Library Anxiety and Institutional Literacy ADDRESSING POTENTIAL BARRIERS TO INFORMATION LITERACY BRAD DOERKSEN, STUDENT SUCCESS LIBRARIAN UNIVERSITY OF REGINA Library Anxiety and Institutional Literacy AGENDA: •What is institutional literacy? •How does it relate to library anxiety? •How does a personal librarian program try to address this? •Questions and feedback What is Institutional Literacy? Practices that are promoted, supported, and structured by dominant institutions. (Iorio, 2016, p. 167) What is Institutional Literacy? Practices that are promoted, supported, and structured by dominant institutions. Practices that function to separate insiders and outsiders of various domains, resulting in insiders who are literate in a set of actions, vocabulary, ways of communicating, and other practices that govern how things are done. Habitus A set of ingrained dispositions and ways of being and doing that are generally invisible to the person, generally appearing to us as common sense or what comes naturally. (Darity et al eds., 2008, p. 404-406; Weber, 2013, p. 173) Multiliteracies and Student Success A range of literacies required to participate in a range of overlapping literacy contexts; in this case, the university system, the subject area, and the world at large. (Miller and Schulz, 2014 p. 78) Multiliteracies and Student Success (Miller and Schulz, 2014, p. 79) The Institutional Literacy Barrier Students don’t lack institutional literacy, they lack literacy in our institution(s). The feeling of being able to enter the socially and culturally rarefied space of a library will be a pertinent dimension of inequality. (Weber, 2013, p. 175) 1. Reading and navigating the institution (i.e. understanding layouts, structures, hierarchies, policies, timetables, values, etc.) 2. Knowing the spoken and unspoken rules of participation (e.g. procedures, processes, protocols, etc.) 3. Respecting and tolerating social and cultural differences and alternative perspectives 4. Using non-discriminatory discourses and behaviours in university settings and topic assignments 5. Locating and accessing institutional facilities and personnel (e.g. admissions, enrolments, health, counselling, student services, libraries, scholarships, child care, parking, accommodation, employment, etc.) 6. Accessing academic and professional staff (e.g. administrators, coordinators, lecturers, tutors, librarians, mentors, etc.) 7. Understanding the role and function of lectures, tutorials, workshops, seminars, practicals, examinations, etc. 8. Making and following timetables (e.g. enrolment deadlines, year planners, semester dates, class registrations, tutorial and lecture times, exam timetables, etc.) 9. Balancing commitments between family, work, leisure, and study 10. Understanding assessment processes (e.g. policies, procedures, due dates, extensions, exemptions, etc.) 11. Accessing digital resources: library catalogues, academic databases, email facilities, staff contacts, online resources, topic forums, university policies, lecture recordings, etc. (Miller and Schulz, 2014 p. 79-80) The Institutional Literacy Barrier Students will … employ different literacy practices, and switch to different ways of thinking and writing in different disciplines, and … somehow gain an understanding of how to do this by osmosis. (Thies, 2012, p. 16) Multiliteracies and Student Success (Miller and Schulz, 2014, p. 79) Institutional Literacy and Library Anxiety The perception of the academic library as an intimidating place, which makes students feel uncomfortable, is generally accepted in the literature as being the primary source of library anxiety. (Mellon, 1986), (Carlile, 2007) Institutional Literacy and Library Anxiety Institutional literacy practices easily provoke feelings of powerlessness. This can be exacerbated when feelings of exclusion and powerlessness have been confirmed by years of living in a situation of precarity or when mental health issues are contributing to social isolation. (Papen and Thériault, 2016, p. 190) Institutional Literacy Mediators The need for literacy mediation often arises in a context where an individual or a group has limited experience with institutionalized literacy practices through which access to resources and information are channeled. Negative emotions limited access to resources and opportunities A change in young people’s confidence and attitudes … allowed them to change their practices and acquire new skills. (Papen and Thériault, 2016) IL and the Personal Librarian Rather than developing programs aimed just at addressing institutional literacy, it should be a consideration in the design and implementation of all our programs. One example: Personal Librarian Program at U Regina The Personal Librarian as IL Mediator The literacy mediator acts as a guide: one who is familiar with the terrain/location leading those who are not. Provides the personal touch by offering an individual person, not just a big building full of strangers. Normalizes the feeling on not knowing my way around. The Personal Librarian as IL Mediator The Personal Librarian as IL Mediator The Personal Librarian as IL Mediator Mere exposure: a person's attitude toward something can be changed if that person has been exposed to the object repeatedly. (Muszkiewicz, 2017, p. 226) Librarians are able to reorient students by providing bearings and modeling behavior in the physical and virtual spaces of the library because they have a relationship with them. (Melançon and Goebel, 2016 p. 189) The Personal Librarian as IL Subversive? The process of changing perspectives, of adopting an emic viewpoint and alternating it with an etic angle, allows literacy brokers to develop a critical stance of institutional language and to recover the loss of affective discursive experiences. (Mihut, 2014 p. 59) Reference List Carlile, H. (2007). The Implications of Library Anxiety for Academic Reference Services: A Review of the Literature. Australian Academic & Research Libraries, 38(2), 129–147. Darity, W. A., (2008). Habitus. International encyclopedia of the social sciences (2nd ed..). Detroit, Mich.: Detroit, Michigan : Macmillan Reference USA. Iorio, J. (2016). Vernacular Literacy. Routledge Handbook of Language and Digital Communication. New York: Routledge. Melançon, J., & Goebel, N. (2016). Personal Librarian for Aboriginal Students: A Programmatic Assessment. College & Research Libraries, 77(2), 184–196. https://doi.org/10.5860/crl.77.2.184 Mellon, C. (1986). Library Anxiety: A Grounded Theory and Its Development. College & Research Libraries, 47(2), 160- 165. Mihut, L. A. (2014). Literacy Brokers and the Emotional Work of Mediation. Literacy in Composition Studies, 2(1), 57–79. Miller, A., & Schulz, S. (2014). University Literacy: A Multi-literacies Model. English in Australia, 49(3), 78–87. Muszkiewicz, R. (2017). Get to Know Your Librarian: How a Simple Orientation Program Helped Alleviate Library Anxiety. Public Services Quarterly, 13(4), 223–240. https://doi.org/10.1080/15228959.2017.1319780 Papen, U., & Thériault, V. (2016). Youth Workers as Literacy Mediators: Supporting Young People’s Learning About Institutional Literacy Practices. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 60(2), 185–193. https://doi.org/10.1002/jaal.545 Thies, L. (2012). Increasing student participation and success: collaborating to embed academic literacies into the curriculum. Journal of Academic Language & Learning, 6(1), 15–31. Weber, S. M. (2013). Academic Field Reflexivity: “Institutional Literacy” as Condition for Academic Success. Knowledge Cultures, 1(2), 170–193.