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The aim of this one-year master thesis in archival science was to examine how municipalities take regulations concerning public records into account when they use Facebook. Another aim was to examine the involvement of archivists, registrars or similar staff in the management of the regulations. Since Swedish archival theory and practice has a close connection to the application of these regulations, such an examination was hopefully going to reveal tendencies of importance for archival science. The method used to collect information was a web questionnaire and the result was based on answers from 21 municipalities with an official Facebook page. The questionnaire showed that six of the municipalities regarded documents originating from their Facebook page as public records. Three did not, and a large group had not yet decided how to treat these documents. Only three municipalities did archive documents from Facebook. The involvement of archivists, registrars and similar personnel was generally very small, even though regulations concerning public records had more often been taken into account in the municipalities that had informed this personnel about the use of an official Facebook page. The difference in management between the municipalities was together with the demand for national guiding principles indicating difficulties in applying the regulations to social medias like Facebook. The fact that most of the municipalities that had taken the regulations into account had come to the conclusion that Facebook generated public records, together with the fact that national guiding principles presented during the work with this thesis had the same interpretation, indicated that documents originating from Facebook will be a part of Swedish public records in the future. The difference in management and the demand for guidance also indicated a need for better division of responsibilities and a more active approach in the future, to ensure that the regulations concerning public records are taken into account early and correctly when authorities starts to use new medias.

The arrival of AI and machine learning in the archiving world implies a reconceptualization of archival institutions from consisting of archives as records to be read towards archives as data to be mined. This thesis aims to survey and analyse the arrival of AI and machine learning within the Swedish archival sector.

Through the analyses of four archival institutions and semi-structured interviews with archive professionals, this study illuminates the current state of AI in the Swedish archival sector, opportunities and obstacles of AI implementations, and the impact of AI on the Swedish archival profession. Swedish archival institutions have interest in and expectations of AI implementation. Yet, the current level of AI implementation is generally on experimental instead of an operational level. The findings show that collaboration and knowledge exchange are key drivers to accelerate the implementation of AI in the archival sector. The study concludes with practical rec-ommendations for archival institutions and archive professionals.

Acting out Disease: How Patient Organizations Shaped Modern Medicine (ActDisease) explores the history of patient organizations in 20th century Europe. By combining traditional historiographic methods with text mining techniques, the project aims to shed light on how patient organizations co-constructed concepts of and management of disease. Part of the project is to digitize print sources and build a digital corpus for historical text mining. The corpus consists of periodical publications from selected British, French, German and Swedish patient organizations, a type of material that poses a number of challenges in scan quality, layout, and lack of consistency. This paper discusses the technical process of building the ActDisease corpus from digitizing patient organization periodicals to OCR post-processing. It touches upon the methodological questions and challenges of curating a corpus of fragmented and heterogeneous historical source material tailored to a specific project.

In this study the zoological school collection from the former Visby läroverk has been analyzed. The purpose is to examine how it has been managed historical and what pedagogic significance it has today. This is done  to illustrate the pedagogic ideals in schools and natural science teaching that have affected and continues to affect the collection. This has been studied through a literature study, an interview and a visit to the museum storage building and the museum where the collection now is managed.

The study has shown that the collection that started in 1829 at Visby läroverk is today in majority cared for by Gotland’s Museum. Since 1985 it has been managed by nature conservators, but before this it has been cared for by mostly teachers and assistant professors. The last documented acquisition was during the 1950s. During this time the care of the collection seems to have been insufficient. A lot of foreign material was donated during the 1800s, but acquisitions during the 1900s was primarily of local breeds. Today the collection is a pedagogical tool for imparting knowledge in school and teaching history. It is a document of the nature and culture of Gotland. Today it is used in exhibitions to spread information about natural science, cultural history and ethnology.

This report started with the guideline project that revolved around two problems in the game industry, the hypersexualization of female characters and their stereotypical designs in games, and a wish to solve these problems. Fashion was chosen as a new approach to solving them and the question formulation for the guideline project was: how can we incorporate fashion in order to strengthen a female characters personality, role and overall design in games? 

Three methods were used; firstly a systematic literature review to gather knowledge about the fashion industry as well as the game industry’s character design process. Secondly, the creation of the guideline, “The design handbook – how to improve female character design”, which would serve by presenting a solution to the problem. Thirdly, qualitative interviews to test whether or not the guideline could serve as a possible solution against the problems of sexist and stereotypical designs and if it could overall improve female character design in games.   

The results of the qualitative interviews deemed the project a success; nine out of ten interviewees answered that it would serve as a solution against the problem of both hypersexualization and stereotypical designs. The results of the guideline project and the interviews answered the bachelor’s thesis’ question formulation about how to improve female character design through fashion in the following way:  

• Be inclusive. The priority should be to design interesting characters, regardless of gender.
•  Know who your character is. Give the character a complex and interesting personality and design with that personality in mind; it should be strengthened through all the other design choices (be it color, silhouette or outfit details).  
• Make it believable. The outfit needs to work like a second narrator and should not contradict the setting, the personality or the character’s role.  

This thesis aims to give light to what happens after UNESCO has named an object as a World Heritage site.Through looking at if and how strategies for conservation and development have changed since 1989 until today. Focus of this thesis have been the Hanseatic Town of Visby, and the national and local laws and documentsthat control conservation and development. Through the theoretical lenses of postmodern and collaborativeplanning, together with urban marketing theory - the global city. Results have been made through analysing the heritage work that UNESCO have made during the nomination and inscription process to the World Heritage List, together with looking at the local county administrative boardand municipality’s documentation and spatial planning of the property. Both parts give a look in to and an understandingof how marketing a town changes the narrative of heritage. For Visby this is made apparent during the nomination process. The application to UNESCO 1994, states the historic development of Visby with differenttimes represented, this have then been deleted throughout the process, until the end when only the Hanseaticimpact is seen as important for the properties outstanding universal value. The results have also shown that Visby now is in a state of segregation with high house prices and few residentsinside the city wall. But if this is in correlation with the inscription to the World Heritage List, could not be clearly analysed.

The island of Kökar, located in the outer archipelago of the Åland islands of Scandinavia, is traditionally a society known for its rich culture connected to the living tradition of traditional folk music. In media the island is portrayed as The island of Fiddles. Yet at the same time the number of people actually playing, singing and dancing in the traditional style is declining year by year. With the application of Thomas Turinos conceptual framework on participatory- and performative music making, island culture is analyzed, looking at what wider societal values are expressed within the contemporary musicking practices. The study shows example of different types of musicing contexts, key actors and -arenas, as well as ideas on the connection between music and a Kökar island identity. The essay provides empirical evidence for how different musical events such as a cultural festival, a choir and a fiddler team can contribute to social sustainability, in accordance with Turino's theory of participatory music making as part of artistic citizenship.

This article introduces a variety of Romani groups living in Soviet Ukraine and their ways of life—sedentary, semi-nomadic and nomadic—highlighting that semi-nomadism is omitted category in scholarship even though most of the Roma in Soviet Ukraine maintained a semi-nomadic way of life. Through the discussion of the notion of nomadism, the research analyses how the Romani ways of life have changed over time from before and after the Second World War. Examining the Soviet policy towards the Roma in Soviet Ukraine (1930s–1950s), particularly, the creation of the kolkhoz system and the issue of the “Khrushchev Decree”, the paper argues that the changes in Romani ways of life occurred due to suppressive policies of the Soviet state directed to the forced sedentarisation of Roma.

This study investigates the potential of fast-grown spruce (Picea abies) as an insulation material in historic buildings, aiming to evaluate the relationship between density and thermal conductivity. The background of the study lies in the need for sustainable and efficient insulation materials that can be used to improve the energy performance of buildings while preserving their historical character and aesthetic value. Fast-grown spruce has a lower density then the lowest available in the Swedish standard for materials heat conductivity. 

The methodology included both laboratory analyses and field studies. In the laboratory part, a hot-disk instrument was used to measure thermal conductivity, followed by calculations of density and moisture content. The field studies were conducted to identify practical applications and challenges in using fast-grown spruce as a construction material. These studies involved inspections of buildings constructed with fast-grown spruce and interviews with those responsible for their construction to investigate its potential functionality as a construction material. 

The main results from the laboratory analyses showed a strong correlation between density and thermal conductivity, indicating that fast-grown spruce, with its lower density, has improved insulation properties compared to slow-grown spruce. The field studies confirmed that fast-grown spruce can be used as a construction material in buildings, but also pointed out its tendency to exhibit greater movement during drying, which can be accounted for to prevent issues during the drying process. 

The conclusions suggest that fast-grown spruce can be a valuable addition to existing insulation materials due to its improved insulation performance. The study recommends further research to examine long-term degradation effects and the material's moisture properties, which are critical for its practical use in buildings. Additionally, further research should investigate the ability of fast-grown spruce to serve as a substrate for plaster, both for clay and lime-based plasters, to determine the wood's compatibility with these materials. 

According to historical sources and pottery chronology, the Iron Age in southern Levant spans between approximately 1200 to 587 BC. This roughly 600 years’ period encompass ancient Israel and its neighbor’s history as it is described in Old and New Testament, i.e. “Biblical archeology”. The aim with this paper is to investigate how the copper industry was organized in biblical Edom, i.e. presently southern Jordan, during Iron age, and if this organization could be related to the biblical kings David and Solomon. The methodological departure will be maximalist, which sees the Bible and archeology complementing each other in getting an image of the history, the society, and the religion of these areas in ancient times. Archeologists of this school argue that some of the biblical narratives are more or less correct, as long as archeological evidence does not dismiss them. For theoretical concepts there will be used a typology of chieftain and early states where the notion of chieftain is used to characterize social complexity in stateless societies while the model of early state capture more complex societies. 

Two approaches will be discussed. The first one is represented by Israel Finkelstein and his team who suggest that one should lower the dates of the assemblages of Iron Age from late 1100 century to 1000 century BC in a Low chronology. The second approach is argued by Thomas Levy and his team. He wishes to focus on the role of metallurgy in Edom and states that we have proof that complex societies were active 900- 800 BCE and 300 years before the scholars first assumed, during David and Solomon’s time, High chronology. This will shed a new light on Old Testament´s narrative. 

Migration and re-migration of economically and socially marginalized Ethiopian women and girls has become a phenomenon. Based on interviews with 12 Ethiopian migrant women returned from the Middle East and the Gulf States, the primary aim of this thesis is to describe and study Ethiopian women migrants’ circular migration to the Middle East. I will mainly focus on how social dynamics in the family, gender relations and economic circumstances are intricate. The process of women’s migration and how the expectations of the family can be gender differentiated are discussed. Further, the migrant women’s power relation when class and ethnicity determine their position is discussed. Relations with the sending family and the issues related to the women who return, as well as problems affecting them at home and in the destination countries, are looked at. Various and complex issues of migration and the women’s roles are discussed with reference to the women’s experiences. Migration provides women with opportunities for social and economic mobility but can also subject them to ethnic discrimination, exploitation, and abuse. The movement is generally seen as voluntary labor migration and it has placed them in a vulnerable position both at home and abroad. Their migration is interconnected to the economic need but also the responsibilities they have towards their family and kin.

This article seeks to move beyond the Euro/North-centrism recurrent in methodological discussions on what we may learn from the COVID-19 pandemic. Such debates often centre on uncertainty and involuntary immobility – aspects which are hardly new for many researchers. In this article, we argue that the pandemic offers an opportunity to rethink research relations between what we term ‘contracting researchers’ in the Global North and ‘facilitating researchers’ in the Global South. Such relations are often marked by rampant inequalities in remuneration, working conditions, and visibility/authorship. Drawing upon experiences in DR Congo, Sierra Leone, and India, we argue that the pandemic increased the dependence on – and highlighted the invaluable contributions and skills of – facilitating researchers, in part slightly refiguring bargaining power. We also propose pathways for change, arguing for a strong collaborative approach and the need for institutional change, without discarding the responsibilities of individual researchers.

This study examines the experiences of public library staff who works in an LGBTQ-profiled children’s library. The aim of the study is further to find out whether the library as an institution can challenge heteronormativity or if traditional gender identities are reproduced. I have conducted five qualitative interviews with librarians who all work in the same library, and who all work with children to some extent. The interview material is analyzed with queer theory and norm critical theories of pedagogy. These perspectives wish to critically examine heteronormativity and change what is defined as normal.

The result of the study shows that the way the library works with separate rainbow shelves, where LGBTQ-themed material is gathered, is pointing out LGBTQ as something different. And although it may also shed a light on a group formerly made invisible, it is reproducing traditional gender identities and leaves heteronormativity unquestioned. By contrast, the way the librarians are working with always including LGBTQ-materials in programming as storytimes and book presentations, is challenging the dominant position of heterosexuality. It is also shown that the way the library staff has developed their written and oral communication with the patrons, including using the gender neutral pronomina ”hen” and alternatives to ”mom and dad”, is increasing the possibilities of an inclusive reception in the library. The oral communication is for various reasons not always used though.

In conclusion the interviews show that the librarians are positive to working with LGBTQ-issues although they sometimes tend to forget. The study further concludes that the library’s way of working with LGBTQ-issues is both reproducing traditional gender identities, and challenging heteronormative structures.

This is a two years master’s thesis in Library and Information Science.