MLIS Issue Paper
50 Word Summary
The current discourse related to the concept of library anxiety is limited due to its focus on systems and librarian/patron relationships. The space of the academic library both physically and theoretically needs to be addressed in tandem with the previous discourse to either expand proposed solutions or create alternative ones.
Longer Proposal
The literature created after Constance Mellon’s 1986 article Library Anxiety: A Grounded Theory and Its Development is predominantly focused on the relationship between students and library systems and how the anxiety felt by this group within an academic environment should be dealt with. Many of these articles are based around the statistical analysis taken from students about their experiences in libraries, dealing with topics such as system/technological literacy, comfort with staff, and information overload (a hefty amount of the work done in this area can be attributed to scholars Qun G. Jiao and Anthony J. Onwuegbuzie). The phrase "barriers of use" is often employed in these discussions as an umbrella term to denote these various anxiety-inducing elements. However, one barrier of use that isn’t often mentioned within these articles is the physical space of the academic library, something that is repeatedly mentioned in Mellon’s foundational text. So using literature such as The Academic Library as Crypto-temple by Stephan Bales, The Library as Heterotopia by Jessica Lingle, Marie Radford, and Gary Radford, and Hegemony’s Handmaid by Christine Pawley amongst others, I will expand previous ideas on the cause of library anxiety to include the academic library as a physical space that has the potential to reinforce hegemonic ideologies within an academic institution. A possible solution to this would be in an attempt to demystify the library by allowing students to engage with this space beyond using it for required research/production.