Library Anxiety: Theory, Research and Applications

Citation

Irvine, L. (2007), "Library Anxiety: Theory, Research and Applications", Library Review, Vol. 56 No. 3, pp. 258-259. https://doi.org/10.1108/00242530710736118

Library Anxiety: Theory, Research and Applications represents the first book on this emergent topic in the field of Library and Information Science research. As such it has a multifaceted aim. Although the phenomenon of library anxiety may have been observed for a long time by library staff and other support staff in the academic field, it is only relatively recently that this has been given a name. Over the last three decades, a number of studies have been conducted in this area. Pressures within academia on both students and staff have made the phenomenon more visible and there is an increasing demand for understanding and intervention by staff. This text is a timely source of information on the current research.

The authors of the text are the primary researchers in this field, and the information presented is accurate, current and very comprehensive. As well as pulling together the main strands of research carried out on library anxiety, the writers present new theories and challenges for future research. Thus the text aims to appeal not only to librarians and graduate library students, but also to researchers currently involved in this area. The authors hope also to attract readers from other areas within academia, for example, administrators, counsellors and teaching staff who may be dealing with students with anxieties.

The text follows more or less, a chronological order starting with a detailed look at the Library Anxiety Scale. The scale was developed in 1992 by Sharon Bostick, six years after the concept of library anxiety was first named. It went through an extremely rigorous development phase and has since been used in every quantitative study of library anxiety undertaken. The scale is responsible for giving the topic of library anxiety arms and legs by making it the subject of empirical research internationally. Library anxiety was no longer just observable but measurable.

Chapter 2 looks at the nature and etiology of library anxiety comparing it to other recognised forms of academic anxiety – research anxiety, computer anxiety, test anxiety, writing anxiety etc. Is it the same or different? Is it an amalgam of all of these given that research, computer use and studying for exams are all things that students may do in the library? A number of studies have been conducted which look at the nature of this particular anxiety, its main facets, the behavioural and social tendencies of those most effected and any measurable antecedents. This chapter is a comprehensive literature review of all the published literature on library anxiety at this time and as such is a valuable piece of writing.

Chapter 3 outlines five research models of library anxiety, both conceptual and research‐based. The next three chapters are a more general discussion of research methods, and the final two chapters turn again more specifically to library anxiety. Chapter 7 looks at the issue of prevention and intervention of library anxiety and discusses approaches by colleges and universities to make the library a positive and rewarding environment. The final chapter looks at areas for possible future research.

Although the middle three chapters (4, 5 and 6) do take examples from the research on library anxiety in their discussion of research methodologies, these chapters really sit on their own. In the introduction, the authors make it clear that the book can be used as a mini research methodology textbook for library and library‐related researchers. As a reader this block of detail on the nature and methodologies of research coming in the middle of the text is quite strange. The level of detail and description is impressive but I would rather have seen this at the end of the book than in the middle.

Overall, this is an impressively detailed text on this subject written by the three principal researchers in this field. It provides a comprehensive literature review of the subject, pulling together and discussing the major research that has been undertaken on library anxiety. The authors have an ambitious aim to pull in readers from a wide area of interest, as well as readers with varying levels of research backgrounds. They are successful to some degree. There are some chapters (2 and 7) which will appeal to librarians and other university and college staff and others which are more geared towards researchers (chapters 1, 3 and 8). The middle section on research methodologies could stand on its own.

I would recommend this as the first book in this emergent field of study and for its comprehensive level of detail. The language of some chapters is very academic but there is enough in the more general chapters to appeal to a wider audience. Perhaps enough even to encourage more research amongst librarians as is the wish of the authors.