The aim of this study is to look closer at collection development and the use of collection development policies in Swedish public libraries, with the help of a few examples. Through interviews with three librarians in three different public libraries and an analysis of these libraries’ collection development policies, the authors try to find out how the creation of collection development policies takes place in these libraries, how these librarians use the policy, how these policies have been followed up and revised, and also to see what the policies of these libraries include. The material of the study suggests that a lot of work is required to write the policies, and that the written policy itself is seldom used by the librarians. The interviewed librarians still find the policies useful because the writing of them gave a detailed understanding of what the collection of the library contains. The staff was positive to work with creating the policies. The policies are not linked to the goals and missions declared in other documents concerning the libraries’ work. The policies have not been revised or followed up since they were written a few years back. The policies contain details concerning the present state of the collections, but contain very little information aimed at persons outside the library staff. Neither detailed guidelines on selection and deselection nor detailed plans for how the sections of the collections should develop are included. / Program: Bibliotekarie

This bachelor thesis’ purpose is to investigate how purchase librarians work with foreign language collection management. Since about 15% of the citizens of Sweden are born abroad or have a foreign background, the subject of investigation becomes relevant because it touches a wide user group of the public library. Interviews were conducted with four librarians responsible for purchasing of foreign literature. The purpose of these interviews was to investigate which underlying strategies and thoughts are used as a basis for purchasing. Since the library act does not include guidelines regarding the content of the foreign literature collection, how is the literature chosen and to what purpose? As a theoretical framework a self-developed model was used to categorize the foreign literature into its different functions. The foreign literature was divided into two main categories; entertainment reading and literature with an informative purpose. To display the librarians room for interpretation factor in the purchasing of literature a theory from sociology studies was applied, the theory of room for maneuver. The findings in this paper have revealed that literature with the purpose to entertain was prioritized in the purchasing. Even though the libraries included multicultural activities in their organization, by prioritizing the entertainment literature the library tended to deprioritize the potential integration purpose of the literature. The paper also revealed that the individual responsible for the purchasing was left with a large room for interpretation, which meant that one individual had the responsibility to ensure that the literature was relevant and versatile enough for the user group.

The purpose of this study is to describe and analyzes how the bookmobile librarians approach to purchase and selection and the range of views that may exist. The study is based on a qualitative method using a document study and three interviews included. The document study looking closely at public libraries library plans in Vastra Gotalands county. The qualitative interviews gets a closer look at librarians´approach regarding the purchase and selection and also if there are any similarities or differences between mobile library activities versus the main library.The theoretical framework is based on Sanna Taljas study where she has identified three different perspectives on the library´s music department. These are categorized as the interpretative repertoires and involves three categories of approach to quality. These are the general education repertoire, the alternative repertoire and the demand repertoire.The result of this study shows that librarians have a strong user focus when it comes to purchase and selection. They assume and takes into account all three perspectives of which the demand-driven approach seems to be the most dominant in the mobile library. The bookmobile and the main library seem to complement each other in a good way. The document study shows that mobile library activities is rarely highlighted in library plans. / Program: Bibliotekarie

The aim of this bachelor thesis is to examine the different discourses related to freedom of expression linked to collec-tion development that can be identified in and around the public library field. Questions posed in this study are: What discourses can be found and how do they interact? How is the public library’s mission described in relation to freedom of expression and collection development within each dis-course? Which subject positions are visible in the debate? The theoretical starting-point is Ernesto Laclau’s and Chantal Mouffe’s discourse theory. The used method is discourse an-alytic, but since Laclau and Mouffe provide no explicit step by step method how to use their theory, we have had to find inspiration in other discourse analytic papers. 38 articles from library journals and daily newspapers were analyzed. The re-sult of the analysis reveals three discourses: a libertarian dis-course, a profession-centred discourse and a reflexive dis-course. From a professional point of view selection, based on professional considerations, is a necessity since no public li-brary is able to stock everything. From a libertarian perspec-tive, the public library’s mission is to serve the public with-out any censorship filters. The main position in the reflexive discourse is that freedom of expression is negotiated in dia-logue with vulnerable groups to ensure a public library for all. Based on the result of the analysis we draw the conclu-sion that the interpretations of laws and guidelines differ within the public library discourse. We therefore propose a clearer national coordination on collection development strat-egies.

This bachelor's thesis purpose is to investigate how librarians think about the acquisitions of material to the library and to investigate the routines they follow in their work with the libraries collections. We also aim to investigate whether or not they think about building broad and balanced collections that represents all members of society. The questions asked are: do the librarians consciously work toward building a collection that offers something for everybody? Which groups of people do the librarians prioritize in their work with the library’s collection? Do librarians actively reflect about the content of the material they acquire? Our theoretical framework consists of a cultural science theory by Stuart Hall that claims that the discourse about objects construct how we think about the object and how we behave towards the object. The method used in this study to collect empirical data is qualitative interviews where six librarians who worked with acquisition in the library answered questions about their work regarding how they build the library’s collection. The study shows that the librarians actively work to build broad and balanced collections, however, they do not think about representation in the context of Stuart Hall. They think more practically about giving their patrons the tools to use the library and to integrate into society, rather than thinking about including them in the contents of the literature in the library’s collection. The librarians all believe that reading fiction affects the one reading it, but they are hesitant to govern the content in the literature they acquire to the library, because they feel this would violate the democratic purpose of libraries.

The purpose of this Bachelor's thesis is to analyse how librarians approach selection and acquisition of children's and young adult literature written in languages other than Swedish. What aspects do they look at when making their selection and how do they decide that a book lives up to the library's standards if they cannot read the book themselves? In order to answer these research questions a series of telephone interviews were conducted with librarians working in different municipalities. The selection of municipalities to include in the study was based on official statistics depicting the amount of immigrants who moved to each municipality during 2015. The theory used in this study is based on Sanna Talja's study about different attitudes towards the library's collection. The attitudes are referred to as "General Education Repertoire", the "Alternative Repertoire" and the "Demand Repertoire". These attitudes were also used as a framework when analysing the information from my own interviews. The results show that all of the interviewed librarians are eager to fulfil their patron's demands while also staying true to their own ideas of what the library should provide in regards to content, diversity and quality.

Denna kandidatuppsats har som syfte att undersöka hur arbetet med icke-normativ litteratur i bibliotek ser ut och hur begreppet icke-normativ litteratur tolkas av bibliotekarier mot en bakgrund av medieplanering. Detta besvarades med hjälp av de tre forskningsfrågorna: Hur arbetar bibliotekarier med icke-normativ litteratur på bibliotek och hur kan man koppla detta till medieplanering? Vilka utmaningar finns för bibliotekarier när de arbetar med icke-normativ litteratur? Hur ser bibliotekariers tolkning av icke-normativ litteratur ut? Studiens empiriska data samlades in genom kvalitativa intervjuer med fem bibliotekarier. Intervjuerna transkriberades och analyserades genom en tematisk analys, där tre teman identifierades: Normer och det normbrytande arbetet; det personliga engagemanget; samarbete. Studiens resultat visade att bibliotekarierna arbetar med normer och normbrytande genom att lyfta fram litteratur som ses som icke-normativ. Det oftast förekommande exemplet var hbtq, men exempel som serier och mångspråk förekom också. Arbetet med denna litteratur genomförs med personligt engagemang från bibliotekariernas sida, eftersom de utan formellt ansvar ändå engagerade sig i litteraturen. De var dock inte ensamma i sitt arbete med denna litteratur, utan samarbetade med exempelvis både kollegor på biblioteket och på andra bibliotek. Arbetet och samarbetet i enlighet med aspekter från Quicks (2021) tre typer av medieplaner. Slutsatsen som kom fram var att respondenternas arbete med den icke-normativa litteraturen främst tycks ha aspekter från medieplantypen kommuninvånarnas behov. Begreppet icke-normativ litteratur tolkades bland annat som hbtq-litteratur, men även som andra litteraturkategorier av bibliotekarierna som deltog i studien.

Studiens syfte var att undersöka faktorer som påverkar bokinköp vid folkbibliotek samt undersöka de inköpsansvarigas uppfattning om begreppet kvalitet och hur kompetens förhåller sig till inköpsprocessen. Datainsamlingen utgörs av semistrukturerade djupintervjuer gjorda med 6 inköpsansvariga på folkbibliotek inom samma län. Studien visar att den största faktorn som påverkar inköpen är låntagarna, och ytterligare faktorer som påverkar är ekonomiska, externa aktörer och bibliotekens samarbete i länet. De inköpsansvariga uppfattar kvalitet som någonting subjektivt, och att de måste balansera efterfrågan mot litterär kvalitet. Viktiga kompetenser som framkommer är social kompetens och analytisk kompetens samt erfarenhet och personligt intresse.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine how public libraries and school libraries work with genres and subjects which are uncommon, alternative, narrow or appear to be unknown to many people. The focus is on the attitudes and perceptions of library staff responsible for selecting and mediating media. The method was an online survey which was analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively. Most of the theoretical framework comes from research about the public libraries’ role in society and models for marketing.  The findings show that there are more positive than negative attitudes towards genres and subjects which are uncommon, alternative, narrow or appear to be unknown to many people. A majority of the library staff consider it to be important or important depending on circumstances for the media to be available and visible. Many of them also intend for the library to be a place where people can meet things they are not familiar with. Motivations for working with the material include creating diversity and that people should be able to make new discoveries and find something that interests them. A common motivation against it is that relatively few library users request the material. It is also considered to be easier for some libraries than others depending on size and type.

Svensk titel:Mångfald i biblioteksbestånd: en undersökning av biografieroch mediestrategiskt arbete på ett folkbibliotek English title:Diversity in library collections: a study about biographiesand library collection development in a public libraryFörfattare/Author:Klara Ferneman Handledare/Supervisor:Per WisselgrenSammanfattning/Abstract: This paper explores the diversity of the biography section in a swedishpublic library. It examines representation from different parts of the world, and also if there are patterns in what subjects certain parts of the world are represented by. The role of diversity in library collections is drawn from the concepts of cultural competence and social justice. The results are discussed in comparison with the collection development plan.The methods used are both quantitative and qualitative content analyses. The collection of biographies is examined and categorized by which part of the world the subject was linked to according to the library catalogue. The study also includes interviews with the librarians to associate the results with the practice of collection development at the library in question.The findings show that the collection have an overrepresentation of biographies with European subjects and that the books from parts outside the so-called western world only included a limited kind of subjects, like terrorism and war. The interviews show the librarians experienced that they had limited ability to work with diversity, mainly because the policy documents are lacking clear incentive to focus on making the collections more diverse and also because the economic framework won’t allow it.