College and Research Libraries Research Notes Burnout: A Survey of Academic Reference Librarians Nathan M. Smith and Veneese C. Nelson INTRODUCTION Cherniss defined burnout as "psycho- logical withdrawal from work in response to excessive stress or dissatisfaction." 1 Freudenberger found that typically, the worker's thinking became rigid; the em- ployee became stubborn and inflexible and appeared depressed. At the same time, the distressed staff member tended to spend more and more time at the job. 2 Gann states that ... a major cause of burning-out for new public sector professionals is disillusionment as a result of unrealistic expectations derived from the "professional mystique ." This myth, al- though not uniformly inaccurate, generally leads new professionals to believe their work situations will be (among other things) interest- ing, quite autonomous, collegial, and filled with grateful and cooperative clients. It also proposes that the professional will feel compe- tent (once acquiring the proper credentials), sympathetic, and compassionate at all times. Other factors which have been ascribed as causal are exhaustion, boredom, disap- pointment, stagnation, frustration, or ap- athy. An employee can become so over- whelmed that service to the public becomes ineffectual and indifferent. The results of burnout can be costly to an institution or to the individual worker. The consequences most often attributed to burnout are low staff morale, job absen- teeism, high turnover, and problems at home. An abundance of research has indi- cated that reactions to stressful work situ- ations may also include headaches, prob- lems with sleeping, gastrointestinal disturbances, ulcers, back problems, ag- gravation of allergies, increased frequency of illnesses such as colds and flu, and more. Besides the physical exhaustion which is characterized by low energy, chronic fatigue and weariness, a worker may also experience emotional and men- tal exhaustion which promotes feelings of depression, helplessness, hopelessness, and entrapment. A helping profession is especially sus- ceptible to burnout. Teachers do it; social workers do it; nurses do it. What about li- brarians? They help people in a helping profession too. Because statistical studies have not as- sessed the degree of burnout for the li- brary profession, 4 we have undertaken this study. To answer the question, Is there a correlation between a degree of burnout which may be experienced by full-time, academic reference librarians and certain selected factors? reference li- brarians in seventy-five selected U.S. uni- versities were surveyed. Only universities whose enrollment exceeded 20,000 were chosen. Determination of enrollment and addresses were obtained from the Ameri- can Libraries Directory. Five questionnaires were sent to each of Nathan M. Smith is director, and Veneese C. Nelson is research associate, both of the School of Librarif and Information Sciences, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah. 245 246 College & Research Libraries the seventy-five universities in care of the head reference librarian, who was asked to randomly distribute them to full-time professionals at the general reference or other reference areas. Because the suppo- sition was that the general reference area was more stressful, preference was to test that group. If there were not five general reference librarians, other reference librar- ians were tested, rather than discarding the questionnaires. A designation for work area was included with the ques- tions. Questionnaires were coded by school to assist record keeping on returns, how- ever, strictest confidence was maintained for all respondents. QUESTIONNAIRE A three-page questionnaire was used which identified possible areas of burnout and the implications to the library and the librarians. The questionnaire included open and close-ended statements, scale items, and was divided into four major ar- eas. The first area concerned job characteris- tics and included questions about number of full-time and part-time employees, rat- ing the job, working directly with patrons, vacations, decompression time, input into library policy, and professional develop- ment . The second part focused on personal questions: hobbies, pets, health prob- lems, exercise program, and religion. The third area dealt with background in- formation and included questions about age, gender, marital status, education and years of library experience. The fourth section of the questionnaire was the Forbes' Burnout Survey.* Re- sponses on the survey were ranked from one to four. From the sum total, on the survey, one of the following was selected as a burnout category for each respon- dent: 71-80, "Have burnout;" 61-70, "Mild burnout;" 51-60, "Some warning May1983 signs, candidate for burnout;" or 20-50, "Good balance." PRETEST With the permission of Randy Olsen from the Harold B. Lee Library's Direc- tor's Office, the pretest questionnaire was administered to all full-time professional librarians employed by Brigham Young University. Of the sixty-seven question- naires distributed, fifty-seven, or 85 per- cent, were returned. Several recommen- dations were made for revision, and items in the questionnaire found to be ambigu- ous, misleading, or otherwise inappro- priate were changed or eliminated from the final version. A test, retest reliability check of the burnout scores after a five- month interval using twenty-five ran- domly selected pretest participants for th~ posttest, yielded a correlation coefficient of r = 0.83, however, a paired t-test using MINITAB gave at = 3.972, calculated al- pha level = 0.0006, indicating a significant difference between the two means for the two tests. Data gathered from the final survey were processed using the frequencies, cross-tabulations, and the Spearman Cor- relation Coefficient from the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). SUMMARY Of 380 questionnaires distributed, 262 were returned and usable, giving a return rate of 69 percent. Although generally a very favorable return rate, because of the nature of this study the nonrespondents may have had a profound impact- on the results of the study. The analysis performed on the data indi- cated there was not a strong correlation between the degree of burnout experi- enced by professional librarians and the selected factors studied (See table 1). The seven factors most strongly correlated with the burnout score (all of which were significant at p 0.001) were control of sJress in one's life (r = 0.44), gastrointesti- *This measurement was designed and copyrighted by Dr. Rosalind Forbes of Forbes Associates Stress Consultants, 477 Madison Avenue, New York City, NY 10022. The test was used in this study with Dr. Forbes' permission. Research Notes 247 TABLE 1 CORRELATIONS WITH BURNOUT SCORES Variable Job Characteristics How challenging is your job Do you like working with patrons How many days vacation taken per year Regular decompression time after work How much input do you have into library po1icy Pressure to publish, do research, continue education How successful are you in your job Do you want to be on same job in 10 years Personal Hobbies Pets Headaches Sleeplessness Ulcers Colds Flu Allergies Gastrointestinal disturbances Back problems ExerCise regularly Time spent exercising How important to you is religion How we11 do you handle stress Background Information Age Category Sex Marital status Oridinal position in family Education Years in present job Years library experience nal disturbances (r = 0.3), headaches (r = 0.3), sleeplessness (r = 0.3), success on the job (r = 0.28), back problems (r = 0.22), and job ten years from now (r = 0.2). No questionnaires scored in the 70s, "burnout," but five scored in the 60s, ''mild burnout,'' or 2 percent of those sur- veyed (See figure 1). Job Characteristics The low correlation between challenge of the job and burnout score suggests aca- demic reference librarians enjoy the stim- ulation of the job and are meeting the chal- lenges presented. Another indication of job satisfaction was the 95 percent positive response to working directly with pa- trons. ~:ma:~;s Calculated Alpha level .10 .052 .09 .072 -.01 .471 .08 .103 .19 .001 - .04 .262 .28 .001 .20 .001 - .05 .235 .10 .129 - .29 .001 - .29 .001 -.11 .061 -.06 .188 - .16 .010 - .14 .016 -.31 .001 -.22 .001 -.13 .017 - .13 · .029 .09 .081 .44 .001 - .09 .076 - .15 .008 -.01 .413 .03 .310 - .08 .093 - .04 .262 - .04 .260 Librarians averaged eighteen vacation days per year, and 76 percent participated in rejuvenating and nonjob-oriented ac- tivities, such as travel and visiting friends and relatives. Other research has shown that professionals who regularly take earned time off were better able to handle stress. Our data suggested lack of input into li- brary policy and pressure to publish caused little stress. However, in review- ing the five returns with the highest burn- out scores, all showed the respondent had little input into library policy. Also, all five indicated expectations of publishing. Thirty-two percent of respondents felt they were highly successful in their present job. However, 52 percent indi- cated they did not wish to remain on the 248 College & Research Libraries May 1983 TABLE 2 Number of Burnout Score by Number of Respondents Respondents 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 I ~r-" lA 1/ 1/ I I I ·I I I'\. J y ~ ~ • 1/\ J A ~ \ 1-f- f-1\ / [_ 1/ \, ' " I". " '" " 1""'-...... ...... " 1""-.. " ~ ~ If I'\ " 1""-.. \ ,., I" 1\ \ ~ ~ I\ ~ c:::, ... _M. ~ c:::, \ 1\ I" II". j LliA !A ~ ~ I ..... ""'""~ c:::, I \I 1\1/ 1/' I' II". I r r '"'' " 1"- l~r- i""'o::t"" Score Total : 25 2627 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 3738· 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 4849 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 6061 62 63,64 Scale : 71 to 80- "Have Burnout" 61 to 70- " Mild Burnout" 51 to 60 - " Some warning signs a candidate for burnout" 20 to 50 - "Good Balance " Burnout: 0% Mild Burnout: 1% Candidate -forBurnout 12% Controlled : 87% Mean: 41.431 Mode: 40.000 Median: 40.645 Standard Deviation : 8.157 Standard Error: 0.507 FIGURE 1 Burnout Score by Number of Respondents same job ten years from now. Perhaps this is an indication of desired growth and de- velopment. Also, a small number of the 52 percent anticipated retirement within that time frame. Again, if one considered only the top five burnout scores, a different pic- ture emerged. Of those five most in dan- ger of burnout, three said they definitely did not wish to be in the same job in ten years. One felt overworked and under- paid but didn't know what other work to do. The fifth didn't know, but indicated this was the fifth job in twelve years, and although presently unhappy, should maybe stay with the job. Personal The enthusiastic response to hobbies was perhaps a healthy indication of a well- balanced life. A wide variety of interests were represented, as most of the partici- pants listed more than one hobby. Hob- bies have been recommended frequently in the literature as a preventative for burn- out. In this study, most librarians listed one or more hobbies regardless of their burnout score-even the five highest scorers. This indicated that although hav- ing a hobby may be helpful, it was not enough to prevent burnout. Burnouts often experience recurring health problems. The significant levels of headaches, sleeplessness, gastrointestinal disturbances and back problems corrobo- rated this tendency, as they correlated positively to a high burnout score. Other researchers list ulcers, colds, flu, and aller- gies as being frequent concerns, however, they were not significant in this study. A low correlation for exercise and burn- out was unexpected. Indeed, most experts recommend exercise to prevent burnout. The questionnaires revealed that many who had low burnout scores did exercise. But the librarian with the highest burnout score (64), indicated performance of an ex- ercise program of three to five hours per week. Perhaps more exercise time was needed, or maybe exercise alone was not a sufficient preventative of burnout. The question about the importance of religion was included because of Freuden- berger' s comment: II A big reason our lives are more difficult today and more prone to burnout is our repudiation of religion and the buffers it provides for dealing with un- comfortable issues and situations. " 5 This was not a factor of significance for the li- brarians surveyed. The open-ended question, other stress categories, revealed two characteristics correlated with high burnout scores. They were: first, the lack of money for the li- brary and/or personal needs, and second-and perhaps the key to under- standing burnout in librarians-the lack of time to do all that had to be done or that they wanted to do. More will be said about this in the conclusion. CONCLUSIONS Academic reference librarians do not seem to be especially prone to burnout- why? In 1976 the National Institute of Occupa- tional Safety and Health listed librarian- ship in a group of ten least stressful jobs in the United States.6 A Metropolitan Life In- surance Company study found that ''li- brarians, curators, political leaders, gov- ernment officials, and community leaders enjoy the longest life.' ' 7 Librarians, in gen- eral seem to be well satisfied with their profession. Morrison observed that librar- ians are considerably less prone to express dissatisfaction with their occupational choice than other professional groups. 8 A number of studies have found that a large majority of librarians indicated a de- sire to remain in their profession. Stone discovered that those who wished to leave librarianship "had published more arti- cles, belonged to more learned societies, had done more research, [and] had a higher sense of professionalism." Their main reason to leave was a "desire to make fuller use of their capabilities and potential. " 9 For many, librarianship is their second profession. White and Macklin found that • 0 • only a quarter of the students entered a li- brary school directly from t~eir undergradua~e studies, and nearly two-thrrds had worked m another field of work before attending library school. 0 •• Most of the respondents indicated dissatisfaction with earlier employment or fam- ily reasons as the motivation for moving into the library field10 Perhaps many librarians experienced burnout in another profession before be- coming librarians, thus learned to cope with stress. Research Notes 249 . . . while burnout can be an extraordinarily painful and distressing experience, as with any difficult event, if properly handled it can not only be overcome, it can be the first step toward increased self-awareness, enriched human un- derstanding, and a precursor of important life changes, growth, and development. 11 Perhaps librarians have learned to make reasonable expectations of themselves. Freudenberger says: Not every personality is susceptible to Bum- Out. It would be virtually impossible for the un- derachiever to get into that state ... 0 Burn-Out is pretty much limited to dynamic, charismatic, goal-oriented men and women or to deter- mined idealists who want their marriages to be the best, their work records to be outstanding, their children to shine, their community to be better. These are the people who are dedicated and committed to whatever they undertake. 12 This quote may contain the explanation as to why a few librarians showed early signs of burnout, in spite of the fact that they had hobbies, exercised, and followed other preventative measures. These few librarians have not learned to relax. Over- achievers will never have enough time to accomplish their high expectations for the library or themselves. In order for the overly enthusiastic, idealistic librarian to be satisfied with the efforts expended, the results must be perfect. He/she must be the perfect librarian in the perfect library. And that is not all. In his/her personal life, perfection is expected as well. For exam- ple, if the librarian is also a wife, mother, jogger, or chairperson of a community or- ganization, she feels she must function perfectly and there simply is not enough time, although she pushes herself with great intensity. The inordinate energy ex- pended eventually leads to depletion and burnout. FUTURE RESEARCH Future studies should concentrate on the personality of librarians who show the strongest tendency to burnout. Very pos- sibly the injunction to know oneself will be the primary preventive measure for burnout. 250 College & Research Libraries May 1983 REFERENCES 1. Cary Cherniss, Professional Burnout in Human Seroice Organizations (New York: Praeger, 1980), p.16. 2. Herbert J. Freudenberger, "Staff Burn-Out," Journal of Social Issues 30:159-65 (1974); "The Staff Burn-Out Syndrome in Alternative Institutions," PsychoTheory, Research, and Practice 12(1):73-82 (1975). 3. Maxine Laure Gann, "The Role of Personality Factors and Job Characteristics in Burnout: A Study of Social Service Workers" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of California at Berkeley, 1979), p.143. 4. Sandra H. Neville, "Job Stress and Burnout: Occupational Hazards for Services Staff," College & Research Libraries 42:242-47 (May 1981); DavidS. Ferriero and Kathleen A. Powers, "Burnout at the Reference Desk," RQ 21 :274-79 (Spring 1982). 5. Herbert J. Freudenberger with Geraldine Richelson, Burn-Out: The High Cost of High Achievement (New York: Anchor Press, 1980), p .87. 6. Ray E. Merritt, Jr. and Donald D . Walley, The Group Leader's Handbook: Resources, Techniques, and Suroival Skills (Champaign, Illinois: Research Press Company, 1977), p.93-94. 7. L] Hotline 10(43) (December 21, 1981). 8. Perry D. Morrison, The Career of the Academic Librarian: A Study of the Social Origins, Educational Attainments, Vocational Experience, and Personality Characteristics of a Group of American Academic Li- brarians (Chicago: American Library Association, 1968), p .64. 9. Elizabeth W. Stone, Factors Related to the Professional Development of Librarians (New Jersey: Scare- crow Press, 1969), p.62 . 10. Rodney F. White and D. B. Macklin, Education, Careers and Professionalization in Librarianship and Information Science: Final Report (College Park, Maryland: School of Library and Information Ser- vices, University of Maryland, 1970), p.15-19. 11. Ayala Pines and Elliot Aronson with Ditsa Kafry, Burnout from Tedium to Personal Growth (New York: The Free Press, 1981), p.3 . 12. Freudenberger, Burn-Out: The High Cost of High Achievement, p.19. ItS Time To Try ANew ROUTE. Introducing ROUTE.The Newest Module In Faxons LINX System. 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