The purpose of this paper is to explore branch librarians’ ideals for mediating fiction and their view on the literature that are distributed by the Swedish Arts council. The study is based on the following questions: How do branch librarians reflect about mediating fiction? How do they express their view and their work with literature that are distributed by the Swedish Arts council? And which ideals of mediating can be distinguished from these expressions? To answer these questions a qualitative examination based on interviews with four branch librarians where used. The empiric material where then analysed by Jofrid Karner Smidt’s theory about different ideals for mediating fiction. Smidt’s theory is published in her doctor’s dissertation Mellom elite og publikum. Following conclusions are drawn from the study: we saw that there are multiple ideals regarding how to mediate fiction and that these ideals often co-operate side by side of each other but conflicts do occur in some cases. The librarians have a positive view on the literature that is distributed by the Swedish Arts council and believes that the books contribute to a broad and high quality library collection. The librarians express a wish to increase the loans for these books by mediating or market them. We believe that a solution could be that the Swedish Arts council contributed not only with books but also with some marketing assistance to the libraries.

The purpose of this master's thesis is to study how librarians at public libraries make the literature with state supported distribution available through marketing. By qualitative interviews with nine heads of libraries the thesis examines how the library staff in each library market the state supported distribution by the Swedish Art Council. My theoretical framework is based on Philip Kotler's thesis on marketing. My conclusion is that the library staff rather market the library as whole, than focus on just one specific type of books. The attitudes toward the state supported distribution are a mixed one, but the library staff is glad for what is given.

The aim of this study is to investigate librarians’ opinions about books supported by the government and delivered for free to the main public libraries in every community. The study is also investigating how the governmentally supported books affect the process of buying books for the public libraries and how the librarians think about quality and mediation in the acquisition. The analysis is based upon interviews with six librarians that are responsible for the purchasing at five main libraries in small communities in the South of Sweden. The results from the interviews are discussed and analyzed from the perspective of mediation. Two authors who focus on this theory are the Norwegians Jofrid Karner Smidt and Åse Kristine Tveit. Smidt has done her own investigation among the staff at Norwegian libraries and Tveit is presenting a model with four types of intermediary. Some of these types have been found in the results of this investigation. The interviews show that the librarians have very different opinions concerning the governmentally supported books, but no one is all positive or all negative. None of the respondents are very anxious to mediate a certain book or a certain type of books; their main concern is that people read in the first place. The main things that are affecting the decisions in the process of buying books are inquiries from the borrowers and the governmentally supported books are having very little influence in the process. / Uppsatsnivå: D

The purpose of this master’s thesis is to study attitudes and standpoints among a few librarians towards literature with state supported distribution provided by the Swedish Arts Council. By qualitative interviews with librarians at five different public libraries, the thesis examines which attitudes that flourish concerning the titles, how the circular of books is treated, where the titles belong on the literature map and if the system is producing a standardisation of this literature and if the conception of quality is relevant. We also study how the librarians relate to intentions of the Swedish Art Council with the distributed titles and how they regard their availability. Our theoretical framework is based on Hans Hertel’s model of five literary circulations and Theodor W. Adorno’s thesis about the cultural industry and the standardisation of culture. The theories were used to put the state supported titles and the system in a larger context. Our conclusion is that it is a complex question with mixed emotions among the involved librarians. The attitudes are both positive and negative, and the incorporation of the distributed titles in the libraries collection of literature depends on which attitude they take. The state supported distribution system is also losing some of its legitimacy because of a broader selection of literature. The interviewed librarians mean that the selection made by the Swedish Arts Council is taken both from popular and quality literature. The librarians ask for more guidance from the Swedish Arts Council, publishing houses and authors in their work with those titles. / Uppsatsnivå: D

Syftet med denna uppsats är att analysera debatter och diskurser i svenska medier kring  Kulturrådets litteraturstöd från 2009 och fram till och med 2021. Det empiriska materialet består av 22 artiklar  hämtade från dags- och kvällspress. Genom att använda diskursanalys som teori och metod problematiseras flera  debatter. Frågor som ställs är: Vilka föreställningar om litteraturstödet kommer till uttryck i debatten? Vilka  positioner intar de olika rösterna i debatten? Vilka diskurser framträder i litteraturstödsdebatten och vad  kännetecknar dessa? Metod och teori utgår från Hedemarks användning av diskursteori. I analysen framträder tre  diskurser: en armlängdsdiskurs, en kvalitetsdiskurs samt diskursen mångfald och kommersiell likriktning.  Analysen avslöjade att kulturskribenter som politiker ofta har en framträdande position och ett stort inflytande  över innehållet i debatterna, och att dessa upplever att de styrande ignorerar principen om armlängds avstånd till  kulturskapande. Debattörerna är oense om kvalitetsbedömning men även om hur mycket innehållet ska beaktas  vid beslut om stöd. De professionella i form av bibliotekarier deltog inte alls. Vi menar att denna osynlighet är ett  resultat av att bara vissa släpps in i debatten, men också att det i slutänden är upp till varje enskilt bibliotek hur  förmedlingen av litteraturstödda titlar går till. / The aim of this thesis is to analyse debates and discourses in Swedish media about the support of  literature from the Swedish cultural council from 2009 and up to and including 2021. The empirical material  consists of 22 articles derived from the daily press, and by using discourse analysis as theory and methodology,  several debates are problematized. Questions posed in this study are: What views of the support of literature are  expressed in the debates? What positions do the different voices occupy in the debate? What discourses emerge  and what characterises these? The theoretical and methodological framework is based on Hedemark’s use of  discourse theory. In the analysis three discourses appear: an arm's length discourse, a quality discourse and a  diversity and a commercial one-dimensionality discourse. The analysis revealed that cultural writers as well as  politicians often have a prominent position and a great influence over the content of the debates, and that they are  of the perception that the government ignores the principle of arm’s length distance to cultural creation. The  debaters are arguing over quality judgment, but also how much importance should be considered regarding the  content when deciding which titles to support. The professionals, e.g., librarians, however, did not participate in  the debates. We believe that this invisibility is a result of only some being admitted into the debate, but also in the  end, it is up to each library how the dissemination of literature-supported titles takes place.