“If the rubbers don’t fit we might have to offer a straw boater in the same size?” : A study of librarians’ views on purchasing fiction literature in public libraries

The purpose of this bachelor thesis is to accomplish an understanding for how librarians purchase fiction literature in public libraries. To answer these questions, we have performed four qualitative interviews with librarians in three Swedish municipalities. We have also performed a smaller document study to give us an overview of the used guidelines at the selected libraries. The results of our survey have been analyzed on the basis of our revised version of Sanna Talja’s model The Interpretative Repertoires of the Music Library. Our findings show that the librarians in our study are using several documented guidelines and standards in their work. The standards considered to be most important appear to be the librarians own experiences, while the library’s cultural documents and library plans are their primary source for guidelines. The purchase process is handled differently in all of our examined libraries, and because of the literary institution’s constant change, there could be several problems concerning selection when it comes to quality. The public’s demand for literature is considered a priority when the interviewed librarians make their selection, which is also influenced by the librarians’ own tastes