| Summary: | My master’s thesis is a study of acquisition of photographies during 1958-2008. The questions I proceed from is what patterns lies behind the Royal library's acquisition of photography and how the process of acquisition looks like. The theoretical base which I lean on consists partly of a problematization of the process of cultural heritage and partly of organizational theory. The problematization of the process of cultural heritage is my foundation of this essay. My starting point is that the Royal library make a choice when they collect material to be a cultural heritage and the memories gathered for future generations. I used organizational theory to find answer to how the collection been gathered through studies of the organizations interaction with the members of the organization, the process in the organizations, like goals and policy, and the organizations interaction with other organizations. I used case-study as my method. I interviewed most of the chiefs who were in charge of the unit during the period 1958-2008 and worked through journals of acquisition, annual reports, letters of regulation, exchange of letters and other in-house material. My results are that the acquisition of photography follows the Royal library's acquisition of picture at large. The culture heritage that the library collect for future generations is based on the content rather than the form of the material. This aspect was founded early in the creation of the library and has kept its status as a guiding line ever since. The main categories of collection are based on the motif of the photography and are the following; portrait, topography and events. Events is a new category but a sequel of an old category, historical wall chart. The material that the photographies are made of has varied but the majority have been photographies on paper. Gifts and purchases have been the most common ways for the library to collect photographies. Gifts have been treated differently through the years, from the beginning all gifts were received and the library asked actively for special gifts, later the library decided whether or not they should accept a gift. The policy from both the library and from the government have been vague, but lately they have been working on a new and more detailed policy from 2008.
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