Emotional labour in librarianship: an unpublished case study and postscript

Sandham, Mark and Steinberg, Carola Emotional labour in librarianship: an unpublished case study and postscript., 2010 (Unpublished) [Report]

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English abstract

University students are increasingly disregarding library rules, leading to emotionally demanding rule-enforcement in library reading rooms. A librarian at the University of the Witwatersrand kept a record of the incidents that evoked his emotions during twelve episodes of rule-enforcement. He then interviewed ten other librarians with regard to rule-enforcement. The investigation confirmed that misbehaviour is widespread and that where librarians oppose this with rule-enforcement they perform much emotional labour. Nonetheless, the majority of librarians claimed it did not affect their job satisfaction seriously.

Item type: Report
Keywords: Emotional labour; Higher education libraries; Rule-enforcement in libraries; Librarian-patron relations; Noise in libraries
Subjects: G. Industry, profession and education. > GE. Staff.
C. Users, literacy and reading. > CB. User studies.
Depositing user: Fatima Darries
Date deposited: 31 May 2010
Last modified: 02 Oct 2014 12:17
URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10760/14600

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