Healing, witches and holistic thinking. A study of the availability of new age literature in public libraries

The purpose of this masters thesis is to find out if public libraries provide new age materials or not. My research is done using the point of view of the library users. Do they think libraries hold a sufficient amount of new age literature and do the users find this literature of good quality? To find an answer to this question, interviews have been made with a number of library users interested in new age related issues. Interviews have also been made with librarians, to get their point of view on this rather controversial subject. The theoretical part of this masters thesis consists of literature concerning quality, the tasks of public libraries when it comes to buying materials on demand, and the new age movement and its supporters. The results show that new age supporters in this study are mainly quite satisfied with the new age literature which is provided by the public libraries in a city in Sweden, where this study has been made. Although librarians in some ways are hesitant to buy new age literature, the supply of this kind of books has largely increased in the last few years.Uppsatsnivå: