An Empirical Study of Public Service Librarians’ Perceptions and Causes of Negative Emotions in Taiwan’s Public Libraries

Research has documented that, in service organization, effectiveness is thought to hinge partly on the emotions expressed by employees. In librarianship, emotions also play an important role in affecting librarian's attitude to patrons and in turn his/her job performance. Librarians are the library's most effective representatives. Patrons judge the entire library by librarian' s behaviors. Thus, librarians' expression of emotions is one of the key factors of library service. Moreover, research on feelings experienced and expressed by organizational members emphasizes emotions as indicators of wellbeing and happiness. Employing literature review and analysis, questionnaires, and statistics analysis, this study explored public service librarians’ perceptions and causes of negative emotions in the public library settings in Taiwan. [Article content in Chinese; Extended abstract in English]