Dressing for Success? Librarian Approachability, Attire, and Affect in Popular Culture

One of the more interesting (and variable) parts of librarian approachability is the librarian’s attire and presentation. In fact, the media has been nearly obsessed recently with the “hipster librarian,” a new generation of tattooed, pierced, fashion-conscious, but well-trained and highly capable, librarians and information professionals. Even librarians themselves have perpetuated this new mythology about librarians; a few even started a blog called Librarian Wardrobe. Fashion designers pay homage to the librarian, devoting collections to the librarian “look,” whatever that happens to be at the moment. Younger librarians have become their own clothing collectors and curate websites devoted to such collections.

The backlash against the hipster librarian stereotype has definitely begun. In a Counter Punch article published in 2010, Linda Ueki Absher suggests that not all librarians live in such a fashionable, high-end world. She reminds the reader that not all perceptions of librarians are favorable; many people still believe that librarians are “losers” or “crazy cat” people. Her tongue-in-cheek article also points to the vast amount of student debt that library students incur to obtain the new, hottest degree, but that librarianship as a profession has failed to keep up with the cost of living.

Other librarians have tried to urge future librarians to consider their attire when interviewing and provide them with real-life skills – for both getting the job and keeping the job. Library Journal has also taken on the issue of librarian attire. The ALA’s publication features an op-ed column called Annoyed Librarian. In 2013, the Annoyed Librarian took on the subject of dressing for success. In response to an ALA survey, the AL wrote,

But the key part of the research, and I suspect the motivation behind it, is the question of whether “business attire will lead to increased salaries and increased professional status of librarians.”

See, it’s not just a “professional dress code.” They’re really talking about “business attire,” so every librarian everywhere would have to look like the army of indistinguishable drones in the corporate world.

The AL makes a good point about the librarian’s right to individuality and that it doesn’t necessarily translate into increased salaries. This statement also stands out:

In most libraries, no matter how you dress you’re not going to get paid more, and if the whole profession started dressing up for work, the only thing it would result in is more librarian salary going for professional clothes.

Bonnet and McAlexander’s 2013 article, “First Impressions and the Reference Encounter: The Influence of Affect and Clothing on Librarian Approachability,” is a study on non-verbal communication between librarian and patron, as well as an examination of librarian attire and how the patron’s perception of the reference interaction shifts depending on how the librarian presents her/himself. Surprisingly, or maybe not surprisingly, female librarians tend to be considered more approachable, since they smile more “sincerely” and are able to more effectively multi-task and divide their attention between patron and task.

Unfortunately, the study did not take into account the wide array of librarian attire, so it is difficult to match up the literature on approachability with actual perceptions out there in popular culture. The one takeaway from the study is that a smile is probably the most effective way to break any barrier to librarian-patron communication. Otherwise, the article’s emphasis on following ALA protocol, or at the very least, promoting formal and/or uniform attire for information professionals, leaves very little room for the librarian to self-express through her/his clothing selection, which often demonstrates casualness, thoughtfulness, and a desire to fit into the community while also individuating the librarian from other professionals.

I believe that librarian attire can affect approachability, but probably in a more positive way for the individual librarian, the library itself, and the profession. Librarians should be seen as open-minded and creative problem-solvers. Flipping the script on librarian attire allows the profession to be seen as interesting and engaging, creating an environment that is welcome to patrons.

 

A good place to start… (US – ALA/RUSA)

A good place to start in a discussion of librarian approachability across cultures is to consider best practices as set forth by professional organizations. I’m going to start in the United States and will, in my next blog entry, explore librarian guidelines in other countries.

The American Library Association, in particular, has been quite active in developing guidelines for librarians. in 1992, ALA formed an ad hoc committee to begin developing a protocol for librarian behavior, specifically in reference work. (It’s shocking that it took the organization that long to come up with something!) From the document on the ALA website:

The committee identified several areas in which behavioral attributes could be directly observed, including visibility/approachability, interest, listening/inquiring, searching, and follow-up activities. These guidelines have been widely used to assist in the training, development, and/or evaluation of librarians and staff who provide information services directly to library users.

A few years later, in 1996, the American Library Association published its first set of behavioral guidelines for librarians, via the organization’s Reference and Adult Services (RUSA) division. The standards were revised in 2013 to address the electronic age, where reference interviews are often conducted over email, chat, and video services (such as Skype).

Rather than spend this entry going line by line through the guidelines, I want to discuss the ways in which RUSA’s reference protocols both benefit the patron and librarian, and reinforce existing power hierarchies within the library.

Benefits of the RUSA guidelines:

• Librarians are patron-centric; by following the guidelines, they place the patron and the patron’s needs/concerns at the center of the interaction 
• Patrons are treated with respect and their interests with curiosity
• Patron-centric interactions reinforce the library as a place of learning, as well as a community hub where librarians are always willing to help direct patrons to resources of all kinds
• Librarians are able to gain valuable experience – professional and personal – if they stay open to patrons and encourage them to take an active role in searches.. reference interviews can be a parallel experience in some ways, providing both sides with newly acquired information and power

Drawbacks of the RUSA guidelines (or at least some problematic areas that need to be addressed):

• Language barriers, even within the US, are not really addressed in the guidelines; there’s an assumption that both parties – patron and librarian – will be able to communicate in the same language with equal understanding
• The guidelines don’t address some patrons’ physical and/or mental limitations; there is no mention of accommodations for such instances
• The protocols also don’t address labor issues, like understaffing and workplace conflict that might prevent the librarian from providing the level of service suggested (e.g. the librarian may not always be available to work a reference desk, because she/he is pulled aside to cover circulation)

Overall, I believe that the ALA/RUSA guidelines are incredibly useful primarily to library students and new librarians. These best practices definitely help usher new librarians into the library environment, teach them the basics of interacting with patrons, and provide a good basis for learning to be more approachable. However, I could see how seasoned librarians would find the guidelines difficult to follow given the limitations and expectations of their libraries. It’s also true that many libraries have their own policies – some match up with this document and others add to or eliminate other standards. (A simple Google search “guidelines for librarians” yields many small and large library systems’ specific guidelines.) It would be great if RUSA would once again update this document to reflect power and labor issues, or at least acknowledge these problematic areas in the introduction to the document.