The Theory of Human Caring and Service Friendly Librarians

1
The Theory of Human Caring and Service Friendly
Librarians

• Dr. Susan E. Higgins
• University of Southern Mississippi
• School of Library and Information Science
• Hattiesburg, MS.
• USA

2
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.

3
Information in this Century

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

4
The Premise is Based on Responsibility

• Records of human achievement assist in greater
  understandings among people everywhere.
• Librarians themselves are peacekeepers.

5
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

6
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.

7
The Premise is based on the user a
multidimensional person

• Users are not just consumers
• of information, they are contributors themselves.
  

8
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.

9
How Can I Serve?

• The librarians role is to minimize the
  inquirers intellectual and emotional effort in
  seeking information.
• Dr. Richard Crouch

10
Caring Science Questions

• How can I intervene?
• What questions can be asked?
• How can I enter the users informing processes?
• How can I deliver what will be informing to the
  unique individual asking the question?

11
The Information Caregiver

• Jean Watsons 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.

12
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.

13
Positive Self Regard

• Rogers believed that positive self regard is
  modeled by holding others in positive self
  regard.
• Librarians can begin to minimize an inquirers
  intellectual and emotional effort in seeking
  information by holding them in a positive light.

14
Adele Fasick

• Librarians welcome and support people in their
  pursuit of knowledge.

15
Kay Vandergrift

• Kay Vandergrift sees caring for library users as
  an ethical stance for librarianship.
• Ways of knowing and ways of being are
  interrelated.

16
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.

17
The Service Mentality

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

18
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.

19
Managing the Manager

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

20
Effective Practice

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

21
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.

22
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.

23
References

• Fasick, Adele. Guildelines for Childrens
  Services, Section of Childrens 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

24
References

• Vandergrift, Kay. Journey or Destination Female
  Voices in Youth Literature. Htt//www.scils.rutge
  rs.edu/kvander/books/KAYMOS.pdf
• Accessed 12/6/2007
• Watson, Jean. Dr. Jean Watsons Theory of Human
  Caring. University of Colorado Health Science
  Center. www.2uchsc.edu/son/caring/content.
  Accessed 26/9/2007.