Marie Radford
School of Information and Library Science
Pratt Institute
Brooklyn, NY
E-mail: radford@sils.pratt.edu

'It's Over There': Nonverbal Communication
in Academic Reference Interactions

ALISE 1996 Research Grant Report and Contributed Papers Session
Wednesday, February 12, 1997, 5:30pm - 7:00pm

Librarians' and library users' perceptions of nonverbal communication in academic reference interactions are the focus of this research which is part of a larger study based on relational theory developed by communication scholars Watzlawick, Beavin, and Jackson (1967). Perspectives of twenty-seven pairs of librarians and users were elicited through interviews and unobtrusive observation at three academic library sites. Qualitative analysis of the interview data resulted in the development of a category scheme listing nonverbal behaviors of librarians in reference interactions. These behaviors are characterized by users and librarians as positive, acting as "facilitators," or negative, acting as "barriers." Nonverbal communication was found to be important in librarians' and users' perceptions of the reference interaction. Overall, users were found to be more sensitive to librarians' nonverbal behaviors (especially those perceived as barriers) than librarians were to users' behaviors. This exploratory study points out a need for librarians to become more conscious of their nonverbal behaviors and how these behaviors may be interpreted. On a theoretical level, this study demonstrates that application of relational communication theory is relevant and useful in understanding librarian-user interactions. On the practical level, this work has important implications for the education and evaluation of reference librarians.

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