Physical

Emotional

Librarians' ongoing communications with vendors regarding hardware and software elements that cause technostress is important. One of the key technostress issues reported in a 1997 study by Lisa Ennis was the lack of standardization of hardware and software:  “Technologies that did the same thing often required unique commands for each interface, which proved very frustrating to librarians” (Ennis, 2005, Table 1).

In a follow-up study, librarians’ (and others’) communications with vendors appears to have produced an improvement.  Repeating her study in 2005, Ennis found: “While vendors tend to move buttons around, those buttons are now identified by the same name.  Graphical interfaces and hot-swap technology has alleviated a good bit of standardization stress”  (Ennis, 2005, Table 1).

Aside from vendor communications, both the librarians and the organization should ensure that technical support for hardware and software is available during all hours that the library is open, and ensure that there are competent staff available to install, manage, troubleshoot, and fix equipment.  "Help must be both competent and timely" (Clark & Kalin, para. 23).