We kicked off the 2020-21 programme with a talk on Library Anxiety. Sarah Elsegood manages Learning and Development at ARU. The talk consisted of discussing what Library Anxiety is and what we can do to help students avoid or overcome it.
Sarah started the talk by having us think about what might make us feel anxious, a visit to the doctors, an interview, or something similar. We did not have to discuss this in detail but it was useful to think these things over and have a chance to reflect on this as individuals.
Prior to the talk Sarah had us read an article by Mellon, Contance (1986), "Library Anxiety: A grounded theory and it's development". This study covered 6000 English Composition undergraduates, and analysed students' writing over a 2 year period. They had a final year project where they wrote an essay about experiences of using the library, how they felt about using the library, and then how they felt about using it now.
It was a really interesting talk which made us all consider the ways that students may feel when they are using our libraries, and the types of things we could do to ensure these spaces. Sarah had just chatting in the chat function of Microsoft Teams about the types of things we have done in our libraries, or the things we think
Washington State University have put together their own Libguide on Library Anxiety. Here you can see what they have done to try and put their students at ease when coming into their libraries.
Thank you to Sarah for kicking off our 2020-21 programme.
Post contributed by Katherine Burchell, CLG Social Media Editor
