"Jag tycker inte det är vår uppgift att få moralpanik" : Barn- och ungdomsbibliotekariers inställningar och förhållningssätt till #BookTok

Sammanfattning

TikTok and its sub-community #BookTok have in recent years surged in popularity and has had a tremendous impact on the global reading industry and the popularity of reading amongst the younger generation. Within the Swedish library community this has also been the cause of multiple debates about which books belong in the library. The aim of this study is to examine how children's and youth librarians view BookTok-related literature, particularly in light of the tension between professional responsibility, promotion of literature, and the public library's democratic mission. This is done through group interviews with ten librarians working at five different public libraries in southern Sweden. The results of the interviews are analysed using three different theoretical perspectives: Smidt's (1994) theory of the librarian as a literary promoter, Frid's (2012; 2016) promotion paradigms, and Cohen's (2001) theory of denial. The results show that the librarians generally had a positive view of BookTok and its' influence on the reading habits of young people. When it comes to the democratic mission the librarians primarily connected it to matters of providing literature and the ability of young people to influence the books on the library shelves. In matters of professional responsibility, the librarians mainly showed implicatory denial through rationalising away their literary promotional responsibility due to fear of censorship and executing too much control.