Using Your Body to Reach Their Minds: Non-Verbal Communication at the Reference Desk or for Professional Presentations

Presenter: Jennifer K. Martin, Ph.D., Hall Family Foundation Professor of Theater, University of Missouri-Kansas City

I went to this because I got some tips from a teaching workshop that our library did about moving around a classroom that I've found really helpful. This session was that idea on steroids. Think about explaining a "on the one hand and on the other hand" concept--it's so much clearer if you use your hands, right? Now, think about making points in a lecture by starting off at home plate for the introduction, standing on first base for the first point, moving over to third base for a different point, and moving into the audience (second base) to tell them something a bit more intimate.

According to Dr. Martin, or rather some research, people take in information through hearing, through facial expression, and through body movement--and it's actually that last that is the favorite method for most Americans.

Some things I'm going to try at the Reference Desk:

• turn the screen toward the patron when I want the patron to look at it--now I just do it at any convenient moment, but that's wasting a marvelous opportunity to direct attention at the precise moment when it will convey the most information.


• Direct attention to the screen, but face back to the patron in case that person depends on facial expressions.


• Shift my weight to emphasize step 1, step 2, step 3 (works just like taking the different bases while talking to a group).


• Smile. That gives confidence to people who are sensitive to facial expressions.


• Try to eliminate communicative static. Verbally, that's the "uh"s and "mmm"s. But it can also be any fiddling behavior and gestures that don't mean anything. If people are reading my body language and facial expressions, what are they to make of me fiddling with my earring?

Labels: conferences, instruction, presentations

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