Communication overload: a phenomenological inquiry into academic reference librarianship
| Pages | 597-617 |
| Date | 31 August 2012 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/00220411211255996 |
| Published date | 31 August 2012 |
| Author | C. Sean Burns,Jenny Bossaller |
ARTICLES
Communication overload:
a phenomenological inquiry into
academic reference librarianship
C. Sean Burns and Jenny Bossaller
School of Information Science and Learning Technologies,
University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri, USA
Abstract
Purpose –This study aims to provide insight on the meaning of communication overload as
experienced by modern academic librarians. Communication is the essence of reference librarianship,
and a practically endless array of synchronous and asynchronous communication tools (ICTs) are
available to facilitate communication.
Design/methodology/approach – This study relied on a phenomenological methodology, which
included nine in-depth interviews with academic librarians. The interviews were transcribed and
analyzed using RQDA, a qualitative analysis software package that facilitates coding, category
building, and project management.
Findings –Seven themes about librarianship emerged from this research: attending to
communication abundance, librarians of two types, instruction not reference, twenty-first century
librarianship, user needs, trusted methods: filter not retrieve, and self-impact. The shared meaning of
communication overload among these librarians is that it is a problem when it detracts from or hinders
their ability to assist their users.
Practical implications –Further research should contribute to an understandingof communication
as a problem when it interferes with serving the librarians’ users, or to an understanding of
interpersonal communication within the librarians’ organizational structures and in their broader
professional networks.
Social implications – Research in popular psychology has focused on the negative impacts on
productivity and concentration of living in an always-plugged-in environment. This research confirms
that librarians should have time to work away from digital distractions to maintain job satisfaction.
Originality/value – Important work by Radford and Dervin has focused on communication with
users. This study focuses on the impact of ICTs on librarians’ work and personal lives.
Keywords Academic libraries, Communication,Information technology, Knowledgeworkers,
Librarians,Phenomenology, Reference services,Communication technologies
Paper type Research paper
The impetus for this study was personal experience: that of being overwhelmed by
communication coming from multiple venues, and repeated attempts to find “the magic
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/0022-0418.htm
The authors offer their gratitude to Amy VanScoy for her work in peer-debriefing the article as
part of the validation strategy; to Alejandro Morales, for an early reading of the paper; and to
their participants, for their time and the insightful interviews. This paper was originally
presented, in part, at the Library Research Round Table’s Gold Star Research Forum at the 2011
Annual American Library Association meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana. The authors assume
equal authorship and responsibility.
Academic
reference
librarianship
597
Received 29 September 2011
Revised 13 January 2012
Accepted 16 January 2012
Journal of Documentation
Vol. 68 No. 5, 2012
pp. 597-617
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
0022-0418
DOI 10.1108/00220411211255996
bullet” to gather, or filter, communication in order to make it manageable. Personal
adaptation of technology is often by choice; the choices can be confusing, but they are a
choice. Referencelibrarians’ jobs depend on effectivecommunication with different types
of library users, and increasingly using mediated technology. Furthermore, the
technology thatthey use is not always their choice. Findingthe magic bullet might prove
more elusive as thoseusers vary, and are fickle regardingallegiance to technology. That
situation prompted the research question: how do librarians experience the varied
landscape of communication tools today? Do they feel that they are able to control their
communication environment and work well within it, or are they overwhelmed?
The purpose of this study is threefold: to provide insight into how a communication
rich environment is experienced as communication overload; to identify significant
themes embedded within the lived experience of everyday reference librarianship
within this environment; and to understand the essence of reference librarianship as it
exists within a communication rich environment.
Communication studies in library and information science often examine the
particular interactions between librarians and their users (e.g. Dervin, 1977; Radford,
1996, 2001). This study inquires into the librarians’ general communication practices
and environment. It specifically asks: are academic reference librarians overwhelmed
with communicative tools, methods, and with communication in general? The
phenomenon or experience of feeling overwhelmed by communication technologies has
been referred to as communication overload. It is the particular subjective experience
felt as a response to excessive communication through multiple channels using various
information and communication technologies (ICTs). As studies have noted, academic
librarians’ jobs have changed in response to ICTs ( Janes, 2002). Due to these changes,
we seek to understand if academic reference librarians are experiencing
communication overload, and if so, how they make sense of it. This study draws
from in-depth interviews with nine reference librarians at five university libraries. The
phenomenological research design yields a rich understanding of the library as
workplace and of librarianship as profession.
This paper starts with a discussion of pertinence–why com munication overload is
a general concern for both society and librarians. The second part discusses the
phenomenological research design and outlines the method used in this study. The
third part reveals our findings and this includes the themes that emerged from the
analysis of interview transcripts. The next section articulates the overall essence,the
shared meaning, of twenty-first century librarianship, and discusses the manifestation
of communication overload expressed by the participants. We conclude with some
comments on the limitations and implications of this project and offer suggestions for
further research.
Background and literature review
Librarians work with many information and communication technologies to provide
service to their users and to reach and market those in their community. Dempsey
(2009) furnishes an array of the “entry points” currently available:
We increasingly have a “mesh” of entry points: PC and phone, of course, but also DVRs,
cameras, navigation systems, and consoles. We increasingly use a range of shared network
level “cloud“ services: for search, for social networking, for content and information, for
communication (“The diffusion of networking,” para. 4).
JDOC
68,5
598
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