The purpose of this master’s thesis is to investigate children’s librarian’s perspectives on children’s literature and reading of fiction books. This is a comparative study of Swedish and Lithuanian librarians. The main questions to be answered are how children’s librararians at public libraries motivate their selection and purchase of fiction for children and what kind of considerations there are behind the purchases. The thesis is based on four qualitative interwiews with children’s librarians in Sweden and Lithuania. The theoretical perspective of the thesis is based on a model of the three different approaches to children’s literature and reading - the pragmatic, the traditional and the emancipated. As a result we can see that all informants to a greater or less extent apply all of the pragmatic, the traditional or the emancipated views on children’s reading in selection and purchase of books, depending on several circumstances. Still, we can see that priority has been given to the emancipated and the pragmatic approach by the Swedish librarians, while the Lithuanian librarians give priority to the traditional approach. / Program: Bibliotekarie

The purpose of this thesis is to describe and understand the existing factors behind the selection of foreign newspapers in Swedish public libraries. We wanted to study this subject because the political situation in many countries is reflected in the newspapers and can cause difficulties in the selection process. Examples of this can be how to avoid newspapers with political propaganda and with censored content. Another reason for our interest in this subject is based on our prejudice that newspapers from other countries are important for people with foreign background. To answer the question we have conducted qualitative interviews with five persons who are responsible for the purchase of foreign newspapers at four libraries. The theoretical framework consists of hermeneutics. While analyzing the interviews we have used the hermeneutic spiral as an instrument. We found several factors behind the selection of foreign newspapers and we divided them into four categories: factors for purchase, factors for none purchase, selection criterions and “signs” of “objectivity” and “neutrality”. The most significant factor for purchase was if the library received a purchase proposal from visitors. Economy was regarded as the largest obstacle for not to purchase. Furthermore, request was the most important selection criteria. All of our respondents tried to have a wide selection of political opinions represented at the library even if they only could afford one single newspaper for each region in question. In that case they purchased a newspaper as neutral as possible. Those libraries that could afford several newspapers from each region achieved political distribution by buying newspapers from different countries of publication and at the same time they could avoid buying newspapers with censured content or with political propaganda.