The purpose of this Master`s thesis is to examine if the pur-chase of media in public libraries reflects the library's role in society. Two questions have been posed: • What view of public library's role in society is reflected in the purchase of media? • What principles guide the selection of media in public li-braries in Sweden? In order to investigate these questions, we used a question-naire that we sent out to a sample of 120 public libraries in Sweden. The analysis is based on a theory of three ap-proaches to the role of the library developed by Douglas Raber. The three approaches are the conservative approach, the populist approach and the social approach. The results of the survey show that all three approaches are represented in varying degrees and priorities are usually expressed in and guided by library plans. User demands are the central basis for the libraries purchases. Children and young people are the largest groups of users in libraries and are generally the priority of library plans.