to the librarians who were interviewed, the aim of the Nordic libraries is to offer literature in the Nordic languages that would otherwise be difficult to access, gather this literature in one location, and promote interest in the Nordic region. While they agree that the main point of reference for the Nordic libraries is public libraries, the librarians differ on the role digital technology should play in the library. This is a two years master’s thesis in Library and Information Science.

The purpose of this study is to carry out a contextual analysis based on Birger Hjørland’s socio-epistemological theory and thereby create a coherent picture of Vitterhetsakademiens biblioteks (KVHAAB) activities, collection and knowledge organization from a historical perspective. The questions that are analyzed in this paper are how the knowledge organization, classification and search capabilities correspond to the goals that KVHAAB has set for the institution. To answer these questions, transcriptions and notes from interviews, field trips and documents about the section were used as primary sources. Interviews, analysis of documents and domain analytic method were used as methods to collect sources and perform the analysis. The method I am using to examine these questions is qualitative interviews based on the theories and methods of Steinar Kvale and Svend Brinkman. The analysis is focused on library and information scientific aspects.  The results show that KVHAAB’s knowledge-organizing tools emerged historically and pragmatically and adapted to institutional and material practice. KVHAAB has been a pioneer by participating in various digitization projects early on. At the same time, historical preferences and focus are reflected from different times in the directories used on KVHAAB. Based on an awareness of the complexity of the descriptive mission, several initiatives have been taken to develop new routines and standards for cataloging and indexing of the material. In accordance with Riksantikvarieämbetets (RAÄ) goal of preserving, developing and utilizing the cultural heritage, there is still a future need for KVHAAB to make collections visible both in digital form, but also to expand the use of reading space, physical lending and outward operations.  This paper is published as a two years master’s thesis in Library and Information Science at Uppsala University in Sweden.

<p>Undersökningen vilar på två huvudfrågor: Vad är ett materialbibliotek, och varför uppstår de i så stor utsträckning idag? Frågorna besvaras genom samtal med ansvariga på materialbibliotek, främst kommersiella, i Europa och USA och redovisas i en historisk och kronologisk översikt över det senaste decenniet, en tematisk beskrivning av verksamheten samt en diskussion kring materialbiblioteket utifrån begreppen dokument och bibliotek där en allmän biblioteksmodell appliceras på materialbibliotekens verksamhet. Slutligen föreslås en definition av begreppet materialbibliotek.</p><p>Undersökningen kommer fram till att materialbiblioteket är en informationstjänst som samlar och organiserar materialprover och materialkunskap, och som inte enbart fungerar som tillhandahållare av information utan även strävar efter att i mötet med sina användare skapa ny kunskap om de dokument det behandlar. Materialbiblioteken uppstår ur ett behov av en samordnande central för materialkunskap, och kan placeras inom det nya serviceparadigmet information management. Det finns även ett behov av att känna på material och att skapa en mötesplats för kreatörer och tillverkare inom designområdet. En avgörande bakgrund verkar vara den drastiskt ökande materialtillgången som innebär att verksamma inom området inte hinner skaffa sig den materialkunskap de skulle behöva, främst om nya material och nya materiallösningar. De största och mest inflytelserika materialbiblioteken finns i New York och Paris och heter Material ConneXion, Innovathéque och MatériO. De flesta materialbibliotek har något förhållande till ett eller flera av dessa tre, och deras databaser är föremål för potentiella framtida samarbetsprojekt.</p>