What’s in A Name: How Terminology Affects the Relationships Between Libraries, Librarians, Users, and Principles of Inclusivity

Abstract

Terminology matters. Law librarians use a variety of terms to describe those who use the library—from user to member, customer to patron, and others. This article examines the terms that are used and what that terminology implies about the relationship between librarian and library user. By considering the attitudes, behaviors, and connotations behind the terminology librarians use, librarians, specifically law librarians, can impact library users’ sense of inclusion and belonging.

Keywords:

• inclusion
• librarian
• library user
• patron
• library customer
• library member

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank the KRELL librarians and the DEI and the Law Librarian symposium for their tremendous feedback and support throughout the writing process.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Denise Baden & Ian Harwood, Terminology Matters: A Critical Exploration of Corporate Social Responsibility Terms, 116 J. BUS. ETHICS 615 (2013).

2 The Annie E. Casey Foundation, Creating a Sense of Belonging, AECF Blog (Aug. 30, 2021), www.aecf.org/blog/creating-a-sense-of-belonging (providing the “Key Components of Belonging” among young people).

3 Kenneth Berger & Richard Hines, What Does the User Really Want? The Library User Survey Project at Duke University, 20 J. Acad. Librarianship 306 (Nov. 1994), https://doi.org/10.1016/0099-1333(94)90068-X.

4 Karen Pundsack, Customers or Patrons? How You Look at Your Library’s Users Affects Customer Service, Public Libraries Online (Mar. 2, 2015), http://publiclibrariesonline.org/2015/03/customers-or-patrons-how-you-look-at-your-librarys-users-affects-customer-service/.

5 See Paul M. Herr, Consequences of Priming: Judgement and Behavior, 51 J. Personality & Soc. Psych. 1,106, 1,113 (1986): “[U]nobtrusive exposure to exemplars of social categories has profound consequences for the perception of another person and subsequent behavioral interaction with that person.”

6 To be concise and broadly inclusive, this article uses the terms library user or user to refer to people who use libraries. I am keenly aware of the tension in using the term in an article addressing how what we call people affects their feelings of belonging in libraries. “User” has connotations, both negative and positive, which I discuss in a separate section. In this article, I also explore other terms, including customer, member, and patron. Each has its own connotations. This article does not endorse any particular term but will use library user throughout for consistency and brevity.

7 F. A. Miller & J. H. Katz, Inclusion: The HOW for Organizational Breakthrough, in Practicing Organization Development: A Guide for Leading Change 436, 437 (W. J. Rothwell et al. eds., 3d ed. 2010), https://static1.squarespace.com/static/56b3ef5a20c647ed98996880/t/56f1db471d07c0ce19f7b850/1458690888091/odn.pdf.

8 Stella L. Zhou, Understanding ‘Inclusiveness,’ in Public Space: Learning from Existing Approaches 9 (2019), https://sustain.ubc.ca/sites/default/files/2019-50_Understanding%20Inclusiveness%20in%20Public%20Space_Zhou.pdf.

9 Id. at 16.

10 Bernardo M. Ferdman, The Practice of Inclusion in Diverse Organizations, in Diversity at Work: The Practice of Inclusion 4 (Bernardo Ferdman & Barbara Deane eds., 2013).

11 Zhou, supra note 8, at 17.

12 Raymond Fisk et al., Design for Service Inclusion: Creating Inclusive Service Systems by 2050, 29 J. Service Management 834, 843 (2018) (presenting four main tenants of service inclusion: enabling opportunity, offering choice, relieving suffering, and fostering happiness).

13 Miller & Katz, supra note 7, at 439.

14 Meggan Press, Semantics as Praxis: The Challenge of Naming People Who Use Academic Libraries, J. Creative Libr. Practice (Mar. 29, 2022), https://creativelibrarypractice.org/2022/03/29/semantics-as-praxis/.

15 Janet H. Cho, “‘Diversity Is Being Invited to the Party; Inclusion Is Being Asked to Dance,’” Verna Myers Tells Cleveland Bar, Cleveland.com (May 25, 2016), www.cleveland.com/business/2016/05/diversity_is_being_invited_to.html.

16 In addition, “[t]he professional literature is replete with descriptions of the trouble public patrons cause, with debates about withdrawing from the Federal Depository Program in order to escape dealing with them in otherwise closed libraries, and with tips for minimizing difficult reference interactions.” Kelly Fitz-Gerald, Serving Pro Se Patrons: An Obligation and an Opportunity, 22 Legal Ref. Serv. Q. 41, 42 (2003), https://digitalcommons.law.seattleu.edu/faculty/547. Often “public patron” is used interchangeably with “problem patron,” which “conjures up difficulties, trouble, or abnormal behavior from one being served—a customer, client, or user.” But if we as librarians challenge how we see our patrons, “are library users who fall into that category the only problem patrons? For example, a library user with a research problem, or a challenging reference question, is he/she a ‘problem patron’ or a patron with a problem? Or could the individual be considered both?” Calmer D. Chattoo, The Problem Patron, 36 The Ref. Librarian 11, 12 (2002). This dichotomy “may be the case even more frequently in law libraries serving the public, where patrons’ needs and expectations may significantly exceed the services that librarians feel ethically comfortable providing.” Nicole P. Dyszlewski et al., Managing Disrupting Patron Behavior in Law Libraries: A Grey Paper, 107 Law Libr. J. 491, 495 (2015). See also Paul Jerome McLaughlin, Wanting to Do More But Bound to Do Less: A Law Librarian’s Dilemma, 56 The Ref. Librarian 119, 126–7 (2015) (“When asked by members of the public to assist them in finding legal information, law librarians find themselves in an uncomfortable position, given their status as both librarians and legal professionals.” Assisting public patrons can therefore “take up a good portion of a law librarian’s time while searching for information,” which can lead to a law librarian “helping as much as possible [or] excluding public patrons from reference services altogether.”)

17 See Herr, supra note 6, at 1,115. The author pointed out, “[T]he chain of events necessary for the self-fulfilling prophecy could have been broken at any link. Clearly though, perceivers held different expectancies of the targets’ behavior. Equally clearly, these differences were translated into different behaviors directed toward the target.”

18 Press, supra note 14.

19 David Molden, Understanding Priming Effects in Social Psychology: What is “Social Priming” and How Does it Occur?, 32 Social Cognition 1, 4–5 (2014). For example, Daniel Kahneman likened this to System 1 thinking (which he described in his book Thinking, Fast and Slow), but cautioned that he saw “a train wreck looming.” Daniel Kahneman, A Proposal to Deal With Questions About Priming Effects, Nature (Sept. 26, 2012), http://www.nature.com/polopoly_fs/7.6716.1349271308!/suppinfoFile/Kahneman%20Letter.pdf.

20 Press, supra note 14.

21 Other potential terms that will not be discussed in this paper include client, guest, or visitor.

22 Available at http://books.google.com/ngrams.

23 According to Google, the search includes “[b]ooks predominantly in the English language that were published in the United States,” but “[b]ooks with low OCR quality and serials were excluded.” https://books.google.com/ngrams/info (last visited Nov. 1, 2023). Google also normalizes the results by the total number of books published each year. For an analysis of the collection, see Geoffrey Nunberg, Counting on Google Books, Chron. Higher Educ. (Dec. 16, 2010), www.chronicle.com/article/counting-on-google-books/.

24 For example, the numbers presented do not account for the dramatic increase in scientific literature, so they can appear deceptively low. Sarah Zhang, The Pitfalls of Using Google Ngram to Study Language, WIRED (Oct. 12, 2015), www.wired.com/2015/10/pitfalls-of-studying-language-with-google-ngram/.

25 Nancy Carol Carter & Scott B. Pagel, The Golden Gate University Law Library Membership Plan, 77 Law Libr. J. 243, 248 (1984–85).

26 George D’Elia, The Development and Testing of a Conceptual Model of Public Library User Behavior, 50 Libr. Q. 410 (Oct. 1980).

27 Id.

28 Press, supra note 14.

29 Pundsack, supra note 4.

30 Id.

31 Robert J. Desiderio, The Law School Library: Its Function, Structure, and Management, 73 Special Libraries 292, 293 (1982), https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/220681797.pdf.

32 Pundsack, supra note 4.

33 Virginia J. Kelsh, The Law Library Mission Statement, 97 Law Libr. J. 323 (2005). For example, in a prior iteration of this mission statement, users were ranked “in the following order of priority:

Law School faculty, students and staff

The College of William and Mary community

Law School alumni

The Virginia bench and bar; and

Other library patrons.

34 Lynn Silipigni Connaway, comp., The Library in the Life of the User: Engaging with People Where They Live and Learn (Dublin, Ohio: OCLC Research, 2015), www.oclc.org/content/dam/research/publications/2015/oclcresearch-library-in-life-of-user.pdf.

35 Berger & Hines, supra note 3.

36 Lars Christiansen et al., A Report on Librarian-Faculty Relations from a Sociological Perspective, 30 J. Acad. Librarianship 116, 118 (Mar. 2004).

37 Ashley Ames Ahlbrand, Working with Non–Law School Patrons, in Introduction to Law Librarianship (Zanada Joyner & Cas Laskowski eds., 2021), https://pressbooks.pub/lawlibrarianship/chapter/working-with-non-law-school-patrons/.

38 Sandra B. Placzek, All in a Day’s Work: What’s a Reference Librarian to Do? 19 Legal Ref. Servs Q. 41, 47 (2001).

39 Ahlbrand, supra note 36.

40 Placzek, supra note 37, at 47.

41 Zhou, supra note 8, at 17.

42 Although not discussed here, law school alumni (who have grown familiar with using library materials but no longer have the same level of access) have their own needs and expectations that should be addressed.

43 Placzek, supra note 37, at 46.

44 Carter & Pagel, supra note 24, at 248.

45 Member, Oxford English Dictionary (updated Dec. 2022).

46 Anthony Molaro, Just Whom Do We Serve?, Am. Libr. Mag. (Mar. 28, 2012), https://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/2012/03/28/just-whom-do-we-serve/.

47 Weave, Collection Development and User Experience Symposia. 1 J. Libr. User Experience (2018), https://doi.org/10.3998/weave.12535642.0001.804.

48 Molaro, supra note 45.

49 Mary F. Cavanagh, Structuring an Action Net of Public Library Membership, 85 Libr. Q.: Information, Community, Policy 406 (2015) (citing R. David Lankes, The Atlas of New Librarianship 66 (2011)).

50 Kristin Cheney, Marketing Law Libraries: Strategies and Techniques in the Digital Age, 26 Legal Ref. Servs Q. 281, 284 (2007).

51 John M. Budd, A Critique of Customer and Commodity, 58 College & Research Libr. 309, 311 (1997).

52 Gashaw Kebede, The Changing Information Needs of Users in Electronic Information Environments, 20 Electronic Libr. 14, 19 (2002).

53 Berger & Hines, supra note 3, at 309.

54 Beth Shapiro & Kevin Long, Just Say Yes: Reengineering Library User Services for the 21st Century, 20 J. Acad. Librarianship 285 (Nov. 1994).

55 Ryan Litsey & Weston Mauldin, Knowing What the Patron Wants: Using Predictive Analytics to Transform Library Decision Making, 44 J. Acad. Librarianship 140 (Jan. 2018). The authors intended to demonstrate that predictive analytics and machine learning may “demonstrate how you can develop and use machine learning algorithms and predictive analytics to proactively understand library behavior.”

56 Budd, supra note 50, at 313.

57 Id. at 315.

58 Molaro, supra note 45.

59 Joseph P. Grunenwald & Kenneth Traynor, A Marketing Plan for the Law Library, 79 Law Libr. J. 93, 97 (1987).

60 Pundsack, supra note 4.

61 Cheney, supra note 49, at 283.

62 Robert P. Holley, Academic Library Users Are No “Customers”: A Response to Steven Bell, 60 J. Libr. Admin. 88, 95 (2020).

63 Dyszlewski, supra note 16, at 493.

64 Patron, Oxford English Dictionary (updated Dec. 2022).

65 Pundsack, supra note 4.

66 Id.

67 Id.

68 When not connected with “library,” patron is by far the least used term, meaning that in library-related literature at least, “patron” is more popular than “customer.” However, it is much less frequently used in general discussion.

69 There is also the negative connotation associated with the term patronizing. See Meggan Press, Words Matter: The Power of Language to Create Community, 79 C&RL News 197 (Apr. 2018), https://crln.acrl.org/index.php/crlnews/article/view/16935/18641.

70 Molaro, supra note 45.

71 S. R. Ranganathan, The Five Laws of Library Science 75 (The Madras Library Association 1931), https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.$b99721.

72 Connaway, supra note 33.

73 Id.

74 Id.

75 Sewa Singh, Users and Information Use in Academic Libraries, in Academic Library Effectiveness (K. Rajasekharan & R. Raman Nair eds., 1992), http://eprints.rclis.org/8025/1/1992Sewa.pdf.

76 Robbin Price, As Long As We Don’t Call Them Warthogs, 43 Public Libr. 84 (2004).

77 Wilfred K. Fullagar, Legal Terminology, 1 Melb. U. L. Rev. 1 (1957).

78 Stephen Young, Looking Beyond the Stacks: The Law Library as Place, AALL Spectrum 17 (July 2010).

79 David Lankes, The Future of Librarianship (June 21, 2011), https://davidlankes.org/2011/06/.

80 Ferdman, supra note 10, at 39.

81 Price, supra note 75, at 85.

82 Karen Harbo & Thomas Vibjerg Hansen, Getting to Know Library Users’ Needs—Experimental Ways to User-Centered Library Innovation. 21 LIBER Q. 367, 383–4 (2012), http://doi.org/10.18352/lq.8031.

83 Id.

84 Id.

85 See Sajjad Jan & Mumtaz Anwar, Emotions Management Skills and Barriers with Library Staff: A Correlational Survey of Agriculture Students, 44 J. Acad. Librarianship 33 (Jan. 2018); Qun Jiao & Anthony Onwuegbuzie, Antecedents of Library Anxiety, 67 Libr. Q. 372 (Oct. 1997).

86 Price, supra note 75, at 85.

87 Id.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kerri-Ann Rowe

Kerri-Ann Rowe is Clinical Associate Professor of Law and Reference Librarian, Kathrine R. Everett Law Library, University of North Carolina School of Law, Chapel Hill, North Carolina.