The stalemate in the libraries has been a recurring topic in the social debate in recent years, with strong opinions both on how serious the situation is and what it is due to. At the same time, the documentation has many times been small or based on individual libraries.

Now the trade union DIK has sent a survey to 4,761 members with library education, in order to get a clearer picture of the situation. Since the response rate is relatively low - 34 percent - it is difficult to draw general conclusions from the result. But according to DIK (Trade Union for Culture, Communication and Advertising), it is the third survey in a row that points to the same thing: Development is going in the wrong direction.

In "Society is withdrawing - a report on the working environment in our libraries", 1 618 Swedish librarians tell of a bleak development in several areas. The biggest problem is social unrest, which has increased from 73 percent in 2017 to 81 percent of Swedish libraries today. Social unrest refers to riot, ineptitude and aggressiveness towards staff or visitors.

"Nobody should have to face these kinds of situations in their workplace," says Stina Hamberg, community manager at DIK.

- Librarians are not trained for this, they work with reading promotion and information retrieval. Not dealing with drunk people, mentally ill or socially vulnerable people.

The violence is increasing sharply

The majority of respondents describe the stroke as a problem a couple of times a year, but the most vulnerable libraries report on events several times a week (18 percent) or daily (4 percent).

"Many want special treatment - free of charge, write off debt, borrow for as long as possible - and become aggressive when they don't get what they want," says one of the librarians in the survey.

One of the most dramatic increases has occurred in violence and violent incidents. Today, 55 percent of public library staff and 42 percent of responding school librarians say there have been violent situations in the past two years, an increase of 13 and 18 percentage points, respectively, compared to 2017.

- It can be less threatening situations like throwing a book at someone, but in the worst cases, it is physical violence against librarians or visitors, in fact abuse, says Stina Hamberg, head of social policy at DIK.

The report also shows a previously unknown extent of drug trafficking in the libraries, where 47 percent of the responding public libraries state that drug trafficking has taken place in the premises over the past two years.

One in six women is harassed

The problems of social unrest, threats and violence are greatest in public libraries in Swedish suburbs and in smaller cities, while the situation in metropolitan centers, rural areas and universities seems to be better. 11 per cent of librarians have been exposed to threats over the past two years, and there is a marked decrease compared to 2017.

New for this year's survey is statistics on sexual harassment. It appears that every sixth female librarian in the survey has been subjected to sexual harassment or abuse since 2017. This may involve unwanted intimidation and comments, but several women also report problems with men who surf or masturbate openly in the premises.

Despite these concerns, the majority of Swedish librarians generally do not feel threatened in the service. 97 percent say that they usually or always feel safe at work. However, every fifth librarian has considered resigning or changing jobs since 2017.

The trade union DIK's survey is made in a questionnaire. 1618 union librarians responded, and the response rate was 34 percent.