”So far, we are doing what feels right” : a study of librarians' management ofcontroversial media

The purpose of this bachelor's thesis is to investigate how working librariansmanage controversial media. It builds on three debates in the media about libraries and booksthat have taken place during the years of 2012 and 2013. The questiones asked were: How dolibrarians manage racist media? How do librarians manage media that instructs on how tocommit crimes? How do librarians manage sexually explicit media? And lastly, how dolibrarians manage pressure from outside of the library? The theoretical framework consists ofRobert Hauptmans division of the two kinds of ethical strands of librarianship, in this thesiscalled ”Free information” and ”Information responsibly”. The method used to collectempirical material was qualitative interviews. Three librarians were interviewed during themonths of April and May 2013. The librarians studied were all responsible for purchasingadult media. The study showed that librarians, at least the ones studied, were divided in theirethical thinking. On one side they considered free information to be a cornerstone in what thelibrary stood for, but on the other side they all considered there to be media which should notbe offered at their library. However, on one question they all stood firm in their belief:libraries should never remove media from its collection when told to do so by the media or thepublic. This division has been documented in earlier studies