?I valet och kvalet? Urvals- och inköpsstrategier på svenska folkbibliotek
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.