Abstract
Abstract This paper reports findings from interviews with practicing public librarians in Aotearoa New Zealand. It details respondent understanding of influences on perception and behaviour, and critical incidents as they relate to librarian professional identity. In-depth semi-structed interviews were conducted with forty practicing public librarians. Interviews were analysed with an inductive approach. Findings report on sample tendencies of dominant influences on practitioners’ perception and behaviour, impacting professional identity development over time. Dominant influences are respondent understanding of the strongest aspect they understand to influence their professional identity for both their individual perception of their professional identity and social factors influencing their professional behaviour. Findings also report on the identity negotiation process prompted by critical incidents, whose criticality is reliant on individual perception of incident in relation to professional identity. This process outlines affective response to the critical incident as a gateway to identity negotiations, leading to a discovery and/or growth of an identity facet, which will either affirm or undermine identity understanding. This process may be iterative, as meaning ascribed to the incident may change over time. Three theoretical propositions are presented articulating the role of dominant influences and critical incidents on identity negotiations of public librarian professional identity.
Highlights
Professional identity is an avenue by which to explore influences on practitioners in a service-oriented profession
While the public librarian and library are uniquely situated in society, there is a dearth of research exclusively examining public librarian professional identity
This paper reports on the identity negotiation process prompted by critical incidents
Summary
Professional identity is an avenue by which to explore influences on practitioners in a service-oriented profession. Professional context and environment influence a practitioner’s self-perception, contributing to the construction of professional identity in a collective context (Whyte, 1956/2002), which can impact behaviour relevant to professional practices (Sundin & Hedman, 2009). Librarians, as the personification of the library, co-construct relationships with individual patrons and communities (Hicks, 2016b). Societal perception of the library profession is influenced to some extent by interactions with librarians. I.e., information technologies and behaviours, characterises this subsector (Preer, 2006). While the public librarian and library are uniquely situated in society, there is a dearth of research exclusively examining public librarian professional identity
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