cecilia elsen - how can library anxiety play a positive role on students' identity? a...
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How can library anxiety play a positive role on students' identity?
A philosophical approach to anxiety and academic libraries
Cecilia Elsen
Oslo and Akershus University College of Applied Sciences
Online Oxford dictionnaries
• "a feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease about something with an uncertain outcome” (general)
• “a nervous disorder marked by excessive uneasiness and apprehension, typically with compulsive behavior or panic attacks” (in psychiatry)
Heidegger's anxiety – An overview
• Anxiety is essential to reveal someone’s existence
• Anxiety is not fear!
• I fear something concrete but I am anxious about something abstract
• I experience anxiety when I realize I am not «one» with the world
Moxnes' anxiety
• Anxiety reduces the fear for tomorrow
• Anxiety's task is to create security
• Difficult to give a proper and accurate definition
• «the sick anxiety» vs «the healthy anxiety»
• Anxiety as a form for intelligence
Definition by the Online Dictionary for Library and Information Science:
• Confusion, fear, and frustration felt by a library user
• Lacking experience, when faced with the need to find information in a library
• Library anxiety may be one cause of academic procrastination among college and university students
Constance Mellon, "Library anxiety: a grounded theory and its development" (1986)
• Qualitative study
• Explored the feeling of students about using the library for research
• 75 to 85% response in terms of fear.
• (1) students generally feel that their own library-use skills are inadequate while the skills of other students are adequate
• (2) the inadequacy is shameful and should be hidden
• (3) the inadequacy would be revealed by asking questions.
More about Mellon's paper
• "feeling intimidated, embarrassed, and overwhelmed by libraries and librarians"
• College students believe their research skills are inadequate
• They feel ashamed and unwilling to talk to librarians
• Feeling of being lost: (1) the size of the library; (2) a lack of knowledge about where things were located; (3) how to begin, and (4) what to do
Sharon Bostick’s Library Anxiety Scale (LAS), 1992
• (1) barriers with library staff
• (2) affective barriers
• (3) comfort with the library
• (4) knowledge of the library
• (5) mechanical barriers
(From Online Dictionary for Library and Information Science)
«Positive anxiety»
• Everyday anxiety is a constructive force if the conditions are right
• This anxiety is necessary to take good decisions
• Anxiety related to freedom
• Anxiety is a tool for the construction of the self
• Library anxiety as an identity-builder (if mastered)
Conclusion
• Quite common for new students to experience library anxiety because theyare put into an unfamiliar situation
• One has to go through this process to gain autonomy and to be able to getthe information one need
• One need to overcome libray anxiety to feel more at home in the library
• Students will gain independance and higher self-esteem and self-confidence