Lilla Hjärtat and all the motley librarians : A study of how Lilla Hjärtat has been handled in public libraries

This bachelor's thesis is an investigation into the public libraries'actions following the debate of Stina Wirséns character LillaHjärtat, featured in picture books and films for young children.The character was accused of being racist, due to its similarity tostereotypes such as pickaninnies. Because of this, the books'existence in public libraries was questioned.The purpose of this study is to investigate how librarians havedealt with these books, and what they have based their decisionson. To explore the background of these decisions we have usedPatrick Wilson's theory of cognitive authority (1983). We haveexamined which cognitive authorities have been used in thedecision-making process of how to handle the books containingLilla Hjärtat, and why these cognitive authorities have beenchosen. The method used in the study is qualitative interviewswith seven librarians working in public libraries throughoutSweden.The results of the interviews show that the librarians’ mostprominent cognitive authorities have been authors and illustratorsof children's books. Journalists and bloggers engaged in thedebate have not been given particularly big authority, and neitherhave laws or guidelines in the library field. We believe the reasonfor this is that those working with children's culture are thoughtof to be more informed in this field than those who don't, whichfinds support in Wilson's description of the theory. The cognitiveauthorities found in the study are mainly persons that thelibrarians are familiar with and have trusted before in similarquestions.Program: Bibliotekari