Library Conversations: Reclaiming Interpersonal Communication Theory for Understanding Professional Encounters, Edited by Marie L. Radford and Gary P. Radford, Chicago. IL, Neal-Schuman, 2017, 182 pp., $75.00, ISBN: 978-0-8389-1484-7

UNCG Author/Contributor (non-UNCG co-authors, if there are any, appear on document)
Mark Schumacher, Reference Librarian (Creator)
Institution
The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG )
Web Site: http://library.uncg.edu/

Abstract: In six chapters and a brief conclusion, the authors of this volume explore one-on-one “conversations” in various library settings, either in person or in other contexts such as online chat interactions. The volume begins rather philosophically, evoking Aristotle, John Locke, and other thinkers on the subject of communication. The authors reject a “transmission framework” to define communication, and thus conversations, because it lacks the psychological/psychiatric dimension found in such interactions. The authors basically anchor their research on the ideas of Erving Goffman and two other works—Communication: The Social Matrix of Psychiatry (1968) by Jurgen Ruesch and Gregory Bateson, and Pragmatics of Human Communication (1967) by Paul Watzlawick, Janet Beavin Bavelas, and Don D. Jackson.

Additional Information

Publication
Technical Services Quarterly, 35(2), 230-230
Language: English
Date: 2018
Keywords
book review, reference interview, libraries

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