Emotional Labor in the Academic Library: When Being Friendly Feels Like Work

The Emotional Labour of Public Library Work

“…In certain gendered careers, such as nursing, emotional work is undervalued, goes largely unrecognized economically, and is not seen as an asset to one's job (Gray, 2010). Organizational scholars have recognized the demanding nature of emotional work, but practitioners in organizations have traditionally focused on the pragmatic aspects of work life (Shuler & Morgan, 2013). Organizations have neglected the emotional aspects of performing jobs, particularly those in the service industry, which includes library work environments (Shuler & Morgan, 2013).…”

“…For better or worse, library workers learn these "feeling rules" (Hochschild, 1983, p. 5) through organizational guidelines and expectations from the profession of librarianship (Julien & Genuis, 2009). Recently, researchers have explored various facets of emotional labour in library work; notably, professional guiding principles of service and their effect on emotional labour, the effects on job satisfaction and burnout, and how organizations recognize or ignore emotional labour work (see, for example, Emmelhainz et al, 2017;Matteson & Miller, 2013;Matteson et al, 2015;Peng, 2015;Shuler & Morgan, 2013). The difficulties inherent in public library work, including the factors that contribute to stress, are commonly explored phenomena (Jordan, 2014).…”

Det åpne bibliotek

“…Oppsummert fant Shuler & Morgan (2013) at det forventes at bibliotekarer utfører emosjonelt arbeid, men at de ikke nødvendigvis har fått opplaering i hvordan dette skal utføres. I tillegg opplever bibliotekarene ikke alltid at det verdsettes at de utfører et slikt arbeid.…”

Affective Aspects of Instruction Librarians’ Decisions to Adopt New Teaching Practices: Laying the Groundwork for Incremental Change

“…13 Sherianne Shuler and Nathan Morgan propose that "a fuller picture of emotional labor in the library context is needed that includes an understanding of the emotions librarians experience and an appreciation of the work that must be done to cope with those emotions." 14 Nolen, Ward, and Horn emphasize the contextual nature of teachers' motivation to learn, indicating an individualized research project rather than a generalized one, like their "four-year person-centered ethnography" of eight novice teachers to which they apply a theoretical framework of learning in social context. 15 Miriam Matteson and Shelly Miller recommend a research agenda that supplements quantitative research with "qualitative methods that would capture individual accounts of emotional labor."…”