Conflict Management

Within our professional careers (as well as personal home life) we will encounter some difficult conflicts we need to understand how to navigate this process.

Varieties of Conflict

• Goal Conflict
• Meaning: incompatible preferences
• Cognitive Conflict
• Meaning: incompatible thoughts
• Affective Conflict
• Meaning: incompatible feelings
• Procedural Conflict
• Meaning: incompatible views on process

Conflict handling styles:

• Avoidance
• Forcing
• Collaborating
• Compromising

When discussing conflict here is some "Tongue Fu" to get you through:

Words to Lose:

• Explaining what went wrong and why they didn't get what they want
• Explaining further and extend the argument
• Refuse to take responsibility for something that is not your fault

Words to Use:

• Consider whether what the person is saying is basically true, and openly agree with it
• Apologize for the state of affairs and take action to end the argument before it begins
• Thank the person for bringing this to your attention and give some hope of improvement.

Building and Managing a Reference Collection

                

Building a reference collection is a task every library must face. No two reference collections are alike, as the needs of the community will dictate the type of reference needed. For instance, a medical library's reference sections will vary from the reference section for a law library, and public libraries (probably the most varies of all reference collections) will differ from both law and medical library reference collections. They key to building a usable collection is knowing your community.

With knowing your community, you will be unable to crate a reference collection that is relevant to their interests. Also, when you are involved and knowledgeable about your community, you are able to keep up with all changes in interest, and know how to weed your collection to make room for more relevant materials to the current needs of that community.

Relevant readings:

• Farmer, L. S. J. (2009). The Life Cycle of Digital Reference Sources.  Reference Librarian, 50(2), 117-136.
• Singer, Carol A. “Weeding Gone Wild: Planning and Implementing a Review of the Reference Collection.”  Reference & User Services Quarterly 47.3 (2008): 256-264.