This thesis analyses two debates in the Swedish press concerning what should or should not be the at public libraries. The first is a local debate in 1973, the second is a more widespread debate in 1983. The purpose is to try to identify the 70’s and 80’s ideas of the role of the library and the librarian. This is done with the help of Laclau and Mouffe´s discourse analyses. The study also seeks to compare the two debates to see which discourses stay on and which disappear, and thereby to connect it to changes and trends in society. While discourse analysis has previously been used to analyse debates about the library, the debates of this time has not been looked at or analysed this way. The result of this study shows that in 1973 the debate was dominated by a struggle between the mass educative/nurturing discourse, connected to a more traditional role of the library and the reading promotive discourse which saw reading itself as important and popular literature as a stairway to what they called “better books”. In both these discourses good and bad literature were clearly defined. Less prevalent in 1973 were a culture democratic discourse as well as a commercial resistant discourse. In the 1983-debate the mass educative/nurturing discourse seemed to be waning as the discussion around good and bad literature was now less about the language and more about a stereotype resistant discourse. This in turn was connected to the fact that a discourse of cultural relativism had become very prevalent, connected to a postmodern turn. It differed from the earlier culture democratic discourse which it had virtually replaced in that it was less focused on a library for everyone and more about questioning the right of anyone to be the judge of quality.