Rainbow shelves, shelves with a LGBTQ theme, are becoming popular in Swedish libraries, and may have been created to counteract the poor indexing of the fiction with LGBTQ themes. The purpose of this thesis is to examine how the books on this shelf are indexed in one Swedish library. In order to do so we first examine the subject headings list used to index fiction to see what LGBTQ subject headings there are and if they are lacking in any way. Then we examine the representation of these subject headings on the rainbow shelf to see how the shortcomings of the list influence the indexing. We also do a content analysis on the books found to have no LGBTQ subject headings to examine why they have been placed on the shelf. Are there shortcomings in the indexing of these books? We use queer theory to suggest that the shortcomings of the indexing is caused by the underlying heteronormativity of our society. We find that many LGBTQ words are not represented in the subject headings list and that heteronormativity is predominant but only made visible through what does not conform to the norm. The most prevalent LGBTQ subject headings in the rainbow shelf are those concerning homosexuality, while bisexuality and transgender subject headings are barely used at all. We find that the indexing of the books without LGBTQ terms in many cases is lacking, but in others it is a question of how you choose to interpret the book.

The aim of this study is to investigate how public libraries work with their LGBTQIA+ collection in regards to collection development as well as the representation of various LGBTQIA+ labels in said library collection. Furthermore, this study will investigate how the librarians themselves cater and view the queer community. The method used in this study was semi-structured interviews with 6 different librarians in the province of Småland. The theoretical framework that was used to analyze the empirical data was social practice, a theory developed by Shove, Pantzar and Watson that is comprised of three components, the elements material, competence and meaning.  The result of this study shows that the majority of librarians are not only positive towards the LGBTQIA+ community but also strive towards making sure their collections are varied in labels, up to date with terminology and more than willing to learn and engage with the queer community. However, the results also show that not all librarians are dedicated to keeping their LGBTQIA+ collection updated and relevant as well as that all three of the components of social practice are needed to ensure that a collection is of good quality and representative.