During the month of April this year, all 12 of the public libraries in Malmö chose to work with a common theme: DEMOCRACY. This fall Sweden holds general elections, so working together on the topic of democracy came as a natural idea to us. But working on this topic also comes natural to us in relation to the democratic mission that has been formulated in the general goals of the City of Malmö as well as the Swedish Library Law. The presentation in Graz is about democratization in both short and long term perspective, as well as why intellectual freedom always is a prerequisite of free access to information and knowledge. And lastly why the public libraries of Malmö have a special responsibility for the democratic mission.