Emotional Intelligence of Library Personnel and Library Work Productivity in Selected Academic Libraries in Oyo State, Nigeria

Academic libraries have for centuries played critically important roles in supporting research in all subjects and disciplines within their host universities, polytechnics and colleges. Academic libraries are libraries that are attached to higher education institutions which serve two complementary purposes to support the school's curriculum and research of faculty (lecturers) and students. Higher institutions of learning now have additional functions to include: pursuit, promotion, and dissemination of knowledge, provision of intellectual leadership, manpower development, promotion of social and economic modernisation, promotion of intra and intercontinental and international understanding (Ifidon and Okoli, 2002) To survive and compete successfully in today's turbulent environment, organisations like academic libraries require employees to be proactive, show initiative while engaging with their role and remain committed to performing at high standards (Bakker and Leiter, 2010) The work of library personnel is a service delivery one, and on a daily basis; library personnel provide services to different people from different background, culture, feelings/emotions, skills and characters. Base on this, it is required of library personnel to have knowledge on how to manage emotions and render effective services to the "wonderful" library users. Emotion is the subjective experience associated with personality, mood, temperament and disposition. The English word 'emotion' is derived from the French word emouvoir, but this is also based on the Latin word emovere, where e (variant of ex means 'out' and movere means 'move' Human being can report an extraordinary range of states, which they can feel or experience. Emotion is a state of psychological arousal, an expression or display of distinctive somatic and autonomic responses (Joy, 2011) In other words, an emotion fundamentally involves "physiological arousals, expressive behaviours, and conscious experience" (Myers, 2005) An emotion has been defined as "a complex feeling state with psychic, somatic and behavioural components that are related to affect mood" (Kalpan and Sadock, 1998) According to Salovey and Mayer (1990) emotional intelligence is the "ability to monitor one's own and other's feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one's thinking and actions." This emphasis suggests that emotional states can be defined by particular constellations of bodily responses. Hence, the ability to recognise and manage one's emotion is a skill that has to be developed, used and honoured throughout one's life time (Goleman, 1995) Emotional intelligence is a type of social intelligence, which involves the capacity for recognising one's own feelings and those of others for motivating and managing emotions well in oneself and in one's relationships. Thus EI refers to an array of non cognitive capabilities, competencies and skills that influence one's ability to succeed in coping with environmental demands and pressures (Joy, 2011) The four major clusters of EI include self awareness, self management, social awareness and relationship management (Goleman, 2001; Goleman, Boyatzis and McKee, 2002) Bar On (1997) has given the concept of Emotional Intelligence Quotient (EQ) in the process of constructing the tool to measure EI. Human hearts are doorways to the connection to everything in life. If a person closes his heart, he closes the doors to his live. When a person opens his heart, he opens to all that life can offer. A heart based ability (emotional intelligence) allows us a new relationship to our emotions. We become more responsible for what and how we feel. Our emotions are vaster than our mind (body) They contain our histories, every chapter and verse of energy, experience, deep understanding and relationship in our lives. Emotions make up that which we are, shapes our mind as well as the entire personality pattern.