This bachelor's thesis is an investigation into the public libraries' actions following the debate of Stina Wirséns character Lilla Hjärtat, featured in picture books and films for young children. The character was accused of being racist, due to its similarity to stereotypes such as pickaninnies. Because of this, the books' existence in public libraries was questioned. The purpose of this study is to investigate how librarians have dealt with these books, and what they have based their decisions on. To explore the background of these decisions we have used Patrick Wilson's theory of cognitive authority (1983). We have examined which cognitive authorities have been used in the decision-making process of how to handle the books containing Lilla Hjärtat, and why these cognitive authorities have been chosen. The method used in the study is qualitative interviews with seven librarians working in public libraries throughout Sweden. The results of the interviews show that the librarians’ most prominent cognitive authorities have been authors and illustrators of children's books. Journalists and bloggers engaged in the debate have not been given particularly big authority, and neither have laws or guidelines in the library field. We believe the reason for this is that those working with children's culture are thought of to be more informed in this field than those who don't, which finds support in Wilson's description of the theory. The cognitive authorities found in the study are mainly persons that the librarians are familiar with and have trusted before in similar questions.