This essay focuses on strategies for acquisitions in Swedish publiclibraries. The topic has been occuring in the public debate off andon since the70s. The dominant view has been that librarians haveallowed demand direct the purchases of media and thus haveignored quality literature.This debate has caused me to reflect on the librarians constantdilemma when purchasing media. Are they supposed to chooseliterature that are in demand, or should an evaluation made bylibrarians be the decisive?The previous research has shown that the library profession istraditionally characterized by a non-judgmental approach. It alsosuggests that librarians rather talk about their informationintermediary role than their work with acquisitions.My theoretical problem is a somewhat provoking hypothesis thatlibrarians are reluctant to appear as arbiters and that this can havea direct or nondirect impact on acquisitions.My purpose with this paper is to study which one of the selectioncriteria; demand, quality or professional competence is the mostdominant in the texts, an also how the acquisitions are organized.As source material I use collection development policies.From the result of the investigation I conclude that demand is thedominant selection criteria. Thus it is the patron who is put at thecenter, rather than quality and the librarian´s expertise regardingacquisitions. The competence of the librarian is however mentionedin the acquisition process, sometimes in an indirect way, but it isnot highlighted in the texts.I therefore argue that there is evidence to suggest that librarians asprofessionals do not want to emphasize their role as arbiters andthat it affects the media selection in Swedish public libraries. / Program: Masterprogram: Biblioteks- och informationsvetenskap, distansutbildning

The aim of this thesis is to examine the term balanced collection in relation to Swedish laws and the democratic assignment. The Unesco Public Library Manifesto states that libraries are to formulate a policy defining objectives, priorities and services in relation to local community needs. The Swedish Libraries Act, paragraph 7, states that municipalities and counties shall adopt plans for library services. To fulfil our aim we will answer the following questions. By which terms is the democratic assignment visible in Swedish public libraries collection development policies? Is the term balanced collection used in Swedish public libraries collection development policies? If not, are there categories describing balanced collection? Do the terms in Swedish collection development policies differ to the six categories found by Farooq M. Ali in English-speaking literature? And if so, what does this difference suggest? The method used is a qualitative content analysis and we solely examine Swedish public libraries and their written collection development policies – we have not conducted any follow-up interviews. The six different categories found by Farooq M. Ali are analysed in correlation to our coding of the terms stated in the collection development policies of Swedish public libraries. Our survey shows that Ali’s six categories are not that common in Swedish public libraries collection development policies but that there are other categories and terms with the same significance. The most common categories are books, media, representation and the category not violence, pornography or racism. The two least common categories are weeding and demand. / Uppsatsnivå: D