| Summary: | The purpose of this thesis is to examine how public libraries and school libraries work with genres and subjects which are uncommon, alternative, narrow or appear to be unknown to many people. The focus is on the attitudes and perceptions of library staff responsible for selecting and mediating media. The method was an online survey which was analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively. Most of the theoretical framework comes from research about the public libraries’ role in society and models for marketing. The findings show that there are more positive than negative attitudes towards genres and subjects which are uncommon, alternative, narrow or appear to be unknown to many people. A majority of the library staff consider it to be important or important depending on circumstances for the media to be available and visible. Many of them also intend for the library to be a place where people can meet things they are not familiar with. Motivations for working with the material include creating diversity and that people should be able to make new discoveries and find something that interests them. A common motivation against it is that relatively few library users request the material. It is also considered to be easier for some libraries than others depending on size and type.
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