The Theory of Human Caring and Service Friendly Librarians

Dr. Susan E. HigginsUniversity of Southern MississippiSchool of Library and Information ScienceHattiesburg, MS. USA

Premise

By accepting human caring as a foundational concept of LIS, librarians will be more conscious practitioners.

They will contribute to the professionalism of the field.

Information in this Century

This foundational concept is the best way to influence the future of information in the 21st century.

The Premise is Based on Responsibility

Records of human achievement assist in greater understandings among people everywhere.

Librarians themselves are peacekeepers.

The Premise is Based on The Science of Human Caring

A caring disposition is the greatest asset a librarian can bring to the profession.

The librarian develops a caring disposition along with the knowledge of resources

The Premise is Based on Hospitality

The library is a channel of hospitality, idealism and reverence for culture.

These cannot be seen with the naked eye – only experienced.

The Premise is based on the user a multidimensional person

Users are not just consumers

of information, they are contributors themselves.

Why do we serve?

Librarians are drawn to the profession by their desire to interact or serve those who interact in libraries in a humanistic fashion.

How Can I Serve?

“The librarian’s role is to minimize the inquirer’s intellectual and emotional effort in seeking information.”

Dr. Richard Crouch

Caring Science Questions

How can I intervene? What questions can be asked? How can I enter the user’s informing

processes? How can I deliver what will be informing to

the unique individual asking the question?

The Information Caregiver

Jean Watson’s Theory of Human Caring for nurses is congruent with the traditional role of librarians, predominately women.

Caring science includes multiple and inclusive approaches to inquiry – not just the statistical evidence of hard science.

Carl Rogers – 1902-1987

A psychologist best known for his motivation theory, Self-actualization.

Rogers wrote that this innate tendency for growth motivates all human behavior

The concept is congruent with that of lifelong learning.

Positive Self Regard

Rogers believed that positive self regard is modeled by holding others in positive self regard.

Librarians can begin to minimize an inquirer’s intellectual and emotional effort in seeking information by holding them in a positive light.

Adele Fasick

Librarians welcome and support people in their pursuit of knowledge.

Kay Vandergrift

Kay Vandergrift sees caring for library users as an ethical stance for librarianship.

Ways of knowing and ways of being are interrelated.

Service to children

Historically, public library service to children was to be intelligent and sympathetic

This was considered a philosophical stance It was also ethical that only those who liked

children actually served them.

The Service Mentality

By promoting library service as a caring science, theory and practice are brought together in lifelong learning.

Servant-leadership and librarianship

This management style advocates the ability to listen, be compassionate, encourage growth in people and focus on the community. (Heaphey, James)

Servant-leadership is the antithesis of quantitative, systems based approaches to management.

Managing the Manager

How we manage ourselves and how we are managed by library management itself is also a research context.

Effective Practice

Qualitative approaches to research and qualitative understandings of context are linked to more effective practice.

What will I be tomorrow?

Service friendly librarians will be the most powerful designers of the information and research landscape of tomorrow.

A qualitative research mileau can empower librarians.

References

Boeree, C. George. Carl Rogers 1902-1987. http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/rogers.html

Accessed 5/6/2007 Crouch, Richard Keith. Interpersonal

Communication in the Reference Interview. Doctoral Dissertation. University of Toronto (Canada). DAI 42/10 A., p. 4189, 1981.

References

Fasick, Adele. Guildelines for Children’s Services, Section of Children’s Libraries. Supplement to Guidelines for Public Libraries (1986). IFLA Professional Report No. 25 IFLA, 1991.

Heaphey, James. Servant-leadership in public libraries. Indiana Libraries 25(3), 2006. 22-25

References

Vandergrift, Kay. Journey or Destination: Female Voices in Youth Literature. Htt://www.scils.rutgers.edu/~kvander/books/KAYMOS.pdf

Accessed 12/6/2007 Watson, Jean. Dr. Jean Watson’s Theory of Human

Caring. University of Colorado Health Science Center. www.2uchsc.edu/son/caring/content. Accessed 26/9/2007.