Library anxiety : An analysis on the phenomenon through a perspective of conceptual history

Library anxiety has been a concept since 1986, when Constance A. Mellon coined the phenomenon through her qualitative study on feelings that students experienced when interacting with academic libraries. In this essay we are looking at the origin of the concept through earlier research on the known barriers, trying to see what makes library anxiety unique compared to other seemingly related concepts, for example information anxiety. We’ve found many different concepts which can be part of library anxiety, or vice-versa, and many different extensions of LAS – the original scale to measure library anxiety. We aim to unravel some of those concepts we find of importance for library anxiety and its discourse. Looking at this through the lenses of Koselleck’s take on conceptual history, we see possible conflicts on where the concept library anxiety are heading; depending on what aspects of the concept the researcher read into and focusing on and in what context and time the articles were made. We also try to see who is considered responsible for shaping the discourse and if there is some kind of hegemonic struggle therein