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Dissertation Information for George Hawley

NAME:
- George Hawley

DEGREE:
- Ph.D.

DISCIPLINE:
- Library and Information Science

SCHOOL:
- Rutgers University (USA) (1986)

ADVISORS:
- Herbert R. Kells

COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
- David Carr
- Hendrik Edelman

MPACT Status: Incomplete - Inspected

Title: THE REFERRAL PROCESS IN LIBRARIES: A CHARACTERIZATION AND AN EXPLORATION OF RELATED FACTORS (EQUITY, QUALITATIVE RESEARCH, KOHLBERG)

Abstract: Primary purposes were to define library referral and what appear to be the qualities of good library referral, and to describe factors that seem to affect it. Analysis was qualitative using the grounded theory technique of Glaser and Strauss and was based on interviews with reference librarians in light of theories from the literature.

As a result of the analysis, library referral was defined as library employees' acts of responding to individuals' needs by directing these individuals to another person, or to a place under the control of another person, for the fulfillment of these needs. The act seems to be influenced by the employee's personal qualities and by various factors pertaining to the employee's library, the outside resources referred to, and the individual being referred.

Personal qualities appeared to include efficiency, equity, achievement motivation, empathy, tact, and independence. Other factors were librarians' interaction with their library director and with coworkers; librarians' training and experience; the activity level at the reference desk; the collection's strength; the availability of referral tools; the strength of and librarians' knowledge of outside resources; librarians' nonpersonal relations with these resources, personal contacts, and interaction with faculty (in academic libraries); librarians' evaluation of users; attitudes about distance to resources, about providing travel information, and about travel safety; and the nature of the feedback that librarians receive.

Equity was found to be the core factor: Nonpersonal relations with other libraries and relations with the library director were based primarily on what has been called the "contributions rule" (receiving in proportion to one's contributions); relations with users, on the contributions rule and the "needs rule" (receiving even if unable to make contributions); and with coworkers and friends in other libraries, the "equality rule" (receiving equally despite unequal contributions). It is theorized that the contributions rule limits referral and the equality and needs rules encourage it.

Based on the results, good library referral may denote either that which is efficient or that which is equitable. Implications for librarianship include considerations of how much service is owed and to whom, and various ways to improve referral.

MPACT Scores for George Hawley

A = 0
C = 0
A+C = 0
T = 0
G = 0
W = 0
TD = 0
TA = 0
calculated 2008-01-31 06:09:43

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