*Nr 1 Anita Kristiansen Olander: Punktskrift. En studie över hur punktskriftslåntagarnas behov tillgodoses på Talboks- och punktskriftsbiblioteket: med en historisk tillbakablick (Braille, A study of how Braille users needs are satisfied by The Library of Talking Books and Braille: with a historic retrospect)
The main purpose of this Master’s thesis is to examine how Braille users needs are satisfied by The Library of Talking Books and Braille (TPB). The other issues are: How do some of the library workers at TPB experience that the needs of Braille users are satisfied? Is it possible to make the service better in the future for Braille users and in that case, how? The study is based upon interviews with five persons, who have defective vision and read Braille. I have also interviewed two employees at TPB who have defective vision. To build up a complete background presentation of the subject I have chosen a book about hermeneutic interpretation to understand how historic facts influence the function of the subject today and in the future. The result of the study indicates that five Braille users, who are regular customers at TPB, in broad outline are satisfied with the service. But, according to the interviewed customers, TPB can still improve their activity by taking certain measures. For example, the customers need more opportunities to make personal visits to TPB. They also need a shorter production time to translate new books into Braille. Wishes have been expressed from customers at TPB that they themselves want the possibility to choose if they will buy or read a book in contracted Braille or non-contracted Braille. It is difficult for the customers to return the Braille books back to TPB. Wishes have also been expressed that TPB could decorate a reading-room for the Braille users. Marketing of the homepage is important. A good thing would be to revoke the limit for the number of pages the transcription service performs for the Braille customers. Let the producer decide the time for delivery transcripted text to the Braille customers from the transcription service. The staff at TPB wants to save Braille for the future. For example they wish to produce Braille in a cheaper material so that the customers can keep the Braille books.
*Nr 2 Jennie-Therese Johnsson: Hjälpguider: en diskursanalytisk ansats (Manuals: a discourse analytic approach)
The empirical data used for this master thesis, consists of eight manuals with the main purpose to help students evaluate information resources found on the web or Internet. The purpose is to elucidate the discourse(s) and investigate those textual characteristics, which figure in the investigated manuals. The method used is a discursive and linguistic approach, with a power/knowledge discussion applied to the results. The analysis identifies, among other things, the production and consumption of the investigated texts, and that the manuals function as a reflection of the relationship between the participants in the situation, the sociocultural practice of the institution and its identity.
*Nr 3 Staffan Rundberg: Folkbibliotekarien och det livslånga lärandet – En undersökning av ett projekt till stöd för vuxenstuderandes livslånga lärande (The public librarian and lifelong learning – A study of a project with the purpose of supporting adults lifelong learning)
The purpose of this master thesis is to investigate issues concerning lifelong learning and the role of the public librarian. This is done by examining LärForum (Forum for Learning), a project initiated at a public library located outside of Stockholm, with the aim of supporting adults lifelong learning. The major questions raised in this study are: How do the seven librarians interviewed define lifelong learning and how do they perceive their own role in relation to lifelong learning in the public library? Do they work with adult learners in a different way than they do with "ordinary" users of the library? Has their conception of their own role as a public librarian changed as a result of LärForum, and do they find it necessary to acquire new skills because of the project? Data was collected through interviews and observation, and the study is a qualitative case study. The main results are that the librarians see their role in lifelong learning in the public library as self-evident, and they see lifelong learning mostly as learning for an individual’s personal development. They view their role as being educational in nature, but they don’t seem to relate with adult learners differently than with "ordinary" users of the library, and they do not feel that their profession has changed because of the LärForum project. Lär-Forum has probably existed too short a time in order to see a change in the informants´ perception of their profession. A change in working methods may also demand further education and an awareness concerning working methods for interaction with adult learners.
*Nr 4 Pieta Eklund: Knowledge management på en dagstidning (Knowledge management at a daily newspaper)
The purpose of this study was to describe how journalists do research for their articles and whether there is a need to create a knowledge bank of the material that journalists use for writing these articles. I also looked at how knowledge management could be used at a daily newspaper to add value to the information used by the journalists. The thesis is based on four interviews with journalists, a literature review and a practical project. I helped a journalist with his information seeking and later tried to organize the material. This project gave me an understanding of how varying the material that journalists use is and how difficult it would be to try to organize it in order to create an organizational knowledge resource of the material. The study shows that journalists use a lot of information in their work and a big part of their job consists of information seeking. A lot of the retrieved information is not used more than once. The study shows that if the material was organized and made available for other journalists at the newspaper, it would make journalists’ work more effective. The results also show that there are some knowledge management tools available at the newspaper but these are not used for knowledge management purposes. Journalists also need to change their way of thinking about their profession from the industrial era to the information and knowledge era in order to make knowledge management succeed and benefit the organization and its employees.
*Nr 5 Anna Persson: En studie av IFLA/ALP:s utvecklingsarbete i tredje världen (A studie of IFLA/ALP’s work in developing counties)
The purpose of IFLA:s Core Programme ALP (Advancement of Librarianship in the third world) is to further the objectives of the library profession, library institutions and library and informationservices in the less developed countries in the third world. This essay deals with how and with what purpose IFLA/ALP managing developing work in the third world. What roles do they consider that the public library could play for development of the society? The essay also deal with purposes that have resulted in the close cooperation between IFLA/ALP and other organizations.till comparing their work with SIDA and UNESCO. Finaly I try to connect this work with a development theory and a global context.
*Nr 6 Sylvester Böldicke: Digital demokrati i Svensk press mellan 1995 och 2003 (Digital democracy in the Swedish press between 1995 and 2003)
Ever since computers started to become popular people have dreamed of a way to use this new technology in the voting process. It has been thought, that through the use of personal computers at home the people could be allowed to vote in a number of issues, especially local ones. This, it has been thought, would bridge the widening gap between voters and politicians and help keep up public interest between the regular elections, thus strengthening the type of democracy we want. During the last couple of years there have been a number of local experiments, where different forms of digital democracy have been tried out with varying results for example in Kalix and Karlskrona. Perhaps, as a result, there have been quite a number of articles in both newspapers and journals about digital democracy. Still, the concept of digital democracy does not seem to be discussed much in Sweden aside from in the media and a few universities. The version that is presented by the media is by far the one that reaches the public domain and any influence would so far have come from the press. Since the new communication technology is here to stay it is important that we understand as much as possible about what it can give us and what it might mean for our democracy both the good and the bad. It is important to know so that we can shape it.
*Nr 7 Karin Jilsén, Christel Johansson: En bok kan berika livet – om man får ta del av den: En intervjustudie med bibliotekarier och läsombud om utvecklingsstörda och läsning (A book can enrich life – if you may take part of it: An interview study with librarians and reading representatives about mentally retarded persons and reading)
The aim of this master thesis is to discuss the access to literature and reading by mentally retarded persons, and how this is affected by library and care taking staffs’ awareness of mentally retarded persons’ needs of literature and reading. The reason why we decided to choose this essay topic, is that there is a lack of research about mentally retarded persons’ relationship with libraries, literature and reading in the field of library- and information science. This group’s needs must be brought to sight, so that they can take part in the literature just as anyone else, on their own conditions. Our study involves interviews with four librarians, three reading representatives and a co-ordinator at the Easy-to-Read Foundation. We can establish that all of our informants prove to have significant knowledge about mentally retarded persons and their needs of literature and reading. They are also greatly committed to their work in the library’s activity for the mentally retarded and in the reading representatives’ activity. In the results we have seen that both the librarians and the reading representatives on different terms affect the mentally retarded persons’ book choice. A big part in the relationship between mentally retarded persons and the care taking staff is about empowerment. Empowerment represents the possibilities for the individual to have control over his/her choice. It is important that the reading representatives have the support of their work-mates and their unit directors. Another important issue is that there is a well-functioning local working group to maintain the reading delegates’ activity.
*Nr 8 Susanne Johansson, Ann Karlsson: Den perfekta informationsspridaren? En komparativ studie av tre organisationers intranätanvändning (The perfect way to spread information? A comparative study of the use of intranet in three organizations)
This is a comparative study of the use of intranet in three organizations. The organizations are one help organization, one hospital and one business company. The intranet is a relatively new medium and it might still not have been accepted by all potential users, which is a waste of resources both for the individual employee and for the overall organization. It is therefore necessary to investigate if there are any differences between organizations concerning the needs of intranets. Our purpose with this study was to deepen the understanding of the use of intranets as a channel of organizational communication and thereby acknowledge the users´ needs and opinions of the intranet. We wanted to know how the intranet is used and what the overall advantages/disadvantages are with the implementation and use of an intranet, according to the respondents. The theories we used are mainly based on the use of information systems, communication and organizational aspects, all connected to the intranet medium. We conducted interviews with one key person in each organization to get an oversight of the organizational intranet. We also handed out questionnaires (personally or through our key persons) to a number of employees in the three organizations. We found that all three organizations have similar information needs and opinions concerning the intranet. The fields of application used by the employees are of different kinds. The e-mail and other services they actively can participate in are the most frequently used parts of the intranet. The advantages of the intranet are that the information easily can be shared by all employees in the organization and that the intranet gives a larger insight in the entire organization. Some of the disadvantages are that the intranet is too unstructured and that the large amount of information makes it hard to retrieve relevant information. All organizations requested better search functions.
*Nr 9 Andreas Österberg: Katalogisering av ljudupptagningar: En komparativ studie av Statens ljud- och Bildarkiv och Sveriges Radios grammofonarkiv (Kataloguing of sound recordings : a comparative study of The National Archive of Recorded Sound and Moving Images and The Grammophone Record Archive of the Swedish Radio)
The aim of this thesis is to explore and outline the cataloguing of sound recordings at two main Swedish audiovisual archives, The National Archive of Recorded Sound and Moving Images (Statens ljud- och bildarkiv, SLBA) and The Grammophone Record Archive of the Swedish Radio (Sveriges Radios grammofonarkiv) and its data base GAMBA. As non-book, non-printed, material in many ways differs from printed material, the institutions that deal with this kind of material have often developed their own rules for the cataloguing of it. The general codes for cataloguing, AACR2 and KRS, are insufficiently suited for audiovisual material. That is the reason why the IASA Cataloguing Rules, presented in this thesis, have been created. After the presentation of the IASA rules the problems of accounting for important sections of the catalogue record are discussed such as title, statement of respeonsbility, performers, physical description and notes. The two archives in question are then presented. Of those the SLBA has developed its own version of the IASA Cataloguing Rules and the Grammophone Record Archive works according to its own system. The SLBA version is first compared to the KRS, after which a comparative study is made of the cataloguing of six different sound recordings. In order to deepen the analysis a study is made of how well the catalogue records match the FRBR requirements on information standards with the purpose of making it possible to find and to identify the information required. The study shows that GAMBA to a slightly higher degree meets these requirements as their catalogue records offer more detailed information. The SLBA catalogue records would be insufficient for the users of GAMBA and the two archives would not be able to use each others’ systems while the needs of the users are different. In conclusion this study illustrates the difficulty in developing a general standard, suitable for every type of archive for this kind of material.
*Nr 10 Martin Alexandersson: Debatt om informationsfrihet i kris- En studie över upphovsrättsdebatten i några svenska biblioteksorienterade tidskrifter 1996-2001. (Debate on informationfreedom in crisis- A study of the copyright debate in some Swedish library-oriented periodicals 1996-2001.)
In the years 1996-2001 the European Union`s copyright-directive was drawn up. This directive led to much lobbying activities from both copyright holders and library organisations like EBLIDA and IFLA. The Internet and filesharing networks like Napster had led to strong reactions among some copyright holders. Internet gave people an easy opportunity of accessing copyright protected material. Some researchers of copyright have written books where they state that the copyright holders utilize authors fear of illegal copying to strengthen the copyright laws, and by that benefit economical. These authors mean that record companys (for example) has an interest in making the authors believe that Internet is a great danger. The copyright debating authors has tried to show that harder copyright laws will lead to the suppression of creativity and innovation. This study assume that librarians would have an interest of debating the copyright laws. This is because harder copyright laws could make the free distrubution of information to people harder. This study examines the arguments of some of these copyright debating authors and will search for similar arguments in some Swedish library oriented periodicals. All relevant articles in every issue of the periodicals has been studied. The results show that the debate in these periodicals have been much lesser frequent than assumed, and that the arguments wasn’t much like the copyright were not debating authors arguments. A possible explanation could be that librarians have been so sure that copyright expertise of organisations like EBLIDA and IFLA would handle these questions alone. The knowledge about copyright has probably been too little among regular librarians for a similar debate to come up in the periodicals studied.
*Nr 11 Anna Markusson: Skolans hjärna eller verksamhet på undantag? En studie av skolbibliotekets status sett i ett organisatoriskt perspektiv (The Brain of the School or the Neglected Activity? An Organisational Study of the School Library and Its Status)
This study is an attempt to shed light on problems and possibilities of the school library of the Swedish comprehensive school concerning library law and goals of the school and the school library. Many investigations about the role of the school library of the comprehensive school have been carried through. They have all more or less come to the same conclusions. In spite of Swedish library law and goal documents of the school library, the school libraries are often neglected, if not will and commitment are to be found among teachers. Using a model of the school organisation by Gunnar Berg, three cases of school libraries are presented and analysed in a larger organisational and political perspective. According to Gunnar Berg the organisation of the comprehensive school is complex and has to deal with several conflicts inside the organisation. The history and the tradition of the Swedish school library are being presented and analysed as well as Swedish library law and national goals of the comprehensive school and school library. Lack of communication on the local level, local culture at the specific school involving informal rules and habits, are reasons of dysfunctioning school libraries in spite of an existing library law. Some of the interviewed express wishes for more public involvement.
*Nr 12 Torbjörn Aronsson: "Ett artigt pennekrig" En biografisk studie av Gustaf Montgomerys nätverk och författarskap under en period av ideologisk förändring och nya roller för författare 1812-1842 (”A polite argument” A biographical study of Gustaf Montgomery´s network and authorship during a period of ideological change and new roles for authors 1812-1842)
Studies of networks, fields and of communicative circulations complement each other. This master thesis is a biographical study of an author and journalist, Gustaf Montgomery (GM), his network in Sweden of the early 19th century, and a study of his authorship and literary career. The starting-point of the study is GM:s change of  field from the conservative to the liberal in 1832. The aim is to give explanations to this change and to describe how the change in turn effected the network. The method used is critical of sources. After a military career, GM:s cousins provided him with accommodation and library, introduced him to persons in their network. Among them was Pehr Adam Wallmark, a conservative journalist. Wallmark soon became GM:s editor, publisher and father-in-law. GM became a small-scale squire outside Stockholm. He participated in debates, both as a writer and as a politician. In a debate, however, GM stood closer to the liberals. This damaged his relation to the king Carl XIV Johan and he changed field. For a period he became full-time writer. For the means of coming to office he accepts an offer from a relative to administer remotely situated copperworks. GM:s network became more distant from power. Wallmark was, however, able to imp rove GM:s position toward the king. Despite GM:s liberalism, he came to office in 1841. He completed the work on the finnish war that influenced Johan Ludvig Runeberg and the national spirit in Finland. GM:s damaged relation to the king had influence on his field position. It is likely that GM was influenced by liberal movements and the fact that he was writing more for a growing market. GM:s network was effected by the change of field but the network around the family did still have a social reproductive function.
*Nr 13 Lisa Berg: Att ämnesbestämma bilder: En teoretisk undersökning (Subject Analysis of Images: A Theoretical Study)
The aim of this master ´s thesis is to understand why there are difficulties in finding joint methods and standards in the field of image indexing. The main focus for interpreting these issues is on Sara Shatford ´s article Analyzing the Subject of a Picture: A Theoretical Approach. In the article Shatford discusses a theoretical basis for identifying and classifying the subject in a picture. In doing so she uses concepts taken from The Philosophy of Art, Meaning in Language and Visual Perception. With the aid of S.R. Ranganathan ´s Colon Classification she models a figure which is meant to be used as a tool when analysing the subject of a picture. The main focus is on the concept-based information retrieval field that sets its aim on the intellectual/textual methods for indexing images. By way of introduction I examine the concept of a subject, thereafter this method for subject analysis of a picture is being explored. To make the focal point broader The Art & Architecture Thesaurus is examined and thereafter compared to Shatford ´s theories in order to lay them open for criticism. The conclusion from this examination is that Shatford ´s model may be used as a tool for the subject analysis of a picture. I do nevertheless find some of Shatford ´s approaches problematic. One is her applying Panofsky ´s method for analysing a picture in which it is not possible to analyse the specific purpose of a picture. In my opinion Roland Barthes´ semiotic methods for analysing a picture are more accurate. Another question that occurs when indexing images is whether it is desirable to index with the aid of language. Automatic tools such as content-based information retrieval (CBIR) might be the answer to this.
* Nr 14 Jonny Nilsson, Lin Nilsson: "Det är mesigt att läsa om musik": En studie av musikintresserade människors informationsvanor ("It`s geeky to read about music". A study of the information behaviour of people interested in music)
The aim of this thesis is to investigate what information needs arise from the interest in music, which sources are preferred, how this information is sought and what part does the public library play in providing music materials. Brenda Dervin`s Sense-Making theory is what serves as a theoretic framework for this study. A qualitative approach was undertaken in the investigation and nine interviews were conducted with people interested in music. Findings indicate that different ways of acquiring information are used depending on the situation in which the information is needed and also what kinds of music people prefer. The main findings of this study suggest that people interested in music are keen to constantly discover new music to perform or listen to. Information seeking seems to be mainly performed by monitoring known dependable sources and information providers used include newspapers, magazines, radio, TV and the Internet. Information to try helping decide whether certain music is worth exploring further is often sought by browsing musicrecordings or taking advice from friends, family and other trusted sources. Very highly appreciated sources overall are family, friends and other persons known to have expertise knowledge. Internet seems to be used both as a news provider and for searching reference information. When needing specialised knowledge or reference information, dictionaries, websites or people with known specialknowledge are often preferred. Barriers experienced are of financial and cognitive nature and also caused by an interest in music of less well-known genres. Libraries seemed to be used mainly for borrowing sheet music or lyrics and not so much for their record collections.
*Nr 15 Sofia Olausson: Bibliotekarieutbildningen vid BHS 1977 t.o.m 1999 En diskursteoretisk studie (The Library education at BHS Between 1977 and 1999 A Discourse Theoretical Study)
The aim of this master thesis is to investigate changes within four discourses identified in the curriculum material of the Swedish library education in Borås (Bibliotekarielinjen) dating from 1977 and 1985 and its successor Library and Information Science (Biblioteks- och informationsvetenskap) dating from 1995, 1999. My method used is a text analytic method primarily derived from the discourse theory of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, yet with addition of tools from the critical discourse analysis of Fairclough. By identifying three floating signifiers within the material, i.e information, library, and librarian, and thereafter identifying their fixation, a pattern of resemblance and diversity in the fixating signs appeared between different courses of the curriculum dating from 1999. Hence I could establish an order of discourse consisting of four library discourses, a knowledge organisation discourse, a user discourse, a society discourse and a management discourse. Using this discursive order as a pattern, I could trace these four discourses back in time within the material dating from 1995, 1985 and 1977. Thus I could see how the fixation of the studied floating signifiers had altered over the time and how each discourse interacted with one and other.
*Nr 16 Malin Jansson: SAB-systemet och ämnet religion – en studie av ett klassifikationssystems förmåga att klassificera en vetenskaplig discipline.(The SAB-system and the subject religion – a study of a classificationsystems ability to classifie a scientific discipline.)
Classification systems express an idea of the world as it was when the systems was made. If the classification system is not revised there is a possibility that the system will become antique and hard to apply to different subjects. The purpose of this study is to see if the SAB-system is a classification system which shows a reflection of the subject Religion that is equivalent with that of Swedish universities. The ideas which are behind the classification of the subject religion in the SAB-system have been analysed, as well as the structuring of the scientific discipline Religion at the universities. The result will show if the SAB-system can classify the subject religion in a satisfying way at university libraries. A hermeneutic scientifically view to analyse the material have been used. Literary studies have been used to get the result. Other sources of information are the websites of the universities, where each university´s view of the discipline can be obtained and where the information of what literature are used at the courses are given. The structuring of the SAB-system of the subject religion bears a certain resemblance to the universities` view of the subject as long as the universities use the traditional view of the subject: Christianity verses other religions. However, the trends are that universities, in their education, more and more mix up different cultures and religions, and that the courses become more interdisciplinary. Another difference is that the SAB-system gives big space to the Swedish church, which the universities do not. The SAB-system works well as long as the universities have a traditional view of the discipline. The system has difficulty in classifying the subject when the universities try to look at the subject out of a pluralistic view of the society where different religions meet.
*Nr 17 Anna-Karin Sjökvist: Rektorn och skolbiblioteket : uppfattningar om skolbiblioteket (The principal and the school library : apprehensions of the school library)
The purpose of this thesis is to describe how principals apprehend the school library. In order to respond to this I formulated three questions: How was the improvement of the school libraries carried out in one municipality? Is the school library experienced as a part of the schools organization? How is the use of the school´s library experienced? To be able to answer these questions, for the purpose of this thesis, I have studied relevant literature on school libraries, the school organization and literature on qualitative methods. I have made six qualitative interviews. The objects of the interviews were three librarians and three principals. All of these persons have been working intensively, since 1999, on the improvement of the school libraries in a municipality in Sweden. I have been inspired by a qualitative method called phenomenography. I wanted to describe the variations of apprehensions of the school library. The object of phenomenography is to explore people´s different ways of experiencing a phenomena in the world. Phenomenography focus on people´s conceptions about a phenomena and not the phenomena as it really is. My conclusions are shown in chapter 7, where I answer my three questions. The results show variations of thinking about the school library. One apprehension is that the school library is integrated with the teaching and the principal feels confident in being able to influence the teachers to use the school library. Another apprehension is that the school library is not integrated in the teaching and the principal does not feel confident in being able to have any influence on the teaching.
*Nr 18 Anders Pettersson, Claes Lindblad: Webbplatsen EUROPA: en utvärdering av söktjänsten (About EUROPA: an evaluation of its search engine)
The purpose of this thesis is to evaluate the retrieval effectiveness on the European Unions official website EUROPA, depending on which language is used to formulate the search question. Our main concern were if you get access to the same information depending on which language is used to search information The European Union has so far eleven official languages, and with the forthcoming expansion with negotiations with thirteen new countries to affiliate to the union by May 1:st 2004, the official languages will be even more. We have made a comparison between Swedish and English, using 29 different topics from which we formulated 2x29 queries. The topics used were found at the Swedish Governments FAQ about the European Union, EUsvar. We wanted the topics to be as authentic as possible to avoid bias. Using a DCV, Document Cut-off Value, of 10 we made a relevance check, using a three grade scale, of the retrieved documents. Irrelevant articles and duplicates were given 0 points, partially relevant documents were given 0, 5 points and those judged to be highly relevant were given 1 point. Criteria for these relevance judgements are formulated as to prevent hesitation and partiality. The measure of effectivness used is top ten precision. The results of the survey were mainly positive, the difference in precision between the two languages were very low, meaning that you get mainly the same answers, if not the same documents, to your information need whether you formulate your search question in English or in Swedish.
*Nr 19 Martin Sundin: Musiken och folkbiblioteket: en studie av musikverksamheten på folkbiblioteken i Borås Stad (Music and the public library: a study of the music activity of the public libraries around the city of Borås.)
The purpose of the master thesis was to reflect and analyze music library activities and policies in the public libraries in the area around the city of Borås, in the south-western part of Sweden. With this thesis I also wanted to look at the interaction between the public libraries, the music school and the music associations in the same area. To investigate these matters, qualitative method was used in the form of interviews with seven librarians from seven different libraries and five representatives of different local music organizations. Other methods used were observations and source studies. The literature used discusses the role of the music department of public libraries as well as that of a music librarian working in a public library. I have furthermore considered what the national and local culture policy documents say when it comes to promoting people’s access to music through the public library. The interviews showed that the buying and lending of music recordings was a big part of the music service of the libraries that were included in the study. The study also showed that there were clear differences between the respondents’ views on the role of the music library. Also, I found few examples of interaction between the public libraries and the different music organisations in the same area.
*Nr 20 Hillevi Johansson och Catherine Lundquist: Kontrollerad vokabulär eller naturligt språk? En empirisk studie. (Controlled vocabulary or natural language? An empirical study.)
The question whether controlled vocabulary or natural language (free-text terms) is the most effective search strategy has occupied researchers in LIS for many decades. This Master’s thesis is an empirical study which aims to compare these two search strategies in LISA (Library and Information Science Abstracts), an online bibliographic database. 22 topics from the discipline of Library & Information Science were constructed and out of each topic one query for each search strategy was formed. Queries in natural language were formed with terms from different sources, for example dictionaries, while queries in controlled vocabulary were built with terms from LISA’s electronic thesaurus. The measures used in this study were precision, relative recall (pooling method) and overlap. The average precision was 65,59 % for controlled vocabulary while natural language generated an average precision of 41,75 %. Concerning the average relative recall, controlled vocabulary measured 40,28 %, while natural language reached 75,00 %. The average overlap was 15,28 %. Consequently, the controlled vocabulary accomplished a higher concentration of relevant documents but failed in finding several relevant documents. Natural language achieved a more exhaustive result but did also generate more non-relevant documents. The results suggest that these two strategies should be applied depending on situation and requirement but also that research on how to derive the advantages of both strategies in one search is needed.
*Nr 21 Karin Bagger, Katarina Fex-Fritz: Ett folkbibliotek och dess användare: användares uppfattningar av service relaterade till verksamhetsintentioner (A public library and its users : users conceptions of service related to library intentions)
The aim of this MA thesis is to examine how users regard and receive the services offered by a specific public library. We also examine what the conception of service means to the users and how they perceive this service being offered by the library. We look upon if and to what extent the service conception depends on contact with the library staff. The methods used are qualitative interviews and analyses of documents directing the library activities. The public library we have examined in this respect is the public library of Västerås. General findings of the study was that our respondents did not relate to the offers and services of the library. The library as information centre, educational centre, cultural centre and meeting place, which it claims to be, did not correspond with their conceptions of the library. Nor was the significance of these words clear to them and they had different opinions of their meanings. This shows a semantic discrepancy between the participants; between the intentions in the directing documents and the operational concept on one hand and the users impressions of the service offered on the other. We think the causes for this discrepancy can partly be accounted for in the wording of these documents with its abstract and visionary language, far from a practical reality. Another possibility is that the expectations on the public library and its service is depending on the economical reductions in public services as a whole. We also think there is a lack of knowledge concerning what needs and demands the library is filling and what part it takes in the users’ everyday life. Furthermore we have found a solid confidence in the library staff and a strong approval of the personal contact with the employees. In the light of  these facts we find it remarkable that the users so seldom ask for professional assistance. We consider this a contradiction and possibly a consequence of lowered expectations of the library service.
*Nr 22 Ellinore Boman, Petra Josefsson: Folkbiblioteken och informationsuppgiften: Fyra biblioteksorganisationers syn på folkbibliotek, folkbibliotekens bestånd samt deras roll i samhället. (The public library and the information task: Four library organisations view of the public library.)
The purpose of this paper is to examine different attitudes regarding freedom of information and how libraries should fulfil their information-task represented by four organisations. The organisations are important in shaping the Swedish public libraries in different ways. The purpose is to examine in what ways their definition of information freedom may differ from one another and what that means in defining the public library. For the survey the qualitative textual analysis has been used for examining the documents and websites that are part of the debate about the public library and information freedom. We chose to interview representatives of four organisations that in different ways influence the shaping of the public library. The four libraryorganisations are Bibliotek i Samhälle (BiS), IFLA/FAIFE , Svensk Biblioteksförening and Bibliotekarieförbundet (BF). The thesis shows that the attitudes regarding information freedom relates to the attitudes towards what role the public library should play in the Swedish society. Several different elements effect the different organisations definition of freedom of information. Elements such as tradition, professionalism, legitimacy and its context.
*Nr 23 Linda Fogelström: Fichtelius-affären och public service-ideologin (The Fichtelius affair and the public service ideology)
With this master thesis I wanted to find out whether Erik Fichtelius, an SVT employee, interview project with prime minister Göran Persson is acceptable according to the public service ideology. In order to do that I used Swedish newspaper articles to analyse the so called Fichtelius affair. I also gathered material on SVT and the public service ideology. The master thesis is based on sociologist Manuel Castells theories on mass media and television as presented in the Information Age. Castells claims that in our time different areas, such as politics and television, are melting together. Politics today needs to occupy space in media to not be marginalised. Television has become essential to politics. I found that although Fichtelius behaviour is unacceptable to journalistic ethics and the values of the public service ideology he can’t be found guilty of any kind of crime. The laws controlling SVT are too vague.
*Nr 24 Hanna Eriksson: Informationskvalitet: informationssökares syn på kvalitet (Information Quality: information seekers’ evaluation of quality)
The aim of this thesis is to examine how different kinds of information seekers are evaluating information quality in the information flow online. To address the problem stated, qualitative interviews were carried out with a librarian as a reference person and a group consisting of journalists and scientists. The result of the study implies that the reference person is well aware of the strategies employed by her in the search process.  However, the respondents are not aware of the strategies they are actually using.  An explanation is the respondents’ lack of education in information seeking. Due to the respondents different aims of the information seeking, there appears to be a difference between the journalists’ and the scientists’ methods in both seeking information and evaluating information quality. The scientists mainly use information sources where the information already has passed a quality control and hence they don’t perform quality evaluation themselves. The journalists are often performing more comprehensive information seeking using more sources. Therefore, they perform more quality controls as compared to the scientists. However, none of the respondents are really aware of the quality controls they are performing, but rather trust their instincts on what’s information quality. Moreover, the respondents seem to have either a product based or production based perspective on information quality. The main conclusion of the study is that the most important criteria used by the respondents to judge information quality and to receive their goals with the search are: reliability, credibility and objectivity, precision and current interest.
*Nr 25 Mi Brötegård, Clas Karlsson: Äldre boksamlingar på kommunala bibliotek – resurs eller belastning? (Rare book collections at public libraries – asset or liability?)
Care and solicitude about Swedish documentary heritage has varied substantially throughout the years. The main purpose of this essay has been to investigate what efforts have been made to preserve rare book collections at public libraries. These cultural policies have been studied from both a national as well as local perspective. What we have tried to explore can be condensed into three questions: What national initiatives have been taken in the past century to preserve the municipal documentary heritage?What initiatives have been taken in the past century to preserve thedocumentary heritage of what is presently the municipality of Jönköping? What value do rare book collections at public libraries represent? The results indicate few national efforts were initially made to preserve rare book collections in the timeframe we studied. Nevertheless, the current situation appears to be improving as for example the project to institute a national plan of preservation has brought these issues to the political agenda. A similar tendency, with a long period of inactivity only just recently ended, has been found in our local field of investigation as well. Presently, co-operation between libraries and archives in Jönköping has improved the conditions for rare book collections. In spite of the lack of formal instruments to assess the value of rare books, the results of the questionnaire we distributed indicate there is a concordance within Swedish libraries regarding the aforementioned value. This is particularly evident in the appraising of what we have chosen to label local cultural heritage.
*Nr 26 Peter Andersson,  Susan Nejadpour: Utvärdering av kommunalpolitikers informationsförsörjning: en informationsaudit i Härryda kommun. (Evaluation of Municipal Politicians’ Information Support: An Information Audit in Härryda Commune.)
Information is one of the organization's essential resources, and as such it needs strategic management. The authors use the information audit, which was developed by Orna (1999) and Henczel (2000) as a tool to evaluate how well an organization's information activities connect to its mission, goals, and objectives, to evaluate the municipal politicians' information support in Härryda municipality. The decision situations met by politicians often are complex; they are ambiguous and unstructured, with a high level of uncertainty. Human information sources meet needs arising in this kind of decision situations best. Since most of the politicians work full-time besides being politicians, Härryda municipality has to substitute the human sources by textual ones composed of highly summarized information. The municipal administration is responsible for providing the politicians with formal information and the three committee secretaries provide the politicians with information of a more momentary nature. The authors came to the conclusion that the municipality is quite successful in providing the politicians with information support despite the lack of well-formulated goals.
*Nr 27 Carin Carlzén: Kan en lockande och informativ webbplats marknadsföra ett bibliotek? Tankar om webbplatsens roll i stadsbiblioteks marknadsföring (Can an attractive and informative web site function as marketing source for a library? Thoughts about the role of the web site in the marketing of public libraries)
The web sites of libraries are to a large extent their public face and to help market their services, the web sites must have interesting and regularly renewed content. They must also be visually attractive and easily used, and thus be well structured and have a well functioning navigational system. The web masters' awareness of the ability of web sites to attract users to the site and also to the library, as well as their knowledge of suitable content and site construction, is crucial for how successful the web site actually is at marketing the library. The research question is: How do the studied web sites function as marketing sources and service providers for the libraries, and are the web masters aware of the importance of the web site? The purpose is to investigate how the library personnel looks upon the web site as a possible way to increase the popularity of the library among the public, and to study the construction and content of the library web sites to find out how well these serve their purpose. The result shows that the web sites meet the demands of interesting content as well as attractive and simple construction to a certain extent, but there is still more to do to make them even better. The web masters are aware of how the structure and content should be in broad outline, but say that there is lack of time and means. The purpose of the web site is for example to simplify the use of the library, to convey quality information, and to market the library. Some of the web masters already see the web site as an important marketing tool, while others only see it as an information source about the library.
*Nr 28: Mattias Larsson Tre perspektiv på musikavdelningarna vid Stadsdelsbiblioteken i Göteborg - En kvalitativ studie om målsättning och utbud. (Three perspectives on the music sections at the district libraries in Gothenburg - A qualitative study about strategic aims and supply)
The aim with this master thesis is to study which ambitions and strategic aims Gothenburg’s district libraries have regarding their music sections. I have utilized my theory from Sanna Talja, a Finnish researcher in Library and Information Science. She identifies three perspectives in maintaining a music library. She calls them, general education, alternative and demand. I have performed a qualitative study, in interviewing ten librarians responsible for the music section at the district libraries. The results, from analysing, the interviews were discussed in relationship to Taljas research findings. Thereby, I could easily distinguish each libraries working methods at the music section and link them to Taljas perspectives. The conclusion of this study is that there are just a few libraries, in my material, who express that they have guidelines to follow and strategic aims to work toward. It was also shown that few of those responsible for the music sections had a strong interest in music. This lack of interest can also be translated into deficiency in competency. It can be assumed that this played a role in the way two libraries stagnated when it came to purchasing new music. Furthermore this study shows that quality is not considered very important when the libraries buy in music. Another conclusion from the study is that the libraries show low levels of knowledge on local users. Rhetorically, librarians stated that their knowledge of users was large. However, none of them have researched their local inhabitants on a deeper level.
*Nr 29 Erland Fahlbeck: En diktaturs väg in i Informationssamhället – Kina och World Summit on the Information Society (The way of a dictatorship into the Information Society – China and the World Summit on the Information Society)
This master’s thesis investigates the relation between China and the Information Society as it is manifested in the UN conference the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). The first phase of this two-phase conference took place in Geneva 10-12 December 2003, with two documents, Declaration of principles (DP) and Plan of action (PA), as main results. The information policy is central to an authoritarian rule in its efforts to keep control over the national identity. The thesis investigates the impact that the information revolution and Internet might have on the Chinese national identity through the acceptance of DP and PA in various aspects. With the use of the information science theories by Manuel Castells and Frank Webster, the vision of WSIS was compared with the Chinese information policy. An analytical instrument was developed, consisting of ten socio-political categories. The study consists of two parts: in a preparatory study DP and PA were investigated in order to establish what kind of society they envision. In the second part, China was investigated, after which the result was compared with the result of WSIS. The conclusions are that the vision of WSIS is a kind of post-Fordistic, global, capitalistic welfare-state, and that the impact on China displays a complex picture. In some areas, including civil society and regional identities, the WSIS vision will make regime control harder, but at the same time various e-strategies, surveillance technologies and security policies in conformity with WSIS might as well ease control.
*Nr 30 Stefan Petersson: Pär Lagerkvist, tidningarna och kritiken. Mottagandet av Bödeln och Dvärgen i svensk dagspress. (Pär Lagerkvist, the newspapers and the criticism. The reception of The Hangman and The Dwarf in the Swedish daily press.)
The aim of this Master’s thesis is to examine how two novels written by the Swedish author Pär Lagerkvist have been received by the critics in the Swedish daily press concerning their contemporary anchorage. During the time these novels were published, Pär Lagerkvist, through his authorship, expressed a conception of and an attitude towards contemporary political directions. The first of the two novels, The Hangman, was published in 1933, and the second, The Dwarf, in 1944. A second aim is to examine how the two novels contemporary anchorage is reflected in the reviews. The final aim is to examine whether the criticism differs depending on the ideological view of the newspapers. This qualitative study is based upon a total of 25 reviews from the Swedish daily press. The theoretical approach mainly comes from two Swedish professors in Sociology of Literature, Lars Furuland and Johan Svedjedal. My method of analysis is a textual one, analysis of ideas and ideology, focusing on the aspect of signification of a text. The conclusion of this study shows that the critics in many ways appear to be quite similar in their critic. It is, however, not possible to detect any uniform line in their criticism. When it comes to The Hangman, the critics show a tendency to discuss the element of contemporary anchorage to a greater extent than in the case with The Dwarf. This study also shows that the criticism differs depending on the ideological view of the newspapers.
*Nr 31 Yelena Jönsson-Lanevska: Porten till förståelse: svenska bibliotek och invandrare (The gate to understanding: Swedish libraries and immigrants)
The purpose of this paper was to investigate the special services for immigrants which are offered by Swedish libraries on their  different levels (regional, local and school) as well as immigrants’ experiences of the library services and how these services and experiences conduct themselves to the development of the harmonic multicultural society. The methods used were interpreting reflexive interviews with immigrants and librarians. The guiding theory in this study was a three-phase model by Gillis Herlitz according to which a new­comer goes through three stages in an adaptation period. Phase 1 is a positive ”honeymoon” phase, that later is replaced by phase 2, a critical disappointment period, which then ideally should be resolved in phase 3, where the individual reaches a balancing stage of cultural adaptation. The results of my observations indicate that the performances of the different libraries seem to operate in a way that corresponds to the different phases in this model. The approach of the local library is more individual and helpful for those immigrants, who find themselves in the ”disappointment” phase, whereas the activities of the regional li­brary, with its wider possibilities, are suitable for the ”balancing” phase when the immi­grants’ need for information is of more general nature. The school library has educational features and can direct its attention at helping the immigrants who stay too long in the ”dis­appointment” phase to find the way out. As is argued in this paper, it can, in many ways, be a task for libraries, to help immigrants overcome the difficult adaptation period.
*Nr 32 Tommie Anderberg, Tomas Johansson: Meningsskapande omvärldsbevakning - En diskussion kring dess förutsättningar (Sensemaking Business Intelligence - A discussion concerning its prerequisites)
The topic for this master thesis is Business Intelligence, a means for decision makers to obtain accurate analysis about organisations surrounding world. The purpose is to examine how Business Intelligence is carried out in practice and how it can be made more efficient by considering some underlying and often overlooked factors. The study shows that organisations should strive for common goals and to engender corresponding perspectives amongst the co-workers. We have also concluded that Sensemaking, Knowledge Creating, Tacit knowledge, Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Creativity and Visions, influence the ability to utilize the efficiency of Business Intelligence. In some aspects we have noticed that our theoretical backbone differentiates from reality, which reveals the complex prerequisites that relates to matters of Business Intelligence. The thesis is based on interviews with ten analysts, whom we have asked questions regarding the art of their daily work in order to pinpoint the most important factors for further analysis. The result also shows that sources of information, distribution of information, networking and a close cooperation with the decision makers, conspicuously affects the characteristics of Business Intelligence. Furthermore, smaller organisations tend to employ less sophisticated strategies to manage their Business Intelligence, whereas larger organisations with several business areas tend to demand the opposite. The conclusion is that, in order to strengthen the organisations ability to interpret signals from the surrounding world, it should focus on assembling individual knowledge throughout the whole organisation. The implication for Swedish Schools of Library and Information Science, is that they actively should improve students skills in Information Management to meet the increasing need for information specialists outside the context of libraries.
*Nr 33 Anna Karin Malmborg: Det virtuella studielandskapet -ett projekt vid Linköpings Universitetsbibliotek ("The virtual study environment" -a project by Linköping University Library)
The aim of the thesis is to investigate to what extent the pedagogy process has been affected by the close collaboration between librarians and teachers when it comes to education on the information search process. The thesis shows that the librarian is seen as an acting intermediate for information, and is regarded as a part of the learning process. The issues covered comprise of how students, teachers and librarians perceive that the students becomes information literate, how they perceive that the subject fields are covered, and how information has been transmitted, and how all this has been affected by the fact that the librarian is actually less available in person. Also, the following questions are discussed; how do librarians, teachers and students interact through the homepages of the course and "the landscape of studying"? And in what respect have the old library halls changed into that, which is available 24 hours a day, with different kinds of meeting opportunities where the search of information has been integrated with group projects? The foundation of this study is built on an evaluation of a project comprising of virtual study environment at the University of Linköping. The evaluation model has a theory- based attempt which describes the background, process and results of the project. It is a phenomenographic study, which has been performed through qualitative interviews, in order to investigate all participants' idea of the librarians contribution.
*Nr 34 Karin Gustafsson: Folkbibliotek och lärcentra: ett pedagogiskt samarbete under utveckling (Libraries and Local Learning Centres: A Pedagogical Cooperation under Development)
The main purpose of this Master’s thesis is to examine three Swedish librarians’ views on their role regarding their local learning centre and its adult students. The thesis also tries to find out whether the persons responsible for the local learning centres in these municipalities regard the libraries as a resource in this context and if the municipalities express the importance of such a cooperation in documents. Previous research in information seeking and learning is presented and a survey of lifelong learning, local learning centres and libraries is made. Relevant theories, such as Loertscher’s taxonomy, Kuhlthau’s approaches of library skills instruction and levels of mediation as well as Bruce’s categories of information literacy, are presented and later used in the analysis. A qualitative method was found to be most appropriate for this study, as the majority of the empirical material has been collected through interviews. A study of documents has also been made. The major findings are that the librarians think their libraries as well as themselves have or could have an active role in the local learning centres’ activities. They seem to have the ambition of improving the library skills instruction and contributing with their view of information literacy to the students. The persons responsible for the centres all agree there is only advantages with a cooperation, whereas the documents reveal very little about the municipalities’ opinions. The extent to which the cooperation has occurred seems to vary in the participating municipalities and the most successful kind of cooperation seems to be when the library and the local learning centre are situated in the same building.
*Nr 35 Emma Hedegärd: ”Allt finns på Internet” En undersökning om biblioteksanvändande hos studenter på Chalmers Lindholmen i Göteborg. (”Everything is on the Internet” An investigation about the use of library by students at Chalmers Lindholmen in Gothenburg.)
The purpose of this master's thesis is to investigate how the students at Chalmers University of Technology at Lindholmen in Gothenburg use libraries in their schoolwork. The empirical material consists of the answers of questionnaires that were handed out to two classes of students, on the second year of their education. To illustrate the topic there are a theoretical frame and examples of earlier studies. The theoretical frame is Limbergs texts that deal with for example information seeking and how important it is in all education. The earlier studies are about student's different ways of using libraries. It is obvious that the students don't use libraries frequently. When they visit the library they read their own literature, work in teams and use the computer and the copying machine. The students are not encouraged by the teachers to use the library and don't use literature beyond the set course literature list, because they don't think it will affect the result of their studies. The majority of the students have got user instruction at the school, but it didn't encourage them to use libraries. Most of them are, however, of the opinion that they will use information seeking in their future work, but they don't think they will use libraries. The result of the study indicates that the students don't have reasons to use libraries during their studies, because the studies don't demand it. The teachers must change the way they teach and co-operate with the librarians to encourage the students to use libraries more.
*Nr 36 Nina Kristiansson, Mia Olausson: ”En hund och en katt som är bästa kompisar...” ”Men det kan en hummer och en räka också vara!” En studie av lågstadiebarns möjlighet till identifikation i två utvalda barnböcker (”A dog and a cat who are best friends…” “So can a lobster and a shrimp be!” A study of the abilities of identification of first graders in two chosen children's books)
The aim of this essay has been to find out if children can identify themselves in children’s literature describing children who have immigrated. We wanted to investigate if the interest in reading books about children who have immigrated was the same whether the investigated children’s origin was Swedish or not. We chose two books for this purpose. We also wanted to see what the access to books about children who have immigrated was at three libraries. The locations for the libraries were; in the investigated children´s school, at the main library in the municipality and at a smaller library also located in the municipality. We have used a qualitative method for this study. We interviewed sixteen children in one school and most of the empirical material for the study was collected there. We also made inquiries at the three libraries to see if they possessed the two books and if they were frequently lent. We found that there was no difference between the children’s answers depending on origin. What seemed to have bigger impact on the investigated children’s opinions of the two books were their individual experiences.
*Nr 37 Christel Sundell, Weine Sundell: Film på svenska folkbibliotek? En diskursiv analys av statliga offentliga utredningar som behandlar folkbibliotekens verksamhetsmål och mediepolitik (Film in Swedish public libraries? A discourse analysis of Swedish government official reports concerning activity goals and media policy of the public library)
This Master’s thesis examines the position of films in Swedish public libraries. We have, by way of comparing various statistical data, determined that the status of film in public libraries is week. We have completed earlier research by mapping what genealogical, discursive patterns that could be outlined in the Swedish government reports from 1949 until today, focussing on the activity goals and media policy of the public library. We have, on the basis of Foucault’s theories on genealogy and archaeology, where text documents are considered to be meta-descriptions giving each other authority, analyzed if there any discursive excluding or contextual formulations exist in the usage of the language concerning the goals and the media attitude of public libraries. We have mapped contextual discursive formulations that to the commissioners have become neutral starting points for their assumptions and conclusions. Our conclusion is that the strongest discursive formulations can be found during the 80’s. The promotion of reading and the objectives of the Swedish language in the nine-year compulsory school, is suddenly made a task and objective of the public libraries in the official reports during that period. The view regarding different media is strongly unequal. The book is considered to be superior, threatened by other media. We also find that the official investigations are supporting the academic classification that Bourdieu has pointed out, with the film medium considered an inferior form of culture.
*Nr 38 Maria Karlsson-Lod, Jenny Kraft: Sjukhusbiblioteket som en resurs – hur tillgodoses sjuksköterskors informationsbehov genom bibliotekets tjänster vid Södra Älvsborgs Sjukhus (Hospital library as a resource - a study about meeting nurses information needs by providing library service at Södra Älvsborgs sjukhus)
The purpose of this study was to find out what are the information needs of the nurses and if the hospital library can satisfy these needs, and see how the hospital library reaches the nurses with their information provision. The main questions are: what kinds of service exist at the hospital library? What kinds of needs have the nurses concerning the hospital library? How are the needs satisfied by the hospital library? What marketing strategies are used by the hospital library to reach out to the nurses? Is it enough to achieve the goal? The method in this study was a case study with the emphasis on the qualitative interviews. The study was conducted at the hospital library at Södra Älvsborgs Sjukhus in Borås. The interviews concerned the nurses’ views on the hospital library, information needs and marketing. Theories about marketing were used, with a main focus on marketing mix and marketing of services. The result of this work showed that the hospital library had satisfied users. They thought that the range and quality of the service were good. The staff of the hospital library was regarded as very service-minded and engaged in their work. The results also showed that nurses need new information about new treatments and new medicine. The nurses wanted more information about what the hospital library could offer.
*Nr 39 Viktor Sarge: Tillgänglighet på svenska folkbiblioteks webbplatser – en kvantitativ tillgänglighetsstudie (Accessibility at Swedish public libraries websites – a quantitative accessibility study)
Information technology has become an integral part of our everyday lives. The Web is an important part of this development, however, web pages can be inaccessible to many groups of users. The purpose of this thesis is to examine the accessibility of Swedish public library websites. Besides examining the general accessibility, this study also covers whether any specific aspect of accessibility is particularly poor and if so which groups may be affected. In addition, this study also examines whether a correlation can be found between the degree of accessibility and the size of the website. The website size definition comprises three measurements; the size in kilobytes of the entry page of the website; the character amount of the entry page of the website and the amount of inhabitants in the website's districts. The method used for examining this hypothetical correlation is the Pearson Correlation. The findings are that the accessibility of Swedish public library websites in general is low, and that this affects all groups of users but some in particular. The affected users are blind users or users with low vision, deaf users, those with attention deficit disorder or those with impairments of memory or intelligence. No connection could however be established between the accessibility of the web sites and the three definitions of their size.
*Nr 40 Karin Andersson: Gör det själv! Fansinet i Sverige (Do it yourself! The fanzine in Sweden)
The purpose of this master’s thesis is to examine the fanzine, a form of amateur publication, in Sweden, both in the traditional paper form and the more recent electronic form. It deals with what is distinctive about the fanzine as a publication and also as a social and cultural product. It also looks upon how the fanzine uses the Internet and the new possibilities it brings. The people behind 18 fanzines, 10 electronic and 8 in paper, have answered a questionnaire about how they produce, publish, distribute and promote their fanzines, what they think about the fanzine as a mode of expression, and how they use the Internet. The master’s thesis uses theories within cultural studies as a theoretical approach to the fanzine. This includes theories about the fanzine as a textual product in fandom and about the fanzine as part of a cultural resistance against commercial mainstream media, and also theories about the fanzine on the Internet. As a publication the fanzine is distinguished by the personal level in the production. The fanzine is used by people as a way of making their voices heard. The fanzine provides a way to write about one’s own interest and to communicate that with others. While rather exclusive in paper form the internet has made the fanzine available for a larger group of readers. The e-zine doesn’t differ much from the paperzine in terms of substance and meaning, and the paperzine also use the Internet to gain availability through websites.
*Nr 41 Ann-Sofie Bengtsson, Sladjana Markovic: Skönlitteraturens genrer: En analys av två universella klassifikationssystem (Fiction genres: An analysis of two universal classification schemes)
The main aim in this Master thesis is to analyse how an ideological view may have influenced the shape of hierarchies with a specific concentration on the concept of fiction genre in the latest versions of the systems SAB and DDC. Our thesis is that no theoretical classification scheme can be recognized as objective. With an ideological/institutional perspective we look at the structures behind these systems.  As a vehicle we use the hermeneutic circle to show the play between – part and unit – by focusing and analysing three different levels: the content level – the concept level – the ideological level. The first level is in the shape of a historical background and an analysis of concept with focus on content. The second level is the concept level and Henriksens structural model is used as a point of departure for an investigation of which fiction genres has been implemented in respectively system and how these concepts are treated according to the models four planes. At the last level we try to uncover ideological structures in the systems. Finally we put the pieces together in a comparative study. To sum up we use four different methods that is, analysis of concept, Henriksens structural model, hermeneutic and a comparative study each in combination with at least one of the three levels. The results of the empirical study are to some degree visualised with diagrams or other illustrations and the outcome of the comparative analysis are as far as possible in form of tables and other alternatives. From these results conclusions have been drawn of which a few will be outlined here. At the concept level one of the conclusions is that genres in SAB are divided according to extent while genres in DDC are divided after type of principle of division. At the content level the conclusion shows that the concept of genre is no element you can neglect because of the many meanings that different disciplines put into the word from pure form aspects to demands of power. The ideological level involves the three forms of nature that is epic, lyric and drama. The point is that these three forms of nature still are at the top of the genre hierarchy when it comes to fiction in both the systems. A view that indicates the roots back to ancient Greece and a patriarchal view in combination with an idealistic way of looking at the world.
*Nr 42 Elisabeth Hedström: Att katalogisera kyrkomusik – En studie av Dübensamlingen och Statens musikbibliotek (Cataloguing Church Music – A study of The Düben Collection (Dübensamlingen) and The Music Library of Sweden (Statens musikbibliotek)
The aim of this study is to investigate how bibliographic description of music materials has improved through history. The historical aspect is given by a study of bibliographic data in different catalogues of a specific collection. The aim is also to understand what specific problems will arise in the work of cataloguing music materials and how the problems are discussed in the literature. The study is focusing of church music material and the history of churchmusic is therefore given an exposition. The origin of musical notation, which took place within the church, is also discussed. The empirical study is performed in two specific collections, mainly in The Düben Collection at the University of Uppsala but also at The Music Library in Stockholm. The catalogues in each collection are studied. In the discussion a comparison is given by the empirical material and the questions of this study. The empirical material should be seen as good examples rather than general conclusions. Churchmusic and musical notation has jointly improved over the years, which is seen in the improvement of music material. The art of cataloguing is influenced by the change of its material. By examining the two collections we can see how the bibliographic data has changed depending of the aim of the catalogues. Examples from the collections show how the problems with cataloguing music material are solved in each collection.
*Nr 43 Maija Rantanen: Folkbiblioteket och postmoderniteten – en hermeneutisk studie av debatten om folkbiblioteket i DIK Forum 1998-2002 (The public library and postmodernity: a hermeneutic study of the public library debate in DIK Forum 1998-2002)
The main issue of this master is to investigate what influence the phenomenon of postmodernity has on the Swedish public library. Is it possible to talk about the Swedish public library as postmodern, and if so, is it expressed by a postmodern discourse? The concept of postmodernity is defined as an open and inclusive value system where all kind of opinions and preferences take place. According to a postmodern point of view there is no such thing as an objective or general truth. A postmodern ideology does not talk about reality but about realities. Everything humans are able to perceive is considered subjective and contextual. Relativity is the main and fundamental characteristic of postmodernity. The author has studied how the debate about the contemporary public library takes place in DIK Forum, one of the branch papers in the field of library- and information science. The text analysis is done with help of posing three questions: 1) How does one look at the public library as a social institution? 2) How does one look at the target groups that the public library is supposed to serve? 3) How does one look at the financing of the public library? The methodology used is hermeneutic. The author finds that the public library discourse in the debate in DIK Forum is characterised mainly by modem features. Though threatened by postmodern influences, the modernistic belief in progression, that society is moving forward in a more or less imperative way, is still very vivid.
*Nr 44 Jessica Sjögren: Partiernas kultur- och bibliotekspolitik på nationell och lokal nivå (Cultural policy and library policy of the parties on a national and a local level)
The aim of this master thesis is to study Swedish cultural policy and library policy of the political parties on a national and a local level. To fulfil this purpose I have through document analysis and qualitative interviews obtained information about the parties’ views on cultural policy and library policy on a national and a local level. The thesis contains the answer to three questions: Firstly, what are the differences between the parties’ cultural policy focusing on public library, on the national level? Secondly, what are the differences between the parties’ cultural policy focusing on public library, on the local level? Lastly, what model of cultural policy focusing on public library is expressed by the different parties? The materials consist partly of literature explaining cultural policy and partly of literature on public library in connection with the concepts of democracy, integration and education. The material of the surveys consists of policy documents and interviews with six members of the Board of Culture in Uppsala, one from each of the political parties. The results of the first survey show that there are few differences between the parties cultural and library policy on a local level. The results of the second survey show that the politicians experienced a consensus of opinion but also that their cultural and library policy show differences in many respects.
*Nr 45 Stefan Carlsson: Healing, häxor och helhetstänkande. En studie av new age- litteraturens tillgänglighet på folkbibliotek (Healing, witches and holistic thinking. A study of the availability of new age literature in public libraries)
The purpose of this master’s thesis is to find out if public libraries provide new age materials or not. My research is done using the point of view of the library users. Do they think libraries hold a sufficient amount of new age literature and do the users find this literature of good quality? To find an answer to this question, interviews have been made with a number of library users interested in new age related issues. Interviews have also been made with librarians, to get their point of view on this rather controversial subject. The theoretical part of this master’s thesis consists of literature concerning quality, the tasks of public libraries when it comes to buying materials on demand, and the new age movement and its supporters. The results show that new age supporters in this study are mainly quite satisfied with the new age literature which is provided by the public libraries in a city in Sweden, where this study has been made. Although librarians in some ways are hesitant to buy new age literature, the supply of this kind of books has largely increased in the last few years.
*Nr 46 Anneli Andersson, Annika Nilsson: Bilden av folkbibliotek – i lokalpressen och hos allmänheten (The Image of the Public Library – in the Local Press and in the Eyes of the Public)
In this Master’s thesis the image of the public library in the local press and in the eyes of the public is examined. The questions posed to examine this are: - What activities of the public library are described in the local press? - What activities does the public associate with the public library? - What functions and roles of the public library can be found in the articles and interviews and how are they expressed? - What opinions of the public library and hereto related activities can be found in the articles and interviews? This study is based on an analysis of 127 articles, published in Borås Tidning during a period of six months, and of interviews with 35 people from Sjuhäradsbygden. To analyse the articles and the interviews Marianne Andersson and Dorte Skot-Hansen´s model of roles for the library has been used. The model includes four roles for the library: the library as a cultural centre, a knowledge centre, an information centre and a social centre. The library also has a democratic role. These five roles all emerge both in the articles and in the interviews through the activities being described. Not many of the interviewees explicitly express the ideological value of the library, nonetheless they are convinced that the library fill an important function in society. To develop this view of the library we find it important that the libraries to a greater extent than at present inform people about their activities and relevance.
*Nr 47 Zara Bärebring: Identitet och påverkan: om unga kvinnor och skönlitteratur (Identity and influence: about young women and fiction)
The purpose of this Master's Thesis is to explore the influence of fiction on the identity and self-esteem of young women. The purpose is also to investigate if there are any books that they consider to be of importance for their identity. Furthermore, I investigate what appeals to young women generally in fiction and if it is difficult for them to find books that appeal to them. The primary question posed in this thesis is: How does fiction influence the identity development of young women? The data collection is based on literature on the subject and on interviews with eight young women between 15 and 20 years old. The theoretical framework focuses on how it is to be young in modem society, the influences of fiction and reader response criticism. In the analysis I relate the results of the study to the theoretical work of Louise M Rosenblatt, Catherine Sheldrick Ross and Thomas Ziehe. My study reveals that all the interviewed women do have books that are important to them. Many of them also consider these books to have made a significant and positive difference to their self- esteem. I have come to the conclusion that reading fiction influences the identity of young women. Reading fiction can help young women examine critical issues they often face. Fiction is particularly appreciated by the young women when they can identify with the main characters, with situations and feelings expressed through the literature.
*Nr 48 Liselotte Eriksson: Skönlitteratur for slukaråldern – Ur ett vuxenperspektiv: Några barnbibliotekariers och grundskolelärares syn på barnlitteratur. (Fiction for book devouring children – From an adult perspective: A few children’s librarians and intermediate level teachers’ perception of children's literature.)
The aim of this master's thesis is to investigate how adults and especially children's librarians and intermediate level teachers experience children's literature. The aim is also to examine how children at the age of nine to twelve experience the literature that is written for them, according to a few master's theses written at Bibliotekshögskolan in Boras. Which criteria in children's books do the different groups consider as the most important, that the children can learn something when reading or is it the experience of the literature itself that is the most important? To fulfil the aim of this master's thesis I have interviewed three intermediate level teachers and three children's librarians and the result has been analysed using a model created by Maria Nikolajeva that shows four ways to get close to children's literature. My study is too small to be counted as a general result but it shows that both the children's librarians and the intermediate level teachers mainly ends up in the field that concerns the reading experience one can have when reading fiction. Only one children's librarian and one intermediate level teacher instead end up in the field that concerns the literary aspects such as descriptions of characters or environment and how they affect the reading experience. The result also shows that the children in the studied thesis and the persons I have interviewed have rather similar thoughts about children's literature. A big difference though is the aspect of learning, most of the children found this aspect important, while most of the adults saw it as a side effect.
*Nr 49 Åsa Molin, Lovisa Zander: Patienten och sjukhusbiblioteket. En diskursanalys av uppfattningar om sjukhusbibliotek och deras betydelser för patienten i tre svenska bibliotekstidskrifter (The patient and the hospital library. A discourse analysis of the opinions about hospital libraries and their importance for the patient in three Swedish library journals)
The aim of this Master’s thesis is to study opinions about the Swedish hospital libraries and their activities for the patients, in a selection of Swedish library journal articles. The theoretical starting point is grounded in Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory. The empirical material consists of 43 articles from three library journals; Biblioteksbladet, Blänkaren and DIK-forum, published between 1990 and 2004. These are analysed through a reading scheme in four levels. In the empirical material two themes appear; the culture theme and the patient information theme. Opinions about the patients’ need of culture and of patient information and the role of the library and the librarian in relation to the themes emerge. There is a difference between how the themes are described in relation to the marketing of the library and the patients’ needs. The discourses identified are the culture discourse, the user discourse and the profession discourse. The culture discourse focuses on culture and how it may better conditions for the patients. The conservative approach within this discourse complicates the development of hospital library activities. The user discourse is characterised by its focus on the patients and their rights. Within this discourse there is a will to develop the hospital library according to the patients’ needs. The profession discourse has a library-centred approach where the competence of the librarian is of great importance. The main concern is information and information techniques, and culture is seen as a less powerful argument for the existence of the library.
*Nr 50 Gunilla Bourdette: Bilden av bilden – bildbeskrivning i ABM-samarbetet PictureAustralia, en fallstudie. (Images of pictures – descriptive practice in a collaborative ALM-Service PictureAustralia, a case-study)
This thesis aims at exploring a national collaborative gateway-service, PictureAustralia, hosted at the National Library of Australia. This will be done by means of investigating some underlying principles for descriptive standards and conventions as of the library discourse which is the objective of bibliographic control and access. The reason to do this is to bring some main features of these principles into the context of a cross-institutional cooperation between libraries, galleries/museums and archives in a picture database service. The attention will lay on the objectives of what functions the system is designed to perform to give access, as defined by Elaine Svenonius in the Intellectual Foundations of Information Organization (2000), and how these objectives will affect this particular database-service collocating performance, which is a system- and logical approach. Though, this study will be done in an explorative and qualitative way, by a case-study, which is to examine some sample metadata records emanated from different institutions in this project. These records will be chosen on the grounds of similarities in format and motif and institutional origin of the pictures that are described, for the purpose of discussing noticeable differences with regard to the mapped data from different professional domains to a common metadata format, Dublin Core, in this cross-domain service, PictureAustralia. This comparative approach will be done with regard to the common understanding of the entries, title, author/creator and subject as of the bibliographic discourse.
*Nr 51 Johan Fransson, Anders Hansson: Primär eller sekundär söktjänst? En effektivitetsstudie av söktjänsten Google och metasöktjänsten Dogpile (Primary or secondary search engine? A study of the retrieval performance of the search engine Google and the metasearch engine Dogpile)
This thesis examines the retrieval effectiveness of two Web search engines. The two search engines are chosen to represent two different types – Google as a broad general search engine and Dogpile as a broad general metasearcher. Twenty queries have been used and the first twenty hits for each query were evaluated for relevance. The queries were invented by the authors, based upon their interests and information needs. They were expressed in a general manner, by using one or several keywords, in accordance with the simple search mode available for each search engine. The measure used is precision, and two different methods of measuring precision are used to give credit to those search engines that present relevant hits early in their ranked lists. Due to the subjective character of the concept of relevance and in order to avoid bias in the study, our criteria for evaluating the retrieved documents were designed to be as thorough and detailed as possible. A binary relevance scale was used where relevant documents and mirror links were assigned the value 1 and irrelevant documents, dead links, and duplicate links were assigned the value 0. The results show that Google is the best performing search engine of these two. Although Google is the overall winner, the differences between the two are minimal and both Google and Dogpile are highly effective search engines, when using one or more keywords to express your information need in the simple search mode, i.e. default setting.
*Nr 52 Jessica Iseborn, Sofia Swartz: Studenters användning av akademiska tidskrifter: en källanalys av B&I-studenters magisteruppsatser 1999-2001 (Students’ use of academic journals: a bibliometric study of the citations given in LIS students master theses 1999-2001)
Previous research indicates that the academic journal in many cases is the most valuable and important source of information in scientific work. The aim of this study is to investigate students’ usage of academic journals in comparison to their usage of other document types, as illustrated by the citations given in LIS students master theses 1999-2001. By comparing the students’ use of LIS journals with the use of LIS journals by international scholars we also wish to examine whether students and scholars use the same journals in their work. The international scholars are represented by references given in LIS journals 1999-2001, recorded by the citation index Journal Citation Reports. Questions: 1.        How are the citations to academic journals distributed in master student's theses in comparison to the distribution of citations to other document types? 2.        To what extent have the students cited academic journals within their own discipline? 3.        What are the relations between the students’ usage of academic LIS journals on a master level, and the scholars’ usage of academic journals? The citation analysis shows a restrictive use of academic journals in the students’ theses. The claimed importance of academic journals in scientific work is therefore not reflected by the citations given by the students. The majority of the cited academic journals were LIS journals. The journal title comparison with the scholars’ usage of academic LIS journals show a moderate overlap of journals used.
*Nr 53 Malin Gumælius: Vad innebär digitalisering av kulturarvet? En ideologianalys av tre svenska digitaliseringsprojekt (Is digitizing our cultural heritage a matter of preservation, giving access, or both? An ideological analysis of three Swedish digitization projects)
This Master’s Degree thesis aims at giving an answer to what underlying ideologies are at work in digitizing our cultural heritage. Other questions to be answered are who are benefiting from a digitized cultural heritage and who are not, and what different opinions about digitizing our cultural heritage can be identified. Two studies are made in this thesis, one of Swedish political documents that concern digitizing our cultural heritage, libraries, museums and archives, and the other one is a study of documentation of three Swedish digitizing projects. In the first study three different, but closely associated ideologies are identified, namely a) preserving, b) giving access and c) a mixture of both, and these are shown in a model. In the second study this model is then used to identify the ideologies of one project from each sector of the so called ABM-sector (Archives, Libraries and Museums). All examples of our cultural heritage being digitized as pictures. The method used is making digital pictures or photos of a document, no matter what it consists of. In the analyzed projects these may be a book, photos or handwritten documents. Both studies are made by using a text analysis. The following groups are identified as being concerned with the digitization of our cultural heritage, namely the General Public, Authorities and Institutions, Education and Research, the institution itself (the one that holds the project), the staff of the institution and finally commercial actors. Six consequences, meaning generally applicable, from digitizing our cultural heritage are identified as applying to the different interest groups either as an advantage or a disadvantage. This thesis also contains an overview of former research made on digitizing, which shows that opinions in the field differ.
*Nr 54 Maria Björklund, Lisa Roos: Folkbibliotekarier och nya medier: en diskursanalys av folkbibliotekariers inställning till nya medier (Librarians and new media: a discourse analysis of librarians’ attitudes towards new media)
The aim of this Master’s thesis is to examine librarians’ opinions about media. Four questions are asked: What kind of different attitudes to new media has librarians had? How is new media discussed in relationship to each other in the debate? What mechanisms and underlying causes control the discourse for new media in public libraries? Does the discourse change over time, in that case, how? The theoretical background is theory about moral- and media panic and popular adult education. The media panic theory includes the idea that the same reaction occurs every time a new media is introduced. The theory about popular adult education is that the public need to be cultivated. The public libraries in general were an attempt to cultivate the public.  The analysis is based on discourse analysis, which means that texts are analysed to find out whether there are valuating expressions in the texts, then these expressions are analysed. We have used Norman Faircloughs theories about discourse analysis for inspiration. We have selected and analysed articles from an internal library journal, Biblioteksbladet, to study the new media discourse among public librarians. The results show that there are mechanisms that affects and in some ways controls librarians’ opinions about media. We have been able to see that the librarians in many ways react like in the description of the media panic cycle. The expressions, the protection of the youth and the sensitivity argumentation are the same among librarians when they express their opinions about media. One of the most important ideological mechanisms that affect the librarians is the general education discourse, with its purpose to educate and foster the general public.
*Nr 55 Cecilia Backlund: Att klassificera arkeologi: En komparativ studie av tre klassifikationssystem (To classify archaeology: A comparative study of three classification systems)
The purpose of this Master’s thesis is to compare classification codes and feature headings of three different universal classification schemes (SAB, UDC and DDC), when classifying archaeological literature. The aim is to determine whether a subject analysis of a title generates similar feature headings in the three systems, and to find positive and negative things about each system from an archaeological point of view. The comparison and the analysis of the 22 chosen archaeological monographs showed that the subject analysis of the titles didn’t always generate similar feature headings. This could depend on several things, for example different interpretations of the subject analysis of a document, less knowledge about the system and/or the subject, or the fact that it’s not the same classifier that creates the codes. The study also showed that the different classification systems did treat the subject archaeology a bit differently, and that it’s difficult to say that one of them is better for classifying archaeological literature. They have all their advantages. My conclusion is that there has to be differences between the feature headings when comparing the systems, primarily because of the structure of the systems and their way to treat archaeology as a subject. It’s more important to note that there are divergences between the classification codes within a system.
*Nr 56 Sara Eriksson, Ellinor Säfström: Upphovsrätt i förändring? En undersökning av några upphovsrättsorganisationers remissvar på Ds 2003:35 (Copyright in change? An examination of copyright organisations referral statements to Ds 2003:35)
In the year 2003 the Swedish ministry of Justice drew up a communication about the incorporation of the European Union’s directive about harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the Information Society, 2001/29/EG. The communication’s name is Ds 2003:35. This study examines the arguments in the communications from some of the copyright organisations in Sweden. For this study we have used five referral statements from organisations who represents different types of originators. We have studied their arguments and how well they argue for their theses. The copyright organisations argue for stricter copyright laws and the purpose of this study is to examine why they recommend this. We have looked into the parts of the communication that will have an impact on the situation of the public libraries. The study contains a review of the treaties and conventions that lead up to the drawing up of the proposal. We also present a review of the Swedish copyright laws, the history, the changes and what its purpose is. We also introduce the communication Ds 2003:35 with particular emphasis on the articles that we examine in our analyses. We present how the articles are designed today and what the proposed changes are. We found that the organisations’ arguments are almost exclusively of economic character. The organisations ask for stricter copyright laws in order to make higher profit. The originators’ non-profit rights are not being considered at all in the communications.
*Nr 57 Cecilia Stiernstedt, Johanna Wassholm: Könsmärkning och statusrelevans i folkbiblioteksvärlden (Sex marking and the relevance of status within the public library profession)
The main purpose of this Master’s thesis is to examine gender division in public libraries by reviewing literature and interviewing eight public librarians and two chief librarians. The reason why we decided to investigate this topic is the lack of research concerning sex-segregation in library and information science. By choosing this subject we intend to deepen the understanding of the significance of gender both within the public library and of the occupation in general. Some researchers claim that the low status of librarianship is a result of the large proportion of women in the profession. We want to find out how our informants view the relation between professional status and female domination. The theories we use are based on two concepts: glass escalator and sex marking. The study reveals that both women and men want to see more men entering the library profession because of their will to equalize the sex-structure of the workplace. Therefore, male librarians can have advantages in the recruitment process. Our informants also express the idea that more men in librarianship will raise salaries and status. However, some maintain that this is not the right method. Within the library profession high status is often related to technology and particularly IT and it is also assumed that these are male domains. At the same time, the librarians accord status various meanings. One of our conclusions is that the concept of status does not have one singular definition, neither within library and information science nor in everyday speech.
*Nr 58 Eva Fälth: Dagsländor eller bestående värden? En studie om urval av musikfonogram på folkbibliotek. (Top hits or lasting values? A study in selecting musical phonograms in public libraries.)
This paper discusses normativity in selecting musical phonograms in public libraries. The purpose is to gain an increased understanding of music activity in public libraries. To do this I have interviewed five music librarians about their visions, ideals and goals with their work. The questions discussed concern ambitions with the music activity and how to keep up to date with current record releases. For the theoretical frame I use two kinds of material. The first is a theoretical model by the library- and information scientist, Sanna Talja. The model includes three interpretative repertoires of the music library: the general education repertoire (an hierarchical point of view, including mostly classical music), the alternative repertoire and the demand repertoire. The second is two articles, which discuss the concept of musical canon: by the musicologist Marcia Citron and the historian William Weber. I use the concept canon as a tool for discussion and analysis, including all kinds of music. The result shows that the informants share some basic assumptions, above all the notion of a basic repertory and the importance of alternative music. The conclusion is that the concept canon works as an analytic tool for the retrospective part of selection. We might talk about a new form of canon. The concept of a basic repertory concur with the general education repertoire, but a change has taken place; instead of an narrow cultural norm, a wider definition of culture is used, including all musical genres.
*Nr 59 Lena Gillberg, Dagny Nordmark: Folkbiblioteket i vardagslivet. En studie av folkbibliotekets betydelse för människor i vardagen (Public Library in Everyday Life. A Study of the Importance of the Public Library for Individuals in their Everyday Life)
The aim of this Master’s thesis is to examine the importance of public libraries for individuals in their everyday life and to study the differences in views between the individuals. Questions posed in this study are: What do public libraries mean to individuals? Which differences between individuals’ views of the public library are to be found? What is the reason for differences to occur? The analysis is based upon qualitative interviews with six persons, four women and two men between 31 and 55 years of age. The theoretical starting points are Anderson and Skot-Hansen’s theory of four different roles of public libraries and Bourdieu’s theory of lifestyle. The study acts on a hermeneutic attitude. We have been able to illustrate how individuals see upon public libraries and its importance to them. We have also been able to perceive patterns, which show why some do not visit a public library. The opinions of the influence of the library are divided due to the informants’ economic capital (salary and occupation) and cultural capital (education and cultural interests) according to Bourdieu’s theory of lifestyle. Finally we have been able to illustrate that different ways of living the everyday life can have importance of how people regard the public library.
*Nr 60 Carin Norén: Myten om det mångkulturella samhället. En diskursanalys av mångfaldsrelaterade begrepp och etnicitet i svensk kulturpolitik (The Myth of the Multicultural Society. A Discourse analyse of concepts related to diversity and ethnicity in Swedish Cultural Policy. )
The purpose of this Master’s thesis is to examine the discourses of concepts related to diversity and ethnicity in Swedish cultural policy. It focuses on how the society is presented in different contexts and how people with a different ethnic origin than the majority, are represented in the cultural policy of the Swedish State. The study is restricted to concern immigrants. Six governmental cultural policy documents, reaching over a time period of eight years (1995-2003) are examined as follows: Which key terms are used in the presentations? Which contexts and discourses can be distinguished? Have the discourses changed over the time period examined, and if so, how? The theoretical starting point in the thesis is the discourse perspective of Laclau and Mouffe. By using some of their instruments to help construct discourses, I start off by interpreting the multicultural society as a myth. A conclusion made in this study is that the documents display problems with denominations of the society as well as the people in it. By giving these ambiguous concepts specific meaning in different discourses alternative interpretations are excluded, which in turn influences the way we think and act.
*Nr 61 Karin Saldert: Kvalitet, läsfrämjande och tillgänglighet: Kulturpolitiska värderingar och litteratur (Cultural Policy and Literature. Different Views on Value, Quality and Reader)
This study treats cultural policy, it´s view of the value of literature, and how this view varies within different fields of cultural policy. The aim of the essay is to find different competing approaches through an investigation of texts from three different fields within cultural policy. The fields investigated are: The publishing subsidy of the National Council for Cultural Affairs, which values above all quality literature. En bok för alla, concentrates on spreading quality literature to new groups in society. Centrum för lättläst, which values that the contents of a text are successfully delivered to, and understood by, the reader. These three fields are compared with each other in means of their views on literature and reader. The study is carried through in the form of a text analysis inspired by the discourse theory of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe. One conclusion drawn is that there are two domineering approaches to this matter which compete against each other. According to the first approach, literature has a value in itself. There is something that can be called quality literature, irrespective of whom be the reader. According to the second approach, the value is in the reader’s individual understanding of the literature. Either the book and its inherent quality are put in the first room, or the reader’s experiences attract the most interest. Other competing values can be said to be dependent on an overall political discourse, which values “democracy”, “social variety” and “freedom of speech”.
*Nr 62 Amira Sofie Sandin: Läslust – en brinnande känsla i magen. En studie av 9 - 12-åringars upplevelser och uppfattningar av läslust. (Pleasure reading – a burning sensation in the stomach. A study of 9 - 12 yearolds experiences and perceptions of pleasure reading.)
The aim of this Master’s thesis is to investigate the factors that contribute to children’s feelings of enjoyment and wellbeing while reading (pleasure reading). The research is founded on qualitative interviews with eight children aged between 9 and 12 years. In the review of the literature different theories of reading experiences are examined and the theory of flow is used to analyse and interpret children’s statements of reading experiences. The theory of flow has not been developed to investigate reading but aims to describe and explain when and how people experience happiness and joy. The results of this study reveal that many different factors influence children’s reading. Reading leading to experiences of happiness and wellbeing requires, among other things, exciting and interesting stories, the ability to enter into the story, understanding and opportunities to concentrate. The intention has also been to explore the children’s perception of the term pleasure reading (läslust) in order to investigate if the term’s adequacy in describing the kind of reading that leads to feelings of delight and wellbeing. The analyses show that pleasure reading can be seen either as a will or as a willingness to read. Willingness implies an acceptance of reading as something to do, until something more interesting comes along. The will to read implies, on the other hand, a child’s conscious longing and desire to read and can be directed towards a specific story or towards reading in general.
*Nr 63 Johan Andersson, Anna Malkki: Query expansion med WordNet (Query expansion using WordNet)
The purpose of this thesis has been to examine a number of queries expanded using the online lexical reference system WordNet. The topics used for query construction was taken from the TrecUta-    collection. The baseline query was expanded three times: baseline query with hyponyms, baseline query with hypernyms and baseline query with both hyponyms and hypernyms. After the expansions the precision, average precision and two kind of relative recall for the different strategies was measured and analysed, as well as the change in amount of new relevant retrieved documents when comparing the baselinequery with the expanded queries. The study showed that the expansion of queries using hyponyms and hypernyms taken from WordNet, didn’t improve the retrieval in any greater extent.
*Nr 64 Marja Janusson: Tjänstemäns informationssökning: en intervjuundersökning vid Regeringskansliet (Information seeking at the Government Offices)
This thesis examines information seeking and information needs at the Swedish Government Offices. The Government Offices comprise the Prime Minister’s Office, the Government Ministries and the Office for Administrative Affairs. Approximately 4 500 members of staff are employed, of whom around 120 are political appointees. For this study, interviews have been conducted with 15 senior officials and political appointees at the Government Ministries and the Prime Minister’s Office. The interviews have been supplemented with literature studies based on user studies research in library and information science. The aim has been to find out who or what the interviewees consult for information, but also to gain a deeper understanding of how the interviewees find and relate to information and information sources. The results show that information is actively sought and that a mixture of formal and informal information is used. Information sources need to be reliable and, because of time pressure, also need to be easy accessible. The interviewees favour the Internet for accessing information but, depending on the situation, verbal communication is also preferred in many cases. The interviewees in this study did in general not use the library. Reasons for this were mainly distant locations of the libraries and lack of awareness of its services.
*Nr 65 Pernilla Nordin, Annika Stattin: Informationstillgång, demokrati och förändrad upphovsrätt (Information access, democracy and changed copyright)
The rapid change within digital medias has increased the possibilities to make information accessible through network. Therefore the European Union (EU) considers a harmonization within the Union, in order to strengthen the rights of the originator. The purpose of this thesis is to evaluate how the EU’s directive (2001/29/EG) regarding copyright is to be implemented into Swedish legislation and assess the common opinion in the public libraries on this matter. The basic methodology of this thesis is a democratic perspective, concerning the public libraries’ democratic role and the right of the citizens to have access to information. The thesis first part is a study of documents. The second part is also an empirical assessment where qualitative interviews were carried out at five public libraries in Sweden. The originators have the exclusive right of reproduction to their work and the exclusive right to communicate their work to the public. In order for libraries to make information accessible there are a number of restrictions in the copyright legislation. The new legislative proposal will decrease these restrictions to some extent, and the libraries’ right to reproduce is going to increase. The proposal offers a new contractual license to reproduce and disseminate digital information. It involves new possibilities and simplifies the libraries’ work in order to make the information accessible. During the interviews a relatively limited knowledge regarding copyright legislation among the respondents emerged, but the general opinion was that the biggest problem with the new legislation was the control function it possibly would demand.
*Nr 66 Ann-Sofi Bjarne, Katarina Larson: Läsaren i den informella läsecirkeln (The Reader in the Informal Reading Group)
The purpose of this Master Thesis was to study the reader in the informal reading group. To fulfil our purpose we have used the following questions: how did the reader become a reader and what does her reading look like, why do people choose to participate in a reading group, how may the group influence the individual member in her reading and interpretation of a book, does the reading group have a therapeutic function, how does the informant find the group dynamics and different roles in the reading group, and finally how does the informant experience the discussion in the reading group. We have used two studies about reading groups, one by Elizabeth Long and one by Jenny Hartley. Our theory is divided into reading and group psychology. We have interviewed seven women belonging to different reading groups. The result showed that all informants had become a reader in much the same way, following the five stages shown in the theory of Appleyard. Today their reading is varied and important to them. Their reason to join the group stems from their interest in reading, the joy to share their reading-experiences and meeting their friends. The group inspire to new and more reading. The members’ different opinions are valued. None of our informants wants to ascribe a therapeutic function to their reading group, if anything they would rather call it a social support group. The informants have difficulties in pinning down different roles in the group. All informants agree that the dynamics are dependent on the number of members in the group, too many foil the discussion. Apart from that they find the discussion very stimulating, joyful, open-minded and enriching.
*Nr 67 Ann-Kristin Årman: Groddföretagens vägar till information. En studie hur Chalmers Tekniska Högskolas Bibliotek används som informationsresurs av tio groddföretag på Chalmers Innovation. (Small and Medium sized Enterprises and their way to information. A study how ten Small and Medium sized Enterprises at Chalmers Innovation use Library of Chalmers University as an information resource.)
The aim of this thesis is to investigate the information need of the incubators that comes from Chalmers University of Technology and are situated at Chalmers Innovation. It is also of interest to investigate how Chalmers University Library covers this information need. The investigation was carried out using qualitative interviews with representatives of the incubators. They were asked questions about the perceived need of information and which type of contacts they had with the library. The result is that the incubators feel that there is a great need for business information that is hard to find. Most companies try to fulfil this need by searching the Internet via ordinary search engines or searching in databases at the library. Since almost all of the investigated companies emanate from Chalmers University of Technology, they did not find it as a problem to keep them updated on technical issues. The majority of the companies used Internet and personal contacts to keep them updated on technical issues. For basic technical information, such as needed for entering a new field, they often used the University library. None of the investigated companies was aware of the possibility to give search questions to the library. They have not got any information of what services the library could provide. This is a question that I feel need to be addressed. It should be possible to improve the co-operation between the incubators and the library for the benefit of both parties.
*Nr 68 Yoshiko Akatsu: Det svenska vetenskapliga biblioteksväsendet under 1950-talet (The research library system in Sweden during the 1950’s)
After W.W. II the Social democratic government wanted to modernize and rationalize the Swedish society. The university system was reformed to support growth of industry and science. But the reform did not reach Swedish academic library system and it was not well organized. The aim of this thesis is to analyze the reaction of the Swedish academic libraries to the new era in the framework of ideological criticism. The problems I try to find answer to are as follows: What did the Swedish state demand of the libraries? How did the libraries try to respond to this, especially in the discussions about co-operation among the libraries and qualification for librarians? The state required that the libraries answer to the demands of the universities and research, but the authorities did not give so much grant as the libraries required. The state did not understand how the libraries worked, or what their problems were. The libraries tried to solve the problems through co-operation, building up a “union-library”. The growing interurban loan movement was a part of it, and coordinated book acquisition was the another. Relations between the different types of library were not free from problems, which also influenced the discussions. There were different ideas behind the “union-library” plan. Some wanted to unite and centralize the libraries in Sweden. Others thought the unified library was a sum of close co-operation among the individual libraries.
*Nr 69 Ingrid Loeld Rasch: Kampanjen Läsrörelsen. Tradition eller nytänkande? (The Reading Movement campaign. Tradition or fresh ideas?)
A reading campaign, Läsrörelsen (The Reading Movement) took place in Sweden 2000 until 2002. It was started by some adult educationists, and was supported by over 120 organizations. The aim of my study was to examine which messages the campaign wanted to mediate. As the campaign meant that reading was important for democracy, I wanted to study if there was any public debate about reading around 1900 when the democracy process had just started in Sweden. I have also studied if reading is regarded in the same way by the rulers of Sweden as it was by the campaign. I have used argumentation analysing and rhetoric analysing on two posters, one informative text and a book, all used by Läsrörelsen. The most interesting result is the similarities between the two turns of centuries. Reading is important for democracy, and it is of minor interest what one read than that one read. How to read is discussed in similar ways: reading shall be qualitative. One big difference is that the purpose of reading at 1900 was to learn how to think independently in order to become a responsible citizen. The campaign, as the rulers of Sweden at 2000, is more concerned about the Swedish language, which they mean create the necessary conditions for a democracy. To see what type of organization the campaign was, I have used Manuel Castells’ typology for social movements: identity, antagonist and purpose. I found that the campaign Läsrörelsen was part of a tradition.
*Nr 70 Joel Hedlund: Länkar till verklighet: En arkeologisk studie av ämnesstrukturen i Open Directory Project (Links to reality: An archeological study of the subject structure of Open Directory Project)
The thesis examines the view of reality as expressed in the subject structure of the web directory Open Directory Project. This is analyzed in comparison with library classification systems, regarded as products of the modern library movement. The question is raised whether the world view of the directory, in contrast to the modern classification systems, can be seen as an expression of postmodernity. Postmodernity is then understood as a radical critique of the modern belief in neutral science and technology as ways of objectively describing the universe of knowledge. The theoretical and methodological approach adopted is borrowed from a poststructuralist reading of Michel Foucault's archaeology and sociologically coloured classification research. The basic assumption is that reality is constructed by different conceptual categories that are negotiated in a social process, and that those categories can be studied in texts considered as archeological artefacts. The author argues that the directory can in part be understood as an expression of a postmodern epistemology, in that no natural order is expressed between subjects. On the other hand, the sheer attempt to arrange knowledge in a precoordinated order can be understood as an expression of modernity. Additionally, traces of both modernity and postmodernity can be found in the categories that are created in the catalogue, which leads to the conclusion that modernity and postmodernity cannot be understood as radically different epistemological configurations. The author ends by opening up for a discussion of the possibility of general classification in the context of postmodernity and argues that classificationists should take an active stance in making visible marginalized domains of knowledge.
*Nr 71 Åsa Andersson, Anna Carlsson: Användarundervisning på högskolebibliotek: en observationsstudie (User education at academic libraries: an observation study)
This Master’s thesis investigates user education at academic libraries. The increased demand on students to keep themselves updated in the information society of today urges libraries to develop their user education, concerning both content and teaching strategies. The aim of this study is to examine user education at academic libraries, and the approach of librarians in their teaching. The research questions address how librarians implement the user education and what they focus on. We also want to explore what differences and similarities there are between the user educations, and if anything could be further developed within them. The method used for the study is observation. Five different user educations are observed. We analyse the observations by using Kuhlthau’s and Bruce’s theories of the information seeking process and information literacy. The results of the study are presented in systematically grouped categories, which our observation scheme was built upon. The user educations focused on activities around information sources, and practical or technical issues. We found that the examined user educations were considerably alike. No particular emphasis on a specific part of the education was found, but the result indicates that there was an absence of focus on information use. The reason, for the lack of the information use approach in educations, may be because the time which the librarians have at their hands is limited. However, as a proposal, the educations must put a bigger emphasis on information use and the information seeking process, to better encourage student’s information literacy.
*Nr 72 Marianne Paakkonen, Linda Persson: Med Barnkonventionen i bagaget: En komparativ studie av irländska och svenska barnbibliotekariers synsätt. (With the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in mind: A comparative study of the perspectives of Irish and Swedish children's librarians.)
The aim of this Masters thesis is to examine how five childrens’ librarians in Ireland and five in Sweden interpret and implement the United Nation’s Convention on the Rights of the Child in public libraries. This study is hermeneutic. Using a qualitative method consisting of ten interviews with childrens’ librarians and structural factors such as; library policies and laws; together with an insight into Ireland’s political, social and economical history and the historical development of childrens’ public libraries in Sweden and Ireland, has enabled us to create an understanding for the interviewees’ statements. Anthony Giddens structuration theory has been used for the analysis, helping us to determine how the duality between the structure, the actors and their action effect the interpretation and implementation of the Convention in librarian work. The result of the analysis clearly shows that in comparison to Irish librarians, the Swedish interviewees are more aware and have a better understanding of the Convention and how to put it into practice. The Convention has played quite an important role both on a national and local level in Sweden. Education for Swedish librarians has also been available. In Ireland the Convention has recently been brought to attention on a national level. Although most of the Irish interviewees would not consider themselves working with the Convention, their work is often in line with the United Nation’s Convention on the Rights of the Child.
*Nr 73 AnnaCarin Elf, Nancy Petrén: "Kolla vad jag hittade!" Förskolebarns bilderbokssökning med samspel i fokus ("Look what I found!" Preschooler's Picture Book Seeking: an Interactional Approach)
The purpose of this study is to investigate how children search for and choose picture books while visiting the library together in a preschool group. How do children interact with each other and their teacher while searching for picture books? Which aspects of children's everyday lives are apparent in their choice of picture books? The theoretical frame of reference consists of Brenda Dervin's sense-making approach to information seeking and William Corsaro's sociological approach to studying children's routine activities within a peer culture. To capture children's interaction, we have observed a preschool group consisting of six 3- to 5-year olds and their teacher in a library setting during three visits. Our study shows that children's search for picture books is a social activity that involves various verbal and nonverbal strategies in order to include and exclude each other when they find a picture book that interests them. Children take turns shouting "Look what I found!"  while holding up a book they recognise, in order to capture their peer's attention. Children's book choice is dependent upon peer's response which can explain why they often choose books that they recognise from preschool and from the massmedia. When they can't find such books, they make sense of unknown books by modifying its characters to something familiar. An unknown picture book about a lion "becomes" The Lion King in the eyes of the children. When the children seek the teacher's approval, it appears that she judges their book choices from a read-aloud perspective that ignores the children's own interest and use of picture books. AnnaCarin Elf och Nancy Petrén vann Säffle biblioteks uppsatspristävling "Framtidsspanare sökes!" 2005.
*Nr 74 Anna Berggren, Åsa Elfving: Communication structure and information distribution in an Indian NGO-network – A case study of the YRSHR-network (Kommunikationsstruktur och informationsdistribution i ett indiskt NGO-nätverk – En fallstudie av YRSHR-nätverket)
The aim of this master’s thesis is to examine how communication structures within an inter-organisational network affect the network activities. Questions posed are: who communicates with whom; how does the communication structure affect information distribution; does the structure support the intended function of the network; are the participants satisfied with the information received; and how does the network structure affect the network sustainability. The theoretical starting point is the convergence model of communication applied in an analytic network context. Questionnaires were sent out to the network members and interviews were undertaken with some of the network participants. The Young peoples Reproductive Sexual Health and Rights (YRSHR) network was founded in 2000. MAMTA-Health Institute for Mother and Child took the initiative since there was a lack of organisations that targeted the group of adolescents. The network consists of approximately 90 NGO's located in five different Indian states. In each state there is a state facilitating agency, (SFA) that is responsible for co-ordinating the network activities. The SFAs are also responsible for information dissemination and collection of activity reports from the local organisations (LO) in the state. MAMTA acts as a co-ordinating agency for the entire network on a national level and functions as a gatekeeper between the different states. According to centrality analysis, MAMTA does not have control or influence over the communication in each state. We believe that it is important to have a continuous information exchange that is built upon the participation and mutual exchange by the network actors. The YRSHR-network is low in density and this may be an indication of the member’s low inclination to engage in network activities. Still, the members regarded the YRSHR-issues as important and the mutual exchange between members a priority. The communication structure is an effective way of disseminating information, but it does not support the members’ participation in the information exchange or the development of more complex network tasks. To assure the sustainability of the network, a feedback system where the members can document their experiences and knowledge would benefit the active participation in the information accumulation and thus help to sustain the network.
*Nr 75 Vibeke Scheel Melin: Biblioteket i Alexandria – historien om ett bibliotek (The Alexandrian Library – the story of a Library)
The purpose of this master thesis is to learn more about the ancient Alexandrian Library. The method used in this thesis is methodology of history, especially a critical attitude when it comes to evaluating the ancient texts. I put forward three questions to which I desire to find answers. First: What do the sources from Antiquity tell about the Alexandrian library? Second: How do modern writers of books on the subject use these sources? Thirdly: I look into the possible historical and cultural reasons that the first of the Ptolemaic kings could have had for establishing the Mouseion and the Library of Alexandria. Archaeologists in Alexandria have not been able to make many discoveries. Very little can be said conclusively about the buildings of this city in antiquity. The textual sources from antiquity analysed in this thesis are the ones used in all modern books on the subject. I conclude that there are difficulties and ambiguities concerning their use, but as there are very few sources, one cannot easily dismiss any of them. Most modern writers on this subject accept the sources uncritically. There were probably several reasons for establishing this Library. Besides the ones concerning economic resources and the need of an advanced society, the first Ptolemaic king also needed to create a cultural base for the Greeks in the new Hellenistic kingdom he was establishing in Egypt. The king could possibly have been influenced by Libraries of the Middle East or in Egypt as well as of Aristotle’s Library in the Lyceum.
*Nr 76 Daniel Sandbecker: Funktionella krav på metadata: En undersökning av Dublin Cores överensstämmelse med FRBR (Functional requirements for metadata: A review of Dublin Core's correspondence to FRBR)
The purpose of this master thesis is to examine how Dublin Core corresponds to the findings in the IFLA report Functional requirements for bibliographic records (FRBR), and what consequences this correspondence has on the usability of Dublin Core as a bibliographic standard. While the study describes the conceptual model of FRBR and the entities work, expression, manifestation and item, its main focus is the mapping of attributes and relationships to the user tasks defined, namely to find, identify, select and obtain entities. The study makes a comparison between data that FRBR rates as highly important for any user task, and the elements defined in DCMI Metadata Terms. The outcome of the comparison is then analyzed as to how it affects Dublin Core's possibilities to assist in the different user tasks, and common problems are discussed. The results show that problems in expressing attributes and relationships through Dublin Core elements concern all of the four user tasks. However, the problems seem less severe regarding the task of finding entities. Many problems are caused by the lack of direct matches between attributes and elements, and some seem to be due to Dublin Core's focus on electronic resources. By relating the results to other studies, and to a view of metadata as an intermediate level of description between professional cataloging and full text indexing, and by discussing the possibilities to extend Dublin Core, this study finds that deficient correspondence to FRBR is inevitable if the simplicity of Dublin Core is to be preserved.
*Nr 77 Nicklas Franke: Stöpt i kulspruteolja – en litteratursociologisk studie av den unglitterära tidskriften 40-tal och dess idéklimat. (Cast in the light of machine guns – a study of the idea-content of the literary magazine 40-tal.)
This master’s thesis is a study of the ideas brought forward in the literary magazine 40-tal. The methodology involves the adaptation of a literary sociological perspective where the ideas of the young literary avantgarde in the magazine 40-tal interplays with the established philosophy of the Swedish society during the period 1944-47. The main purpose has been to examine 40-tal as a product of supreme individuality that originates a unique climate of ideas which exceeds the involved collaborators individual writings. I have thereby related my analysis to the Marxist oriented theories of Raymond Williams. This has been done in order to see how the external pressure of the social structure and the market acts together with the internal pressure of keeping up with the times and how this affects the individual authors and the process of creating. I have then selected to scan the primary content of the ideas depicted in 40-tal by looking further into the notions of pessimism and the difficulty of access in its artistic expression.  In doing so I have found that this literary magazine in itself directs a literary attitude that involves a collective and highly critical outlook on the solutions and promises given by all ideological systems. The pessimistic idea in 40-tal then accordingly puts the emphasis on the importance of self-examination. This includes taking a firm stand for what you personally believe in but at the same time realising the meaningless implications of this act. Placing this attitude alongside the use of an aestheticism characterised by its difficulty of access, as a linguistic specification of the young literary climate in 40-tal, leads to a certain struggle for ideological independence. The idea-content of 40-tal is then seen as an explicit expression of a reorganisation of a new social conscience. Strategic purposes are obtained by a collective awareness in the removal of the old way of thinking in terms of personal and artistic freedom within the context of the Swedish society. The relations that are established in 40-tal by the young literary climate facilitates new ideas to emerge.  But these ideas are first and foremost made possible, evolved and given its impact by the position founded by 40-tal as a supreme individual product in the literary public eye.
*Nr 78 Annette Carlsson, Sofia Nordell: Bibliotekarie på 2000-talet. En studie av bibliotekariens förändrade yrkesroll och professionalism. (Librarians in the 21st century. A study of the Changed Competence and Professional Role of Librarians)
The aim of this Master’s thesis is to examine the role of librarian in order to illustrate how the librarians work, how their competence and education have changed and developed during the last decade, and ultimately to see what the role of librarian looks like in the 21st century. After describing the librarians’ work, competence and education in the 21st century, we discuss whether or not the changes that have arisen during the last decennium have affected the possibilities for librarianship to develop into an accepted profession. The method of investigation is a qualitative analysis of printed sources. As a basis of the discussion and analysis Andrew Abbott’s theory of professions is used. We also use Per Tengblad’s analysis model, which includes six important steps in analysing the professionalism of an occupation. The thesis shows that the librarian’s role has developed in many ways. It is urgent to market the librarian’s new occupational role, so that politicians, the labour market, and visitors at the libraries become aware of the competence of a modern librarian. A big difference in the librarianship of today is that the importance of the librarian’s role as educator and information specialist has increased. Librarianship of today is on its way from a semi-professional to a professional occupation. The result of this thesis indicates that we are not there yet. The potential of further development towards becoming a profession has increased as a result of the information society, the librarians’ expanded competence and the new academic training in LIS.
*Nr 79 Karin Brunnegård, Carina Böhlmark: Skolbibliotekariers yrkesidentiteter: En diskursanalys (The professional identities of school librarians: A discourse analysis)
The aim of this Master’s thesis is to identify discourses within the school library field and to analyse which professional identities the discourses result in for school librarians. The empirical data consist of 71 articles from Swedish journals concerning school libraries and school librarians, between the years 2000-2003. The theory and method used is a discourse analysis which is inspired by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe. This form of discourse analysis was chosen since it was useful when identity was the focus of study. The analysis is accomplished in three steps. The first step is about concepts of subject positions, while the second step deals with whether the subject positions are related to elements, either positive or negative. In the last step the discourses, found through a close reading of the empirical data, are presented. The identified discourses were; discourse of profession, information literacy discourse and a school library discourse. These three discourses result in three different professional identities for school librarians. The discourse of profession leads to an identity as a professional group with specialist skills, while the information literacy discourse results in an identity as an educationalist, finally the school library discourse leads to an identity as a traditional librarian to whom books are the main focus.
*Nr 80 Ann-Kristin Olsson Flodin: Biblioteket som en språkplanerande institution: En studie av språkplanering på färöiska bibliotek. (The library as a language planning institution: A study of language planning in Faeroese libraries.)
This thesis is about language planning in Faeroese libraries as seen from the country’s specific situation, with Faeroese as a mothers tongue, but with great dominance of the Danish language within media. The purpose of my thesis is to examine language planning activities within the library, and the consequences this planning has for the system. Different theories about language planning provides a framework for my model of the library as a linguistic eco-system with actors performing status planning, represented by the government with its influence in cultural politics, the librarian with his or her library tasks and the user with his or her needs. The thesis has a qualitative attempt, and the empirical material consists of different documents about the country and materials from interviews made with seven qualified librarians, employed within general libraries in the Faeroe Islands. The analysis shows that the librarian in different ways promotes the Faeroese language within library activities, and because of the attention paid to the user in the public library he/she influences the librarians planning. It also shows that the language planning, described as politics of library and literature, do not correspond to the user’s need expressed through the librarian. Except for small children’s literature, there is a lack of translated literature especially for older children. The librarian also expresses that the library, from the government’s point of view, is not regarded as a valuable institution. This results in that the library with its librarian is not regarded as, and therefore not used as, a language planning institution.
*Nr 81 Eva Akenine, Nadine Alvarado: ”Jag försöker vara i alla hyllor”: Fokusgruppsintervjuer på en webbchatt om bibliotekariers roller (Librarians chat about their professional roles)
In this thesis, we are concerned with the many different pro­fessional roles that a public librarian, working at a small library, has. More specifically, the purpose is to find out which different roles that librarians believe they have, and which view they have upon those. Furthermore, we are exploring the tendencies that librarians discuss in relation to these professional roles. To pursue this goal, we have used the methodology of focus group interviews, with the unconventional twist that our interviews were done using web chats. This may have the advantage that the informants may present more honest views than when using ordinary interviews due to the anonymous character of chatting. After coding and categorizing the obtained material, the following conclusions could be drawn. The contemporary librarian has many different roles in their profession: reference work  and collection development, knowledge organizing, providing culture, student and user counseling, outreaching to groups with special needs, public relations and organizing and disseminating elec­tronic and other information. Some of these roles are quite new, and some of the older ones are disappearing. For example, the in­formation specialist and the counselor are roles that the librarians are using more extensively. In contrast, the knowledge organizer role is often put aside. Unfortunately, many of our informants could not believe in the tools of IT as something that could en­hance and enrich their work and their services. More education, both in terms of IT and pedagogic knowledge is needed in order to provide the libraries’ users with good service.
*Nr 82 Sofia Lundmark: Automatisk query expansion: en komparativ studie av olika strategier för termklustring baserade på lokal analys (Automatic query expansion: a comparative study of different strategies for clustering of terms based on local analysis)
Automatic query expansion has long been studied in information retrieval research as a technique that deals with the fundamental issue of word mismatch between query and document. The purpose of this thesis is to compare the retrieval effectiveness of different strategies for automatic query expansion. The strategies are based on local analysis of the corpus and use statistical information from the local document set to extract terms that suppose to adapt themselves to each individual search and therefore appear to be searchonyms to the index terms. The strategies compared are: association clusters, metric cluster and scalar cluster. Baseline queries of 24 topics are expanded using terms from the different clusters and searches are made. The study also explores the retrieval effectiveness of an expanded query when using terms derived from the result of a truncation algorithm. The searches were performed in the InQuery IR-system together with the web-based tool QPA and the Swedish database GP_HDINF. The retrieval effectiveness of baseline and the expanded queries are evaluated using relative recall and average precision. The study shows that all of the strategies manage to increase both recall and precision compared with the initial baseline search. No significant differences between the strategies were found.
*Nr 83 Carina Lindén: Snurrar läshjulet när Boksnurran stannar? En studie i hur man kan arbeta med högläsning och böcker i förskolan (Is the Reading Circle spinning when the Book Wheel stops? A study of how preschools can work with reading aloud and books)
The aim of this thesis is to describe how to work with the development of language by reading aloud. I have chosen to look at the reading aloud project "Boksnurran" (Book Wheel) to see if it has influenced the daily work with reading in preschool. My questions are: How do they work with reading in preschool? Is the reading environment suitable? How do the staff describe their booktalks? What problems do they encounter? What can be improved? The thesis is based on qualitative interviews. Those interviewed have participated in "Book Wheel". My theoretical reference has been Vygotsky's "Thoughts of Thinking and Language", which is the basis of the Pre-school Curruculum. My analysis model has been Chambers' "Reading Circle". The respondents borrow many different books although they limit their choices. The children do not participate. Reading aloud occurs as a daily activity in some preschools, once a week in others and not at all in one. The spontaneous reading aloud is a daily occurence, but the respondents cannot guarantee that all the children listen to the books. My study shows that the respondents are conscious about the reading environment and how the books are placed. Vygotsky emphasizes that the child should be given the oppertunity to explain and express his impressions and thoughts. Booktalk is an activity where the latter can be stimulated and my respondents primarily use the pictures in these discussions. However, planned booktalks seem to be difficult to initiate.
*Nr 84 Sofia Höglund: Query expansion med semantiskt relaterade termer (Query expansion with semantically related words)
The aim of this master’s thesis is to examine query expansion. Query expansion is the process of adding new terms to a query to improve the retrieval effectiveness. In this study the baseline query was expanded in five different modes. The first expansion strategy was formulated by the inflected terms (as the system does not allow truncation, I have inflected the terms, e. g. airplane, airplanes, the airplanes, etc.) in the baseline strategy. The second expansion strategy consisted of synonyms from a dictionary of synonyms. For the terms in the remaining three expansion strategies a general thesaurus was used which contained hierarchical and associative term relationships in order to find broader, narrower and related expansion terms. Relative recall and average precision was measured. The average results show that the expansion with inflected terms from the baseline query gave the most effective retrieval, both concerning increase in relative recall and average precision.
*Nr 85 Ann Wäster: Studenters användande och upplevelse av informationsdiskens tjänster. En användarundersökning vid ett universitetsbibliotek (The students’ usage and experiences of the reference services. A user-survey at an academic library)
The aim of this master thesis is to study the students’ usage and experiences of the reference services at the university library at Linköping University. The four questions that I seek answers to are: - What kind of help do the students most often ask for at the reference desk? - To what extent do the students use the reference services for their studies? - What are the students’ experiences of the help they receive at the reference desk? - What are the students’ experiences of the treatment they receive from the librarians at the reference desk? I have studied literature that describes reference work and evaluation of reference work. I have also studied Christian Grönroos’ theory of service quality. I have distributed questionnaires to students at Linköping University. 198 students from the three faculties, Filosofiska fakulteten, Tekniska Högskolan and Hälsouniversitetet have participated in this study. The study shows that the students at Hälsouniversitetet use the reference desk more often than the students at the other faculties. It also shows that what the students ask for the most is help to search information about a subject. Many of the students also ask for help to find the way in the library. The students at Hälsouniversitetet ask for help to learn how to search the different databases that are available in the library. More than 80% of the students say that they are always satisfied or often satisfied with the help and the treatment they receive at the reference desk.
*Nr 86 Johanna Hansson, Julia Heedman: Privatisering av folkbibliotek – skildrat i politiska dokument under 1990-talet (Privatisation of public libraries – as portrayed in political documents during the 1990’s)
This master’s thesis is a study of official political documents in order to discuss privatisation and the Swedish public libraries. In the 1990’s public libraries became placed on contractors, and that was said to be one form of privatisation. The main issue for this study concerns driving forces and obstacles for privatisation of public libraries.  Another issue concerns advantages and risks. We will also discuss how the future of public libraries will be in this context. The method for this study is document analyses and only political documents are used. The theoretical frame is based on the perception that culture has two different values – one democratic and one economic. One driving force that leads to privatisation is the re-organisation of the municipal activity that occurred due to their increased self-government in the early 90’s. As an economic driving force competition can be seen as the premier one. Obstacles contain mainly of laws, but the goals of cultural policy can also be seen as an obstacle. Advantages with privatisation can be increased efficiency, increased creativity and reduced costs, and risks can be that the cultural policy reduces its influence and that the public library activity becomes undermined. There can also be juridical risks concerning employees and insight in the activity. One conclusion is that public libraries placed on contractors are a possible development for the future but that there are laws that will prevent privatisation of the public libraries.
*Nr 87 Anne Myllylä, Ragnhild Näslund: Barnbibliotekariers förmedlingsarbete med lättläst barnlitteratur (Librarians’ work supplying children´s easy reader literature)
The purpose for this Master’s thesis is to describe children’s’ librarians’ work in supplying literature to children with emphasis on easy-reader materials. Our main questions are: ·   What do librarians believe characterizes an easy-reader book, and what do they base their decision on when classifying a book as easy-to-read? ·   How have the libraries in our study solved the hands-on difficulties associated with easy readers children’s’ literature? ·   Which factors do librarians consider to be important when supplying literature to children that are not used to reading or are not good readers? The theories we have used are Aidan Chambers’ Reading Circle and Karner Smidt’s view on the librarian’s professional roles when supplying literature. We have used a case study method, which means that we have gathered information through observation, objective papers and interviews. This has been done at six libraries. Our results show that individual advice and time are key factors when supplying literature to children that are not used to reading or are not good readers. Librarians, in their professional role, need to act as both educators and literature authorities. They must also learn about the child’s interests and previous reading experiences in order to be able to recommend suitable types of reading materials. The librarian can, in her role as a social anthropologist, create an enthusiasm to read in children, for instance through book presentations. Book presentations help children to get preview information about books, and will limit the selection of books. There were differences in how the easy-reader material was dealt with at the libraries we visited. The differences were based on the librarian’s knowledge of literature and her marketing role, where subjective assessments were crucial to how the easy reader material was classified and how it was displayed and located.
Nr 88 S. Sellberg: ANN i IR (ANN in IR)
This paper describes the use of artificial neural networks (ANNs) in information retrieval (IR). Part I gives a general introduction to ANNs, focusing on what they are, their properties, how they relate to conventional computing. A few examples of applications, and how they are implemented are also given. Part II describes in some detail the computations performed by the neuron, and how networks are constructed and trained. Two examples of networks used in the IR applications discussed later in the paper are given: Hopfield nets and Kohonen self-organizing maps (SOMs). The IR applications, described in part III, are: WEBSOM, SOMLib, and HelpfulMed.
*Nr 89 Anneli Goode, Inga-Marie Nilsson: Informationssökning – en del i vuxenutbildningen. En studie av vuxenstuderandes informationssökning i olika studieformer (Information seeking – a part of adult education. A study of adult students’ information seeking in different types of studies)
The purpose of this essay is to investigate adult students’ information seeking. We draw a distinction between traditional timetabled studies, flexitime studies and external studies. For many adult students flexitime studies and external studies involve a new kind of studying. The new types of studies entail that adult students must apply themselves to more information seeking. In our study we investigate how the students proceed when seeking information. We also discuss their need for tutoring concerning information seeking. It is also of interest to find out how the students use the library in their studies. We have carried out a survey among a number of students and we have also done qualitative interviews with students in groups of three or four from each type of study. We have interviewed the students’ teacher in social studies and history and also the librarian who is on the staff of the adult education at this school. Our study is linked to theories about information seeking and learning. The results show that nearly all students perform information seeking but also that their accustomedness and knowledge vary to a large extent. The library is an asset which many students use in their studying, especially the traditional students. We are of the opinion that flexitime students and external students are groups of students who need to get more attention from the library. We also make the conclusion that tutoring in information seeking is something that most adult students would gain a lot from in their studies.
*Nr 90 Moa Ek, Gertrud Ivarsson: Fotoindexering på Jämtlands läns museum (Photo indexing at the provincial museum of Jämtland)
The aim of this thesis is to describe the subject indexing of images performed at the provincial museum of Jämtland and to evaluate the inter-indexer consistency at the museum. The main questions are: How are photographs indexed in the database SOFIE foto regarding Outline-codes, subject headings and natural language keywords? How does these procedures compare to research and indexing projects? How consistent are the indexers at the museum when choosing Outline-codes, subject headings and natural language keywords? Answers are sought by reading articles about classification, image indexing, indexing language, indexing consistency and by looking at a number of projects attempting to standardise image indexing practice in Sweden. The indexing practice at the museum is also described. In addition a minor inter-indexing consistency study, based on the subject indexing of ten photographs made by five indexers at the museum, is performed. The results are calculated conceptually and terminologically using Rolling’s measure. The main results are that the indexers are quite consistent with one another and that the subject indexing when using a controlled vocabulary is more consistent than the natural language keyword indexing. The results, as expected, are improved when calculated conceptually rather than terminologically. The information obtained in the articles is discussed and compared to the indexing practice at the museum and to the results of the consistency study. A certain agreement is found, which might imply that the indexing practice at the museum is functional, although further research is suggested.
*Nr 91 Johanna Liljekrantz Yaiche: Folkbiblioteket och framtiden: en studie av framtidsdebatten i svensk bibliotekspress. (The public library and the future: a study of the debate in Swedish library press.)
This Master’s thesis aims at presenting a picture of, and critically examining, the Swedish debate concerning the public library and the future by way of 21 articles in three library periodicals. The questions examined are: -What are the views concerning the future public library in Swedish library press? -What characterizes the debate and why? Theories on political institutions and information society are used and the method is hermeneutic, a type of idea-analysis. The first step in the analysis consists of a categorized presentation of the material. The themes concern the form and content of the library as well as competence and hopes/fears. The analysis reveals the common presence of IT and also democracy as an underlying factor in the debate. It also presents different points of departure and suggests a relation between a distance to the institution and new ideas as well as the suggestions towards change. The debate lack alternative visions as the existing ones generally relate to IT. The focus on IT can be an outcome of the modern western society where new technologies are given high expectations and status. What characterizes the debate in general can be seen in the light of the way institutions function and the different interests of the actors involved. Concerning the future and the public library there is no obvious direction. What will decide the future is determined by which actor/s is/are in charge to make these decisions.
*Nr 92 Maria Tjernström: Vuxna dyslektikers informationsbeteende – en undersökning av hur sex personer med dyslexi hanterar informationsproblem (Adult dyslexics’ information behaviour – a study of how six persons with dyslexia handle information problems)
The aim of this Master’s thesis is to describe the information behaviour of six adults with dyslexia with focus on how they handle information problems. The data consists of literature and interviews with six persons with dyslexia. The theoretical framework used in this study is Anders Hektor’s theory about human information behaviour as well as concepts and theories from the library and information science field. Ten information activities are used to describe the informants’ information behaviour. Answers are sought to the following questions: ·   How do the informants describe their backgrounds and their reading- and writing disabilities? ·   What problems do the informants meet in the context of information in their everyday lives with reference to ten particular information activities? ·   How do the informants solve these problems? The study showed that the main problems for the informants appeared to be difficulties with reading and spelling, problems with the appearance of the information, lack of time and stress while reading and writing as well as problems with lack of awareness about dyslexia. The strategies used to solve problems mostly involved oral communication with other people, by asking for help, discussing or delegating work to others. Other strategies used were hiding their difficulties and avoiding reading and writing. The informants also used different aids, for example a tape recorder and talking books. The result also showed that although the informants used strategies to handle written information they often missed information.
*Nr 93 Agneta Heinö: ”Man behöver inte vara officiellt deprimerad” – Om biblioterapi som biblioteksverksamhet, med Kirklees i England som exempel (”You need not be officially depressed” – On bibliotherapy as part of ordinary work in libraries, with Kirklees in England as an example)
The purpose of this thesis is to examine if and how bibliotherapy can be part of ordinary work in Swedish libraries. Questions: what is bibliotherapy and who can work with it? What are the conditions required? What does it mean to people taking part and to libraries? In this study bibliotherapy is delimited to fiction and activities including discussions, excluded are self-help books and the individual’s private reading. The study is based on four qualitative interviews with librarian and bibliotherapists in Kirklees, England, partaking in nine bibliotherapeutic sessions and a literary survey, together forming a case-study. Conclusions: There is not a single answer to the question what bibliotherapy is, but if one puts stress on the biblio- part of the word, seeing reading as a normal activity it can be part of library work, whereas the therapy- part should be dealt with by professionals outside libraries. Bibliotherapy in libraries means that people with mild to moderate psychological problems will gain access to fiction and libraries, giving them something sustainable they can use afterwards and also spread to others. What is needed is staff with good interpersonal skills, cooperation with the health-and social services etc and a belief in the idea. To staff bibliotherapy means new, meaningful but demanding work. To libraries bibliotherapy means observing the Swedish library law which says that all citizens shall have access to libraries and that particular notice should be taken to disabled persons. Bibliotherapy also means a chance to improve visitors’ and lending-out figures.
*Nr 94 Karin Schelin: Populärmusik på folkbibliotek – en studie kring urval. (Popular music at public libraries – a study in assortment.)
The purpose of this master thesis is to examine different factors that may influence the librarian in the selection of popular music. The study is conducted through a qualitative method, influenced by grounded theory. The results are based on patterns drawn from both interviews with six libraries and from literature. The literature review concerns foremost cultural politics, music aesthetics, the sphere of popular music in Sweden today and the impact of commercialism. Also the purposes of popular music in a library, aspects of values of popular music and assortment policies are being discussed. The results show that there are a variety of factors that could influence the librarian when selecting popular music. These factors come from both the librarians’ own ideas as well as from users, cultural politics and from the music society surrounding the library. The study shows that libraries are being torn between quality standards in music and the consequences of commercialism. Therefore commercialism is the most distinct factor. The results of this study could constitute an instrument for further research in the area of popular music at public libraries.
Nr 95 Fredrike Holzhausen Henriksson, Annica Klahr: Föräldrar i fokus! En studie av småbarnsföräldrars informationsbehov och barnbibliotekariers intentioner med föräldraträffar (Parents in focus! A study of parents’ need of information and child librarians’ intentions concerning information meetings for parents)
The aim of this study is to examine present forms of interaction between Child Welfare Clinics (Barnavårdscentraler, BVC), and libraries. The study departs from the user’s perspective, i.e. how the parents evaluate the information they are given about the library and its resources to provide information they want in their present and new situation. In two local communities the survey looks into how parents of babies are informed about the library in meetings arranged as part of the information and support program provided by BVC. Methods used in the survey are interviews with librarians participating in information activities, and focus-group interviews with parents participating in BVC-groups meetings. The findings are related to other user studies connected to the ELlS-theory (Everyday Life Information Seeking). Results from the survey indicate that mothers do appreciate the information activities, and that the form of information group meetings often works well, in that more informed and regular library users give hints and advice to those not normally using the library. If information about the library and its information capability could be provided earlier during the pregnancy many mothers-in-waiting would use it to find information on the entirely new situation in life they find themselves in.
*Nr 96 Sofia Gustafson: Den så kallade kvalitetslitteraturen: En studie av språkspel med ordet kvalitetslitteratur (The so called quality literature: A study of language games with the expression quality literature)
This masters thesis is a study of how the expression “quality literature” is used in widespread newspapers and magazines. Wittgenstein’s idea of language games is used as a theoretical starting point. The analysis of 37 articles draws a picture of five language games that are called; the taking over, the polarising, the example giving, the gender critical and the ironic language game. The expression that quality literature is most often put in relation to is “popular literature”. The line between the two is sometimes distinctly drawn in the articles and sometimes quite vague. In the articles there are few explicit definitions of literary quality or discussions about the complexity of the expression though the use of expressions like “the so called quality literature” are examples of what can be seen as signs of awareness of this complexity. The most common way of showing the meaning of the expression is to associate it with other words that have an underlying value, words like serious, complex and non-commercial.
*Nr 97 Anna-Karin Svensson, Jessica Åkerklint: Tryckt eller elektroniskt? Bibliotekariers användning av referensverk på svenska folkbibliotek. (Print or electronic? Librarians’ use of reference sources in the Swedish public libraries.)
The main purpose of this Master’s thesis was to examine how the Internet and other electronic sources have affected public librarians’ use of printed reference sources. During the last couple of years the use of the electronic sources - in particular the Internet – has become more established in the Swedish public libraries. Our aim was to examine if and how this has affected the use of the printed reference sources. This has been examined on the basis of the following factors: the gender and age of the librarians and how long they have served in the library. We also examined if the size of the library affects the use of the printed and the electronic reference sources and also which factors that are most important when librarians acquire reference sources. The last thing we examined was which reference sources the librarians used most frequently. The survey is based on a questionnaire that was sent to the 290 main libraries. One librarian in each library was asked to answer the questions. The answering frequency was 64,1 %. We also interviewed three librarians. The result shows that the printed reference sources are no longer used as much as they were before. Most often, librarians choose an electronic source first, but they often complement it with a printed source. Many librarians say that they don’t prefer one format over the other; instead it depends on the question and the questioner. None of the factors that we examined seems to matter when the librarians choose format. Neither does the size of the library seem to affect the librarians’ use of printed and electronic reference sources. Possibly there’s a tendency that the use has been affected more in larger libraries. The factors that librarians consider most important when they acquire new reference sources – both printed and electronic – are in the following order: content, cost, source and format.
*Nr 98 Andreas Jacobson, Anna Johansson: Biblioteks- och informationsvetenskap i praktiken? – En studie av nio bibliotekariers förhållande till fackinformation (Library and information science in practice? – A study of nine librarians’ relation to professional information)
This Master thesis aims to illuminate nine librarians’ relation to professional information. This is accomplished by focusing on five questions: How do they communicate and acquire professional information, and how do they evaluate its relevance? What are their experiences of continuing professional education? What are their opinions on the academicalisation of the education? Is it possible to perceive something of the librarians’ professional project in the informants’ statements? What is their relation to the academic subject of library and information science and the research on the area? The analysis is based upon the interviews with nine librarians and carried out with profession theory in order to study the role of theoretic knowledge in our participants’ professionalisation processes. We also use different context oriented theories to study the contextual dimension of information need and seeking. The conclusions of this Master thesis reveal that the communication between the theory of library and information science and the practice need to be improved if we want to see more of an evidence-based librarianship. The main barrier to increased contact with library an information science that was mentioned by the informants is lack of time. Thus, librarians need to, continuously, have the opportunity to seek for professional information during working-hours.
*Nr 99 Harriet Runevad, Christina Tilander: Lärare och bibliotekarie – funkar det? En fenomenografisk studie av gymnasielärares uppfattningar om gymnasiebibliotekariens betydelse i undervisningen. (Teacher and librarian – a partnership that works? A phenomenographic study of how senior high school teachers apprehend the importance of the school librarian in the context of teaching.)
Resource-based learning or problem-oriented learning are teaching methods that are becoming more and more common in schools today. In order to make these teaching methods work there is a demand to make students information literate. This entails that school librarians ought to play a more important role in teaching than before since they are the ones that are the most qualified when it comes to mediating information skills. The aim of this thesis is to find out how nine teachers at six senior high schools apprehend the professional role of the school librarian and how they apprehend the conception of information literacy In order to learn about these conceptions we have chosen to study to what extent collaboration exists in the schools in question and the teachers’ conceptions of the importance of the school librarian in this context. We have used phenomenography which is both a set of theoretical assumptions and a methodology. This means that by doing a limited number of qualitative interviews one is able to describe the variations of the conceptions that have emerged. The results of the study are presented in grouped categories of quotations that reflect various conceptions. Among the major findings in our study are that all of the teachers have a positive conception of the school librarian and of her/his qualifications and they all desire an extended collaboration. But the level of collaboration with the school librarian is due to the collaborative cultures that prevail in the particular school, confusion of roles and insufficient planning time. The conception that Swedish students have a poor knowledge of critical thinking holds for all the informants but there is no clear and agreed definition, among the teachers, of what is meant by information literacy or who is the most qualified to teach it, i.e. the teacher or the school librarian. This indicates that the teachers are rather ignorant of the school librarian’s knowledge of information literacy and the importance of the school librarian to teaching and learning.
*Nr 100 Ulrica Mellteg, Jakob Uddling: Ämnesindexering av spelfilm (Indexing of fiction films)
The aim of this thesis is to examine possibilities concerning subject access to fiction film, i.e. appropriate ways to describe fiction film for subject retrieval. Problems regarding subject indexing in general, and subject indexing of fiction film in particular, are identified, as well as the uniqueness of fiction film and film genres. Four types of subject aspects are discussed: form and genre, fictitious characters, setting, and general topics. Several guidelines, form- and genre lists, and subject headings lists are examined and treated as potential indexing tools. The paper also contains an empirical study of how Bibliotekstjänst, Svenska Filminstitutet and Statens Ljud- och Bildarkiv handle subject access to fiction film. Svenska Filminstitutet’s list of genres for printed material and Kungliga Biblioteket’s list of subject headings, Svenska ämnesord, are considered as useful tools for subject indexing of fiction film in certain Swedish contexts.
*Nr 101 Christina Klarström: Ett specialbibliotek och dess relation till användarna, en studie av Goethe-institutets specialbibliotek i Stockholm. (A special library and its relations to its users, a study of the special library of the Goethe-institute in Stockholm.)
In the master thesis the focus of the study has been on the special library of the Goethe-institute in Stockholm. A survey was made among the visitors coming to the library, to find out how they used the library and how they would judge the quality of service. To find out how the needs and the opinions of the users were meet by the library I also made an interview with the staff (one librarian and the chief librarian). In the analysis I used the theory about service quality of Christian Grönroos as a framework. The theory distinguishes the service quality into technical resp. functional quality, experienced by the user through the profile of the organisation. A number of 30 answers were received. The results showed that all the services had good grades but that the staff was the most appreciated.   The results from the survey also showed that almost all of the respondents came to the special library of the Goethe-institute to search for information about Germany or to lend material in German. In the interview was found out that the needs and interests of the users were taken care of by the staff, through the knowledge about their users. Opinions from the users were something they often received through a direct dialogue with the users at the information desk. As a whole the study showed close relations between the staff and the users which is not unusual at a special library.
*Nr 102 Ola Ekström, Jonas Olsfelt: Self-organizing maps – en atlas över informationsrymden (Self-organizing maps – an atlas of the information space)
The purpose of this thesis is to examine how semantic relations in a document collection can be visualized with a Kohonen self-organizing map. It can be seen as a map of the information space which can be used to support information retrieval. The study makes a comparison of the possible differences between a map that is based on morphologically unprocessed text and a map where the text has been lemmatized. The text that is being processed is the definitions of all the existing instances in WordNet of a random selection of indexing terms from the Times-collection. The purpose is to see if morphological processing somehow can show different semantic connections between term instances based on their definitions. Eventually some different cartographic and display methods are compared to examine their strengths and weaknesses when used as possible applications of information visualization. The results show only marginal advantage of visualization based on lemmatized text. The lemmatization brings together new instances of words but the semantic relations are far from unambiguous. The conclusion drawn from this study is that the authors didn’t find any single visualization method that can show all aspects in a map. Different combinations of three and two dimensional methods might be required to get a better picture of an information space.
*Nr 103 David Brolin: Der Wille zur Macht. En analys av den editionsteoretiska striden om Friedrich Nietzsches litterära kvarlåtenskap (Der Wille zur Macht. A study of the editorial controversies regarding Friedrich Nietzsche’s literary remains)
In my thesis I examine the editorial theory and practice of the Nietzsche-Archives. At the center of the academic debate we find the posthumous edition Der Wille zur Macht, firstly published 1901 as Friedrich Nietzsche’s magnum opus. 1906 a new edition was published, which has been described by Nietzsche-scholars as “canonical”.  The editors – Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche and Heinrich Köselitz – manipulated the literary remains of Friedrich Nietzsche. The Nietzsche-scholars interpret these textual corrections and interventions differently. Some scholars view these interventions as philologically, philosophically and politically damaging, while some value the same alterations as philosophically unimportant. Following the terminology of the textual critic D.C. Greetham I located an “Alexandrian” approach. This group accepts interventions. The other group is called “Pergamanian” and regards any kind of editorial intervention as heresy.
*Nr 104 Emma Johansson, Isabelle Wårfors: Tecknade serier i bokhyllan: En studie i hantering och förvaring av tecknade serier på svenska folkbibliotek. (Comics on the bookshelf: a study of handling and storing of the comic medium in Swedish public libraries.)
This thesis investigates the situation for comics in Swedish public libraries. The main questions is separated into two groups, the first dealing with the physical situation were we investigate placement, cataloguing and shelf arrangement. The second deals with the librarians’ attitudes towards comics and how they may affect their work. The base for this thesis is the idea that the comic medium may sometimes be treated different than the rest of the libraries’ collections. Because of this, a theoretical basis is developed which focus on different views on comics. To find the answers to these questions, interviews are used. First, four libraries is chosen, all situated in the western part of southern Sweden but different in size and location. In each library, an investigation of the locale and an interview with the librarian responsible for the comics takes place. The investigation of the locale is carried out with the help of a pre-developed form based on literary sources. From these studies the following answers is deducted: the attitude of the librarian in charge does affect the work with comics in the library. Some librarians express a negative attitude, other a very positive one. The comic medium is not questioned as such. However, the growth and maintenance of the comic collection is not guaranteed. The librarians often express that they do not have knowledge of the medium and it takes the personal engagement of a librarian to keep the comic collection “alive”. If such a librarian exists, the collection may flourish.
*Nr 105 Bo-Eric Hellman, Andreas Lassus: The Beat Generation: Diskursanalys av identitetskonstruktionen bakom begreppet Beatnik i sex amerikanska tidskrifter 1957-1961 (The Beat Generation: Discourse analysis on the construction of the identity behind Beatniks in six American magazines 1957-1961)
This master’s thesis looks at the reception of the beat generation in six given American magazines spanning through the years 1957-1961. The study is basically one of literaty reception. The aim is to see how and if the institution of literature handed the beat generation an identity to go along with their arts. With the use of discourse analysis we have pointed out certain characteristics in the six articles that have been a part of building up an image of the beat generation as a whole. By dividing the result into the two categories social and literary practice we can clearer see what significants were used to create the beat generation. There could be seen a pattern consisting of looking at the beats as young and untamed. There where however differences in the way they were handled by different magazines. Our viewpoint is one of sociology of literature and we have chosen to do a contextualisation of our analysis scanning the society, the earlier American literature and of course a closer look at the beat generation themselves. The beat generation in this master’s thesis is represented by Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs, although more names can be added to the beat movement.
*Nr 106 Maria Axelsson: Kvinnan:mannen::alternativet:normen – ett feministiskt perspektiv på klassifikation (Woman:man::alternative:norm – a feministic perspective on classification)
Using a feministic perspective and a critical approach, my purpose is to discuss bibliographic classification, a central aspect of Library and Information Science. More specifically, my aim is to demonstrate the norms and the dominating thoughts regarding the organization and representation of knowledge, subjects, and social categories in classification systems. I review previous research involving critical approaches to classification. These show that classification systems are a reflection of the context in which they are created, with the result that universal assumptions can be questioned. Some studies also present problems inherent in hierarchical structures. Regarding feministic theories, I explain that they expose and criticize the male norm and the unequal division of power between men and women in society. By showing that our ideas of differences between the sexes are social constructions, feminists aim at changing normative and oppressive structures. Combining critical classification with feministic theories, I then analyze DDC and SAB. I find that the male, heterosexual, and western norm is manifested through the way the alternative is represented, on the one hand through its degree of explicit description, on the other through its position in the hierarchical structure. From a feministic viewpoint, the society described by the systems is a patriarchal one. I conclude by claiming that just as normative and oppressive structures in society can be changed, similar phenomena in classification systems can be avoided through raised awareness, an openness to diversity and ambiguity, and network technologies.
*Nr 107 Åsa Ingmansson, Tehres Lindskog: En analys av forskningsfronten inom medicinsk etik (An analysis of the research front in medical ethics)
The purpose of this Master’s thesis is to analyze the research front within medical ethics. We wish to identify which research themes that are included in the subject field of medical ethics. The research themes can be identified by a couple of bibliometrical methods and techniques. In our case, it is bibliographic coupling combined with a cluster analysis. The analysis is accomplished by the extracted references from articles in the two journals Bioethics and Journal of medical ethics. The questions we wish to answer are: 1) What research themes can be identified within the field of medical ethics by using bibliographic coupling combined with cluster analysis? 2) Are there differences between the identified research themes regarding the age of the items that are cited in the articles from one of the themes? 3) Which are the most productive authors within the subject field of medical ethics and within each research theme, respectively? 4) Which are the most productive institutions within the subject field of medical ethics and within each research theme, respectively? The analysis formed 24 different research themes. Through the abstracts of articles, identifiers and titles, we determined the contents of the themes. The age of the references placed medical ethics in both the hard and the soft sciences. The analysis of the most productive author and institution within the research themes showed nothing significant. However, A Sommerville was the most productive author in the subject field of medical ethics, along with Royal Children Hosp as the most productive institution.
*Nr 108 Malin Grabbe, Elisabeth Ingelf: Mångkulturalism i svensk barnlitteratur? (Multiculturalism in Swedish children’s literature?)
The purpose of our master thesis was to investigate how a multicultural society is reflected in children’s books (picture books, books for children and young people), published in 2002. We found this issue interesting since children of today experience a change in society, where people of many ethnicities, cultures and religions live together to a greater extent than before. Since children in their everyday life are exposed to these different cultures, we think they also should be exposed to them in the books they read. In order to enhance an understanding of why such books are important to children, especially immigrant children, we have in our thesis included a passage with children’s linguistic development, identification and stereotypes. Other passages concern libraries and their roles in a multicultural society. We also give a brief background to how Sweden has become a multicultural society and how this society looks today. While reading the books we sorted them according to a schedule in order to see what aspects of the books made them multicultural. We found that 60 of the books reflected a multicultural society but there was a large difference between multicultural picture books (only two) and books for young people (as many as 47). Moreover, the multicultural books mostly represented more than one ethnicity. The results of our investigation emphasises the importance, for libraries, to marketing these kinds of books. In general, multicultural children’s books need to be more noticed.
*Nr 109 Linda Svensson: Studiebibliotek Halland – En undersökning av folkbibliotekariens åsikter om sitt arbete med vuxenstuderande (Studiebibliotek Halland – A study of the public librarian’s opinion of the work with adult learners)
The purpose of this Master thesis is to investigate issues concerning the role of the public librarian and their work with adult learners. This is done by examining Studiebibliotek Halland, a project initiated and financed by Kulturrådet, with the aim of improving for adult learners to use the public libraries in Halland. The major questions raised in this study are: How do the librarians interviewed experience their role as public librarian since the number of adult learners at the public library has increased? In what way do the librarians think they have to change their work in order to meet the demands of the adult learners? How do they feel about the change? Do they think their work will change more as a result of the project? Data was collected through interviews and the study is a qualitative study. The main results are that the librarians have a very positive attitude towards adult learners using the public library. They see their work with adult learners as self-evident and stimulating. They think that their role as librarians has changed since they started their career, but they also think that the change is positive. The increasing number of adult learners is one reason for the change. Another one is the development of computers. The librarians don't feel that their profession has changed because of the project Studiebibliotek Halland and they don't think it will in the future either.
*Nr 110 Veronica Cech: Om hörselskadade i BHS-utbildningen: diskursen om hur blivande bibliotekarier förbereds att möta hörselskadades behov av tillgänglighet på biblioteken (About hearing disabled in the BHS-education: the discourse of how future librarians are prepared for meeting the hearing disabled’s need of accessibility at the libraries)
The purpose of this thesis is to determine how well a student is prepared as a future librarian at BHS in Borås, when it comes to serving individuals with hearing disabilities at the libraries. The theory and combined methods is that of discourse theory, interviews and Webb searches. The source material for this thesis comprises course material from 2002 and 2003, with the main focus on the spring term 2003 and on what is called “the users perspective” (användarperspektivet). The study is divided into two parts: firstly, to determine the student’s expected knowledge and his/her future professional identity through this knowledge. The user groups that were mentioned to the students during the education were also linked to the students knowledge. Secondly, it meant comparing what the students are being taught with what persons with hearing disabilities requires. Even though individuals with hearing disabilities were mentioned in lectures, only one student wrote a thesis in 2002 that concerns this group. It is clear that although the goal of the education is that the students should be able to meet any group’s need of accessibility at the library, the practical knowledge is not sufficient. This may be explained by the fact that the university of Borås mainly is represented by the hearing society, and the hearing disabled represents a minority. Hence this user group is not a prominent group, even if they’re not completely excluded, when it comes to the education of librarians.
*Nr 111 Eva Akinvall Franke: Eko av Glas: Läsningar genom ett sekel av Hjalmar Söderbergs verk Doktor Glas: En receptionsestetiskt orienterad studie (Echo of Glas: Readings through a century of the work Doctor Glas, by Hjalmar Söderberg: A reception-aesthetically oriented study)
The purpose of this master’s thesis is to deepen the understanding of the life, survival and canonising of a literary work. In order to do so I investigate how interpretations and evaluations of Doctor Glas (1905), by Hjalmar Söderberg (1869-1941), has developed throughout a century. The study is based on the reception-aesthetical theories of Hans Robert Jauss and Felix Vodicka, and Roman Ingarden’s theory of the concretizations of literary works. I have, in a phenomenological and hermeneutic way, studied the first reception and ”the echo” of the work, in Sweden, in handbooks, articles, reference books and research. My conclusion is that Doctor Glas by time and different readers has continued to develop so that the work today can be conceived as more complex compared to when it was ”born”, though early interpretations and evaluations still are alive. The opinion regarding the style has always been positive throughout time and different readers. The work has been associated with a wide range of literary works and ideas and very different readers can find something in it that speaks to them. It also seems to stimulate readers to discuss classical issues of life, and it is part of an authorship which, concerning style, was highly valued from the beginning. The work has also inspired scholars to analyse it, paying increasingly interest in the story. This is probably partly the explanation of why the work has survived and has gained a firm position as a national classic, with continuing and long-lasting value.
*Nr 112 Emma-Ida Andersson, Emma Sundström: Bilden av tjejen i svensk ungdomslitteratur: En litteraturanalys av nio ungdomsböcker ur ett genusperspektiv. (The image of the girl in Swedish youth literature: A literature analysis of nine youth novels from a gender perspective.)
The aim of this Master’s thesis is to examine how the image of the girl and her environment in the Swedish youth literature has changed during the 1980s to the 2000s. We have focused on how the girls creates gender in fiction. The introduction chapter in this essay covers a short history over Swedish youth literature and how the Swedish youth culture has developed, followed by a description of how “the girl in the real world” relates to gender. The books we have chosen are written by Swedish authors and the plot partakes in Sweden with female protagonists. We decided to do a close-reading of the novels and analyse them by an analytical model, consisting of several questions. Our study is based upon the theories of Yvonne Hirdman, Ylva Elwin-Nowak and Heléne Thomsson, regarding gender and how it is constructed. We found that the image of the girl in Swedish youth literature was not consistent over our chosen time-period. The girls in the novels from the 1980’s and the 2000’s rebelled against how others thought how they should act and live, while the girls in the novels from the 1990’s didn’t feel that they needed to rebel at all. The role of the mothers was often criticized from the girls point of view, the mothers work to much etc. The role of the father, when mentioned, however, was not criticized in the same way. Instead they were portrayed as being too controlling or simply fading into the background.
*Nr 113 Eva Bergstedt: Marknadsföring av folkbibliotekens tjänster – en studie av ett hemsidesprojekt i Östergötland (Marketing of public library services – a study of a website project in Östergötland)
In the digital era, new services have entered the public libraries, like seeking information on the Internet, in databases, newspapers online etc. But many citizens do not know that these services exist. The libraries have a democratic responsibility to inform about them. In the county of Östergötland a project started in 2001 where libraries in five small municipalities built websites in which they present all their electronic services available. One of the aims was – with the help of different kinds of marketing – to reach special groups of people, like adult students, small companies and politicians. The project closed at the end of 2003. The purpose with this study is to – through this website project – focus on the marketing of public library services. The method used is qualitative interviews with the project manager and the five librarians. The study points out that the librarians did not have enough time to market their services, nor did they always have the right competence in marketing. If the public libraries want to stay in the front line of life-long learning and information seeking services, they must become better in marketing their services. It is also a question for the librarians as professionals. If they do not market themselves as professionals, others might take over.
*Nr 114 Christina Magnusson: Verkfrågan-katalogisatörens huvudvärk. En studie av regelverket vid katalogisering av musiktryck med utgångspunkt i begreppet ”verk”. (The question of the work-the cataloguer’s hard work. A study of the cataloguing rules for printed music with a starting-point in the concept of the “work”.)
The aim of this thesis is to explore the concept of the “work” and the problems with the definition of it. The concept is an important starting-point when it comes to cataloguing musical works and creating uniform titles. Another aim is to find out other difficulties that are frequent in cataloguing printed music. In the theoretical part of this thesis Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR) and the Swedish cataloguing rules (KRS) are important tools. The FRBR-model and the four entities work, expression, manifestation and item are described. In KRS important rules for uniform titles and printed music are studied. In the empirical study concepts and theories are practically examined. Four interviews are made at The Music Library of Sweden (Statens musikbibliotek) and Bibliotekstjänst (BTJ), and one interview is made via e-mail with Patrick Le Bœuf at Bibliothéque nationale de France. The discussions with the music cataloguers have made it possible to get answers to the questions of this study. The results of this thesis should not be seen as general conclusions. From the literature and the interviews I can state that the concept of the “work” is important when it comes to collocating musical works, but the definition of the concept is not clear. When you are cataloguing musical works and creating uniform titles it is important to establish conventions. I have also noticed that an obvious problem when cataloguing printed music is that a title page often is missing. Finally it is important to further investigate FRBR.
*Nr 115 Jenny Kihlberg: Folkbibliotekens förmedling av Internetresurser: En undersökning av två mångkulturella länksamlingar. (The public libraries’ mediation of Internet resources: An investigation of two multi- cultural link collections.)
The purpose of this Master’s thesis is to investigate the role of link collections in Swedish public libraries’ mediation of Internet resources. The study is focusing on the effects on the contents and the structure in the link collections when the target group is immigrant users. This is done through literature studies completed with an examination of two link collections containing multi-cultural and multi-lingual material and qualitative interviews with the two librarians who are in charge of the collections. The major questions raised in this study are: What function do the link collections have for the public libraries? What is the difference in working with traditional, printed material compared to the work with Internet resources? And how are the selection of Internet resources and the structure of the link collections affected when the collection is intended for immigrant users? The main results are that link collections in public libraries can give a concrete form to political guidelines. By constructing link collections, public libraries can offer high quality material presented in a user friendly environment. Many of the quality filters that affect publishing and distribution of printed material don’t exist for Internet resources, which stress the importance of source analysis. This is also more complicated when the material is multi-lingual. It is clear that Internet can be of great help in the mediation of multi-cultural material, but to make the link collection user friendly, knowledge of the target group is highly important.
*Nr 116 Annette Aronsson: Vad vill vi med vårt skolbibliotek? En undersökning av attityder till skolbiblioteket bland skolledare och lärare (How do we want to use our school library? A study of attitudes towards the school library amongst headmasters and teachers)
The purpose of this study is to examine teachers’ and school-leaders’ attitude to the school library. Both the cause of and the consequences of these attitudes are examined. In order to fulfil my purpose I have examined this through both literature and empirical studies. I have interviewed the headmaster, the school librarian and two teachers at two comprehensive schools. As theoretical framework I have used David Loertscher’s taxonomy containing theories about the levels in an ideal school library and Miles’ model of school development. I have also used Brigitte Kühne’s model for factors working to or against the integration of the school library into teaching. The result of the study shows that most people are positive to the school library as long as it does not affect any other (for the individual) important part of the school world. The headmaster is very important but the positive attitude of both teachers and school-leaders is a prerequisite in order to establish a well-developed school. It is the school-leaders responsibility to provide both economical and personal resources. Teachers will be willing to supply resources to the school-library if this will give a direct positive effect on their own teaching. The school that hired both a librarian and an assistant is the one who is most positive to the school-library. To get the most out of the school-library most interviewed wanted a pedagogically educated librarian.
*Nr 117 Tobias Gard: Den svenska biblioteksersättningen ur författarnas perspektiv (The Swedish Public Lending Right (PLR) in the authors’ perspective)
The aim of this thesis is to study the Swedish Public Lending Right (PLR) from the authors’ perspective. I investigate what the Swedish authors of today think about the system for distributing the money in the Authors’ trust (Författarfonden), and in what ways they want to change it. I also try to distinguish the authors’ thoughts about how the scolarships from the Authors’ trust are distributed. What kind of authors do they think are favoured when the money is distributed and what kind of authors are treated unfairly. Finally I investigate how the money is shared out in reality by using some of the literature sociologist Johan Svedjedal’s theories of the distribution, and compare these facts with the authors’ thoughts about how the money is distributed. In this part of the study I also use the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu’s theories of the literary field and his theories of taste. I decided to use questionnaires to gather the information. It turned out that the authors want a clearer system that is easier to inspect than the existing system. They want to preserve the thought of solidarity that characterize the system of today. The distribution of scholarships should be more dependent on authors’ literary production than on personal circumstances. There are authors that believe that authors who write a certain kind of literature are treated unfairly when the scholarships are distributed. Some authors also think that persons acquainted with members in the Authors’ trust are more likely to become holders of scholarships. Finally the study shows that authors’ connections with publishers, the kind of literature they write (children’s literature/juvenile literature, non-fiction or fiction), and their places on the literary field, tend to influence the distribution of the scholarships from the Authors’ trust.
*Nr 118 Kenneth Bergstedt: Lost in translation? – En empirisk undersökning av användningen av tesaurer vid queryexpansion inom Cross Language Information Retrieval (Lost in translation? – An Empirical Study of the use of Thesauri in Query Expansion in Cross Language Information Retrieval)
The purpose of this thesis is to examine the performance of queries that is expanded before translation in comparison with only translation of the queries using a bilingual dictionary, and also to see if the number of terms that was used to expand the queries was of any importance (i. e. if many terms from a thesaurus helped or destroyed a query). To answer these questions i used two online thesauri, Roget’s thesaurus and Merriam-Webster Online and one printed bilingual dictionary, Norstedts English-Swedish dictionary. Even though the number of examined queries is too small to draw any definite conclusions, the results suggest that expanding using a general thesaurus may have a negative effect on the queries. The reason is that the number of words from the expansion and the translation makes the queries more ambiguous and thereby increases the noise in the search, which leads to loss of relevant document.
*Nr 119 Simon Parsmo: Utgör GATS ett hot mot folkbiblioteket? En idé- och ideologianalys av den svenska debatten. (Does GATS constitute a threat to the public library? An idea- and ideology analysis of the Swedish debate.)
In 1995, the World Trade Organization (WTO) was established. Today WTO has nearly 150 member countries, accounting for over 97 percent of the world trade. WTO has a number of agreements and one of them is the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). GATS control the service sector, and the public library is a small part of this sector. The purpose of this study is to examine the Swedish debate about GATS’s possibility to affect the public library. In this study the debaters and the content of the debate are introduced. The majority of the debaters (the critics) consider that GATS is a threat to the public libraries but a minority of the debaters (the advocates) claim that there is no such threat. The critics mean that there is a risk that GATS is leads to privatisation of the public library and if that happens, the democratic function of the library will be destroyed. The advocates are convinced that publicly provided services aren't included in the agreement and that means that the library isn't going to be affected. In this study I also analyse which ideology the debaters consider to be behind GATS. The critics connect GATS with neo- liberalism while the advocates connect the agreement with reform socialism. In the discussion chapter the relationship between neo-liberalism and the ideological identity of the public library is examined.
*Nr 120 Ulrika Mild: Musik på Internet – framtiden för bibliotekens musikavdelningar? (Music on the Internet – the future for the libraries’ music departments?)
The purpose of this thesis is to discuss the possibilities of, and interest in, a digital download service at the music departments of the libraries. I chose to conduct my study at the city library of Gothenburg. I studied the legal download services that exist today and I did a statistical survey among the users of the music department, followed up by interviews to see how they took to the idea. From the inquiry I learned that a majority of the users was negative to having a digital service replacing the physical department, although a majority was positive to try a digital service. I also used the inquiry to compare the reasons for downloading music to the reasons for borrowing records from the library, but there was no significant difference. Through the interviews I identified the two different ways to search for music that the services represented. This difference, along with the fact that many citizens don’t have the proper access to an Internet service of this kind suggests that a transition at the moment to a digital service would be too soon. Until people have proper access and the search issues can be resolved, smaller services can be a good place to start for both the libraries and the users. When these problems are resolved, the libraries have the chance to give their users a considerably larger music library to choose from through cooperation with the large legal downloading services run by the record companies.
*Nr 121 Jonas Ulfvarson: Informationalismens Murar – hotet mot information som positiv rättighet; en ideologianalys av WTO och dess avtal. (The Walls of Informationalism – the threat to information as positive right; an ideology-analysis of the WTO and its agreements.)
This thesis examines the ideological implications of an emerging shift in human rights-issues regarding information. As Intellectual Property becomes increasingly important to the economy of developed nations previously commonly owned or unprotected information runs a real risk of becoming privatized. The World Trade Organization and its binding agreements GATS and TRIPS are subjected to a critical ideology-analysis, with special efforts to elucidate possible effects on the public service realm and its commitment as provider of free information as a human right. The result suggests that not only does a threat to information as such a right exist, but that its ideological basis however seemingly rooted in a liberal/neoliberal context actually in its express views on information deviates from liberal/neoliberal theory in many ways, and that there are theoretical inconsistencies in that same ideology.
*Nr 122 Torun Atterberg: Klassifikation och definition av socialantropologi – En jämförande studie ur ett hermeneutiskt perspektiv (Classification and Definition of Social Anthropology – A Comparative Study from a Hermeneutical Point of View)
The purpose of this thesis is to study the relationship between the definition and bibliographical classification of a certain academic subject; social anthropology. The theoretical framework consists of views held in Information Science regarding the definition and classification of subjects. The methodological onset is based on hermeneutical concepts that allow an extended analysis of abstract structures of thought. This analysis comprises of two parts; a descriptive analysis and a comparative analysis. The result of the descriptive analysis, whose aim is to describe the academic subject social anthropology, shows that this is not easy to define, instead it is nowadays almost the same as cultural anthropology. The comparative analysis results partly in a definition of the academic subject social anthropology, partly it shows that there are pronounced differences in how the SAB and the Dewey bibliographical schemes classify social anthropology. My interpretation is that the social anthropological research more or less vanishes in the classification. In the SAB social anthropology has no division of its own, in the Dewey it has its own division but it is not clearly defined. Therefore it can seem like that the SAB is better adjusted to the research of today than the Dewey is. My theoretical framework provides me with valuable viewpoints, because they make me aware of the difficulties with subject definition. The methods recommended show me that there is a conflict between a changing academic discipline and the representation of it. I also found out that there are risks of using predetermined terms and divisions during indexing, they might restrict the subject contents. My final conclusion is that further studies about how documents dealing with cultural- and social anthropology are indexed, might explain more about the relationship between the bibliographic schemes and the research in these areas.
*Nr 123 Andreas Tandersten: Spam : den nya tidens onlinegissel (Spam : the new online scourge in our times)
This thesis takes on a broader perspective of the modern age phenomenon we call spam. One of the aims of this thesis is to present and to compare the variety of methods used in the day-to-day fight against spam, as far they have evolved today, but also to present and discuss some alternative methods for suggested future use. The properties of a common e-mail (spam) are analyzed to show how the components that make up the structure in an e-mail can be used to classify spam. Furthermore I explain the naïve Bayesian classification methods, the signature-based method, the commonly used rule-based method and the challenge and response method and discuss these. The widespread use of blacklists is also explained and a close new variant to blacklisting, Turntide is presented and discussed. This is followed by a brief presentation and discussion of proposed countermeasure methods, including FFB’s and Captcha. PHEmail is then shown, a new proposed method which takes advantage of already established social relations, in the fight against spam. Next important step is to present the new legislative bills in USA and in the EC, the criticism regarding these laws is also discussed. The thesis finally presents two suggested methods to fight spam, both initiated by Microsoft: Caller ID and the use of electronic stamps. The thesis rounds off with an open discussion regarding how well this broad variety of methods may interact with each others.

Kandidatuppsatser: abstract

*Nr 1 Hedda Winther: ”Syns man så finns man”: illustratörers och bilders ”synlighet” i Bibliotekstjänsts sambindninghäften 2001 (”To be is to be perceived”: the visibility of children’s books illustrators and illustrations in Bibliotekstjänsts binding booklets 2001.)
The aim of this bachelor thesis is to see how illustrators and illustrations are treated in Bibliotekstjänst’s binding booklets compared to how authors and texts are treated, i.e. the picture versus the printed word. My aim is to try and find out if librarians have the aids to acquire information about picture-book illustrators and illustrations in their selective work and reference work. In order to find out about this I need to examine the most common aid in this work, i.e. Bibliotekstjänst’s binding booklets. The investigation is of both qualitative and, to a certain degree, quantitative character. The investigation consists of three parts: literature studies, interviews with two librarians and a source analysis of Bibliotekstjänst’s professional readers’ opinions of picture-books in 2001. The binding booklets can function relatively well as an aid for librarians to acquire information about picture-book illustrators and illustrations in their selective work. This is relatively clear when examining debate, interviews and source analysis. Proposals for improvements have included an increase in number of words and increased possibilities to see the illustrations themselves before purchasing literature. In the reference work there are no satisfactory aids in order to acquire information about the illustrations. Librarians are mainly forced to use their experience in order to answer questions pertaining to picture-books.
*Nr 2 Ann Sunnvius: Bokprat - en pedagogisk metod for barnbibliotekarier (Book talk - a pedagogical method for children's librarians)
The topic of this bachelor thesis is the art of book talk. Book talk is when a librarian orally presents a book in front of a group of people, in this thesis, a group of children. The first part of the thesis treats book talk as a method and its development. It will also go through which role book talk plays in the daily work of a children's librarian today, and if they got any education in book talk during their librarian education. The purpose of this study is to investigate and compare Lev Vygotskij's pedagogical theories on fantasy and creativity to book talk performed by children's librarians. Interviews were made with three children's librarians at two libraries in a quite big town in Sweden. Book talks were also observed at some occasions. The result of this study is that the interviewed librarians are not mainly aware of which pedagogical methods used in their book talks (and in preparing them). Yet it is possible, by analysing the material from the interviews and observations, to find similarities between book talk and Vygotskij's theories.
*Nr 3 Kerstin Ferm: En studie av fyra kommuners måldokument gällande den offentliga kulturverksamheten med fokus på biblioteksverksamheten (A study of four municipalities’ local cultural policy documents with focus on the library activity)
The aim of this study has been to explore local cultural policy documents in some municipalities in the geographical region of Västra Götaland. Do the municipalities have these kinds of documents for their local cultural activities, and how are they designed? These are questions which the study has focused on. The study has been concentrated on the library activity in the local cultural policy documents. The research has been a comparative one. Four municipalities have been chosen and their local cultural policy documents have been explored. The method which has been used is above all a qualitative text analysis. In addition, the method has included Björn Rombach’s definitions of aims and keywords collected from the Swedish national cultural political aims. The study contains a presentation and background, concerning the four municipalities. The purpose of this was to get a deeper understanding of what kind of municipalities participating in the research. The study has exhibited that the chosen municipalities have local cultural policy documents, but they are of various quality and in different forms. The most of the local cultural policy documents in this research are similar to the Swedish national cultural political aims from 1996.
*Nr 4 Stefan Furberg: Kommunikationsproblem och bemötande inom referenssamtalet (Communication problem friendship in the reference interview)
This bachelor thesis is about communication problems and treatment during the reference interview. The purpose was to investigate the reasons of why users’ information needs are not always understood by the librarian and what to do about it. I have also investigated what kind of skills that can be useful for librarians to have and how a librarian can act in a way that makes the user feel welcome during the reference interview. The method I used was a literature study and an own study through interviews of library users. The theories I used was Taylor’s information need theory and Argyle & Dean’s equilibrium theory. The result I found was that a librarian can ask a user open questions like how the user plans to use the information in order to find out more about what kind of information needs she has. To make the user feel welcome the librarian can invite her to return if she does not find the information by herself or ask her if she is satisfied with the information the librarian found for her. It is often appreciated by the users if librarians are friendly, have patience, smile, have eye contact during the interview and show that they are really interested in helping the user.
*Nr 5 Anna-Lena Lüddeckens: Barn-OPACers grafiska gränssnitt : En studie av tre barn-OPACer på webben (Graphical interfaces in OPACs for children : A study on three OPACs for children on the Internet)
Already in the late 1970´s it became clear that the traditional catalogs in libraries were not suited for children, neither their interests nor their way expressing themselves were accounted for. The goal of this thesis is to investigate if and how children’s OPACs (Open public access catalogs) interface design is at present adapted to the presumed audience of children. My method consists of literature studies and an investigation on the graphical interfaces in OPACs for children, according to the five criteria formulated by childrens library consultant Lena Lundgren and IT-consultant Kia Gumbel. The aims are to find out: a) what requirements for children’s OPAC interfaces and their usability are defined in literature and b) what the actual (real) features of the children’s OPAC interfaces are. What interests me, regarding the graphical interfaces, is the actual appearance seen by the children, and partly the interactivity supplied by the OPACs. Using the criteria of Lundgren and Gumbel, I analyse figures, the front page, key-words, the text and the quality appearing in the different OPACs. In conclusion, the graphical interfaces of the three OPACs for children are somewhat adapted for children according to the Lundgren/Gumbel criteria. By using for example more user-polls, individualized graphical interfaces and reference groups consisting of children, the graphical interface for OPACs can be modified, and hopefully optimised, to take full account of the varied abilities of children.
*Nr 6 Hanna Mässgård: Att datorisera ett bibliotek: datoriseringen av skolbiblioteket på Sunnerbogymnasiet i Ljungby (To computerize a library: the process at Sunnerbogymnasiet in Ljungby)
The purpose of this paper is to describe methods to computerize a library and to compare theory with a process in a school library. The case study is based on a school library called Sunnerbogymnasiet which is situated in Ljungby. My questions are; -  Which methods are parts of the process to computerize a library? -  Which methods are used in the process in Sunnerbogymnasiet? -  What does the practical process look like compared to the methods described in theory? In the paper I present the methods in the process according to the studied literature and compare these with a process at Sunnerbogymnasiet. The most significant result is that cooperation between the school library and the community library was the most important reason for the choice of library computer system. There are many reasons for cooperation between the libraries, among others that the books in the school library may be used more effectively.
*Nr 7 Maria Londrén: Tio år med stadsdelsreformen i Göteborg med omnejd. Synpunkter hos anställda vid sex folkbibliotek och inom kultur och fritid (An investigation of six libraries in Gothenburg and its neighbourhood relating to a City Council reform. Results and viewpoints.)
This is a comparative study of six public libraries in the city of Gothenburg and its neighbourhood. The main purpose of this master thesis is to describe these libraries relating to a reform in the city council of Gothenburg and its neighbourhood. The comparison deals with a period of ten years, 1990-2000. In order to respond to this I formulated two questions: Are there any differences in the activities of these libraries?  Has this reform influenced the librarians in their way of working and if so, why? I have studied relevant literature such as annual reports, investigations and analyses in order to be able to formulate the questions. The subjects of the interviews were librarians and those of a higher level of librarianship. They have all been employees in the libraries during 1990-2000. I have made fourteen qualitative interviews. This project has made me aware of differences appearing in the public libraries in Gothenburg. It has also made me aware of varieties of the goals of the public libraries investigated and noticeable changes of the working methods for librarians and for those of a higher level of librarianship. Current research as well as my investigation show the need for a better cooperation and indicate sensibility for the needs of the citizens. It also indicates an increased need of well formulated goals and evaluations as well as the importance of a continuous dialogue and sensibility. Economical priorities have been made by the politicians. The availability of the libraries is of importance and the needs have increased. There is a need for more resources in order to overcome the increased differences in these areas in the city of Gothenburg and its neighbourhood.