The Swedish institute of racial biology was the first of its kind in the world. The purpose of their activity was to gather information about the different kind of racial characters of the Swedish population. They did this by traveling around the country gathering pictures and statistic information. In 1958 it was decided that the institute was going to get integrated with the University of Uppsala and change its research focus to a more medical genetic. Most of the research material also got integrated into the university’s library.The purpose of this paper is to find out how the institutes collection has been handled through the ages and if there have been any controversy or debate about it. To put it in perspective I also want to see how the University of Uppsala handles other sensitive materials in their collection.The collection has always been open to everyone who wanted to take part of its content. But the documentation of the collections handling has been poor and quite a big part of the collection has been lost, for unknown reasons. The only part of it that has been restricted is the material that contains pictures of naked children. These restrictions were set just a few years ago by Uppsala University, and they are almost ineffective since the librarians have no means to uphold them.There seems to be a lack of discussion about the handling of material of a sensitive nature on behalf of the librarian community. Since there apparently needs to be some sort of restrictions towards some material in the libraries collections, this restrictions need to be discussed so they get the desired effects. / Program: Bibliotekarie

This dissertation examines two daily newspapers’ representations of eugenics from the incipient racial biological investigation 1919 until 1958, and the State Institute for Racial Biology is reorganized. The dissertation also aims to examine whether there are any distinct turning points where the newspapers distance themselves from the ideas and the research of eugenics. The analysis material is based on newspaper articles from two national dailies, i.e., Svenska Dagbladet and Dagens Nyheter. The theoretical framework and method are based on Fairclough’s discourse theory and analysis to observe and elucidate how eugenics is represented over a longer period of time. The conclusion of the dissertation is that the newspapers continuously designate racial biology as something unique and being the salvation from degeneration until Herman Lundborg resigns as head of the institute. After Gunnar Dahlberg took over the managerial position the activities at the Institute changed course and the research undertaken there became engaged in medical genetics and social medicine instead of racial biology. The main argument for the establishment of the institute was that it would provide protection for the Swedish race. The norms and attitudes were more about the science and somewhat about nationalism, while what we now call racism did not seem to be included at all. The discourses about racial biology that have arisen have been maintained in society through the newspapers, as the recipients have been continuously fed with praiseworthy and warning words. This fits with Foucault’s reasoning and theory which he clarifies the fact that discourses are conditioned by how society discusses about something that over time has been an influence on how people are classified or treated by the newspapers that maintains it.