Klassiker på barn- och ungdomsbiblioteket : Bibliotekariens arbete med barn- och ungdomslitteraturens klassiker

Sammanfattning: Introduction. This empirical study investigates the attitudes of Swedish public librarians who work in the children’s and/or young adult departments, towards children’s literary classics. This is achieved by examining work with the Classics shelf, a genre classification located in the children’s or young adult section. Method. The empirical material consists of transcripts from interviews with seven children’s and young adult public librarians in four Swedish municipalities, the Classics shelves and the libraries’ policy documents. Analysis. The Classics shelves’ genre definition, target group and location were investigated and compared to the libraries’ policy documents. Interview transcripts were examined in regard to the explicit contents of the participants’ statements and divided in themes by perceptions of value, function and use of the literature in a library context. Magnus Persson’s concept of myths describing naturalised perceptions of literature was used to interpret attitudes. A concluding analysis was conducted using the discourse theories of Michel Foucault, Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe. Results. The analysis indicated both shared and conflicting attitudes to children’s and young adult literary classics, with perceptions predominantly taken for granted. Three coexisting discourses were identified: the Reading experience discourse, the Durability discourse and the Fresh discourse. These are mainly tied to different tasks and influenced by the librarians’ preconceived notions, workplace management and external influences such as media debates, with the user perspective as a prerequisite. Conclusion. The results show that the librarian accommodates contradictory and ambivalent views of children’s and young adult literary classics in the library. Literature is mediated indirectly and directly, and expresses the librarian’s personal experience rather than a professional identity. This is a two years master’s thesis in Library and Information Science.