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This article links to the Society for Humanistic Psychology. Which is a division of the American Psychological Association (APA). The Society for Humanistic Psychology publishes a journal and a newsletter. Which can all be accessed from its website by members. They also have a link to their YouTube channel and articles about the history of humanistic psychology. I like that they mention the society's "movement began as an alternative to the limitations of and disparities between experimentalism/behaviorism and psychoanalysis."~Justin McDowell

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Publications of the Society for Humanistic Psychology

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Official publications of Div. 32 include The Humanistic Psychologist journal, the Society for Humanistic Psychology Newsletter, the Div. 32 blog and a directory of recommended humanistic psychology-related books.

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Humanistic School Culture and Social 21st Century Skills

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Humanistic School Culture and Social 21st Century Skills

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This is a great article that explains the history of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. I also like how the article did a literature review and provided references to other sources of information. Additionally, the article linked humanism and Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs to the 21st-century skills frameworks for the subjects of math, reading and writing, and science. This makes humanism and Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs relevant to the standards being used by school librarians.  ~Justin McDowell

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This is a paper that proposes a hierarchy of library user needs based on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. I like how the paper connected Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs to the needs of library users. Thereby making Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs more relevant and less theoretical to librarians.

“As applied to library services, Maslow’s five tiers become (1) Library as Minimum Viable Product, (2) Library as Convenience, (3) Library as Connector, (4) Library as Incubator, and (5) Community as Library.”
~Justin McDowell

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Abstract

This paper proposes a model for categorizing library services and resources by their importance to users based on the service's fundamentality to the other resources and services in the library's offerings, the degree to which the service affects users, and the scope of users that access the service. Adapted from Abraham Maslow's theory of motivation, we substitute individual human motivations for a community's motivations for using the library. Maslow's five tiers-physiological needs, safety needs, love and belongingness needs, esteem needs, and self-actualization-are changed to library-specific tiers: Library as Minimum Viable Product, Library as Convenience, Library as Connector, Library as Incubator, and Community as Library. The Hierarchy of Library User Needs is a theoretical tool for service prioritization with the potential to facilitate discussions between users and libraries. Libraries may wish to (re)evaluate the alignment between the resources they devote to their services and the items that are most likely to be used and appreciated by their users.

Introduction

Know Your Meme (Downer, 2017) traces a humorous version of Maslow's theory of human motivation, commonly called Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, to 2014. In this version, someone has drawn another row underneath the pyramid and written "Wi-Fi" in the new space (see fig. 1). This meme uses hyperbole to make light of the perception that wireless internet has become a basic need for many people, though perhaps not quite as basic as food, water, and shelter. The red "Wi-Fi" text appears unprofessional and untidy when contrasted with Maslow's standard pyramid in typed, black text above it, reminiscent of the way an adolescent might use a sharpie to deface a poster or billboard. This dichotomy suggests that the ways experts interpret motivation may now be different from how everyday people perceive their lived reality. The differential between how institutions and individuals perceive motivation is also at the crux of user experience (UX) work in libraries. Much of the research and user testing we do is designed to surface gaps between what is important to our users and what we deliver them.

Figure 1. Maslow's hierarchy meme with Wi-Fi at bottom.

Deciding how to allocate resources requires weighing a wide variety of needs against one another making it difficult to satisfy everyone. This is a universal challenge for library administrators, as budgets are finite. Furthermore, libraries exist within funding systems where they are usually "competing" with other worthy organizations or departments for funds. This leaves libraries with the job of ensuring that their services are meeting user needs, while also working to dazzle their funders and show that they are helping them accomplish their wider missions. This can be challenging to get right. If libraries put too many resources into the basics, users will be well served, but funders may perceive libraries as wanting more and more money to maintain an uninspiring status quo. Focusing too much on refining the basics may also cause libraries to miss crucial opportunities to innovate or address emerging user needs. If libraries allocate too many resources to high-level or niche services, this will leave the basics without the care and attention that they need. The basics are the most widely used library services, and failure to invest in them may leave the average user feeling unsatisfied with library services.

This paper proposes a Hierarchy of Library User Needs based on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. As applied to library services, Maslow's five tiers become (1) Library as Minimum Viable Product, (2) Library as Convenience, (3) Library as Connector, (4) Library as Incubator, and (5) Community as Library. We suggest placing library services and resources in each tier according to how fundamental they are, the degree to which users are affected by them, and the scope of users in the community who access them following Maslow's ordering of needs from most basic to most sophisticated.

This model articulates a UX approach to service prioritization. It is theoretical and has not yet been used in practice. As each library has a unique user community, each library will have different resources and services in each tier. In order to apply the model in a real library setting, it must be used in tandem with user research. UX is founded on the idea that practitioners should not make decisions about what users need without talking to them. We offer this model in hopes that it can be helpful for both UX professionals and library administrators to explore the challenging work of prioritizing user needs within a suite of library services.

Literature Review

A Maslow Refresher

Abraham Maslow's theory of motivation, commonly called the "Hierarchy of Needs," will be familiar to many (see fig. 2). It seeks to explain human behavior as deriving from a set of needs that we all share as mortal beings:

1. The physiological needs include the need for air, water, food, and anything a human body must have to continue living.

2. The safety needs require familiarity, order, and stability. War, violence, natural disasters, and oppression would all threaten the safety needs.

3. Humans next seek to satisfy their belongingness and love needs. We need warm, affectionate relationships, both platonic and romantic.

4. The esteem needs have us seeking recognition, status, and respect from others.

5. Maslow's definition of self-actualization is somewhat fuzzy: "the desire to become more and more what one is, to become everything that one is capable of being" (Maslow, 1943, p. 382). Anything that gives an individual a sense of purpose and fulfillment, of becoming their best selves, would count as self-actualization. Things in this category could include artistic expression, athletic achievement, and social or political activism.

Figure 2. Maslow's hierarchy.

These needs are organized in order of what Maslow calls "prepotency" meaning that "the appearance of one need usually rests on the prior satisfaction of another, more prepotent need" (1943, p. 370). For example, a person in immediate danger of dying may take risks to their safety that would be unacceptable in other circumstances, just as a person in the midst of a natural disaster is unlikely to consider their dating life a priority in that moment. Maslow insists that people are motivated by multiple needs at once (1954). Emotional eating satisfies both the physiological and the belongingness and love needs, just as competing at a high level in your chosen sport may satisfy your need for esteem and for self-actualization.

All needs are always in a state of partial satisfaction. Maslow asserts that as we ascend the "hierarchy of prepotency," the needs are less satisfied (1954, p. 100). When a lower need is very unsatisfied, then, the higher needs become less motivating to the individual. Imagine attending a meeting if you were hungry. At the beginning of the meeting, your hunger might be minor and not an impediment to paying attention or participating. As the meeting drags on past lunchtime, however, your hunger becomes a more pressing concern that intrudes on your attention span, patience, and contribution effectiveness.

Maslow's theory remains a theory; it has never been adequately validated. Soper, Milford, and Rosenthal (1995) and Wahba and Bridwell (1976) conducted literature reviews of the empirical evidence and concluded that they were insufficient to justify the theory's popularity. Others have tried to update the theory. Kenrick, Griskevicius, Neuberg, and Schaller (2010) promised a "renovated" model that accounts for advances in evolutionary biology, anthropology, and psychology with seven overlapping "goal systems":

1. Immediate physiological needs

2. Self-protection

3. Affiliation

4. Status/esteem

5. Mate acquisition

6. Mate retention

7. Parenting

Adaptation to other fields of research is also common. Researchers have applied it to food politics (Lusk, 2018), durable goods (Gabor, 2013), palliative care (Zalensky & Raspa, 2006), and hotel employee management (Conley, 2007) to provide a sampling.

Despite its lack of empirical validation and improvements suggested by other researchers, Richter, Wright, Brinkmann, and Gendolla (2017) note that Maslow's theory endures for its "descriptive value and plausibility" (para. 13). It continues to be widely cited in several applied social science fields. In Web of Science, his seminal 1943 article, "A Theory of Human Motivation," has over three thousand citations with the most coming from management (450), business (299), education and education research (242), multidisciplinary psychology (220), applied psychology (189), and social psychology (167) (Clarivate, 2018). The numbers of citations appear to be growing, as his collected works received 650 citations in Scopus in 2017, up from 71 in 2003 (Elsevier, 2018).

Maslow in the Library Literature

In the library literature, Maslow's hierarchy is generally discussed in the context of motivating employees. Ugah and Arua (2011) used it in combination with expectancy theory to urge library administration to motivate original catalogers as individuals rather than the cataloguing department as a whole. James (2011) discussed how paraprofessionals' needs align with the hierarchy. Al-Aufi and Al-Kalbani (2014) surveyed library employees in Oman about their motivation and found that higher order needs were less likely to be satisfied than lower order needs. Crumpton (2016) joined Maslow and Grumble Theory to suggest that library leaders understand the complaints from staff in their organization as arising from unsatisfied needs. Hosoi (2005) organizes library employees' workplace needs with the hierarchy in a helpful table that describes "well-being of others," "accepting self," and "meaningful work" as self-actualization (p. 44). In a reversal of approach, Walker (1994) applied the hierarchy to supervisors and administrators by encouraging hospital librarians to spend less time on "basic" library functions like cataloguing and selection so that they can devote themselves to higher profile activities like outreach that are more satisfying and motivating to hospital administrators.

However, there is some library-related work applying Maslow's hierarchy more holistically. Francis (2010) compared information literacy to self-actualization and posited that libraries must care for students' lower order needs lest we "become obsessed solely with providing information literacy instruction to students" (p. 142). She makes parallels between eating and sleeping in the stacks and physiological needs; library anxiety and safety needs; specialized services like popular fiction collections and belongingness needs; and staff affect and esteem needs. Pateman and Pateman (2017) marry Maslow with Karl Marx's theories to envision a transformation for public libraries from a traditional, hierarchical and bureaucratic model to a Needs Based Library model where the library is run in a way that helps its workers and the community achieve self-actualization and positive socio-economic change.

Though not in the library field, Elissa Frankle Olinsky has done some excellent thinking about Maslow in museums. Her talk at the 2017 Information Architecture Summit, entitled "All roads lead to the bathroom," encouraged museums to think about their visitors as whole people, which requires "solving" the lowers levels before progressing. Refreshingly, she stated, "People don't stop having physical needs just because your content is cool" (Frankle Olinsky, 2017a, slide 16). Frankle Olinsky's Hierarchy of Visitor Needs (2017a) has six levels:

1. Accessibility and safety

2. Physiological

3. Basic psychological

4. Higher psychological

5. Highest psychological

6. Self-actualization

She adds an additional tier before physiological to acknowledge the factors that may inhibit a person from visiting a museum such as ticket prices, opening hours, and services for visitors with mobility or other impairments (Frankle Olinsky, 2017a). The museum's content addresses the three highest needs while the museum's physical structure including entrances, signage, and washrooms address the lower three needs, called the "comfort needs." Like libraries, museums "are in the content business" (Frankle Olinsky, 2017b, para. 5) but need to ensure that the content is not obscured by difficulties for visitors that arise when their comfort needs are not addressed.

Service Design and Project Prioritization Models

Limited resources and competing priorities are well documented in the library literature, but there is little written on how to allocate resources holistically. Although a user-centered approach is at the core of service design and other models, such as community-led librarianship (Marquez & Downey, 2015; Pateman & Williment, 2013), these methodologies are not designed for decision-making on a system-wide level.

Service design takes a holistic approach to understanding how users experience libraries' services. Polaine, Løvlie, and Reason (2013) explain that users see "services in totality and base their judgement on how well everything works together to provide them with value" (p. 22). Once the service designer has accepted this approach, they then can focus their attention on the assessment or development of a single service within a service ecosystem. The methodology focuses on improving or developing one service at a time, not prioritizing all services relationally.

Similarly, UX strategy (Levy, 2015) integrates business strategy and UX into a framework for developing new products, while design thinking proposes a human-centered approach to understanding user needs and creating services to meet those needs (IDEO, 2015). Both approaches lend themselves to developing a culture of innovation within organizations, but neither are designed to provide a decision-making matrix in complex, multi-touch point environments, such as libraries.

Digital collections is one area of librarianship that has a well-developed body of literature on project selection and prioritization. Hazen, Horrell, and Merrill-Oldham (1998) discuss the complex nature of selecting collections to digitize, which includes considerations of intellectual value, potential audience, cost of digitization, relationship to other digitization projects, and copyright concerns. Their overall conclusion is that these decisions will factor in practical, measurable concerns but will ultimately be driven by the organization's values and goals. Ooghe and Moreels' (2009) scan of the literature and frameworks for selecting digitization projects found a gap in transparency and consistency in decision-making and proposed a set of twenty-five criteria which could be used to improve the selection process and cross-institutional communication. Balancing user and institutional needs is a frequent concern in the digital collection literature (Boock & Chau, 2007; Bantin & Agne, 2010; Mills, 2015). Vinopal and McCormick (2013) propose a tiered model for understanding the resource requirements of digital scholarship projects, which allows libraries to make informed decisions on what to prioritize.

Hierarchy of Library User Needs

We propose a model for library resources and services that is similar in spirit to Maslow's hierarchy, but not a direct translation (see fig. 3). Like the original, the Hierarchy of Library User Needs proposes five categories organized hierarchically:

1. Library as Minimum Viable Product

2. Library as Convenience

3. Library as Connector

4. Library as Incubator

5. Community as Library

Figure 3. The Hierarchy of Library User Needs.

1. Library as Minimum Viable Product

In Maslow's model, the first category contains the basic physiological functions and appetites that the body needs to stay alive (1943). Within the library context, this tier comprises the building blocks of what makes a library a library. These elements act as the structure of the library upon which the other services and offerings can be built. For example, a reading room must be inside a library building, just as circulation services would be useless without a cataloged collection. If a library were a person, these items would be the elements that it needs to exist. In most traditional libraries, the collection and physical spaces are examples of minimum viable product.

2. Library as Convenience

Once the minimum requirements of a library are in place, we layer elements that user communities most commonly need. Computer workstations and circulation services are examples of common conveniences. These are the things which make the library a convenient institution to rely on. They are simple needs that users expect to work seamlessly. They are only conveniences if they are actually convenient. These items are in the second category of basic needs because they cannot be implemented without the items in the first category in place.

Here we depart from a direct translation of Maslow's second tier, the safety needs. None of the library elements in our model contribute to a user's physical safety exactly, though they do contribute to their comfort and ability to accomplish day-to-day tasks.

3. Library as Connector

Once the user's everyday needs are satisfied, we can begin to assist with higher order needs. Maslow's third category, which he calls "the love needs" (1943), are where good relationships start to make a direct impact on a person's happiness. In this category, a person will "hunger for affectionate relations with people in general, namely, for a place in his group, and he will strive with great intensity to achieve this goal" (p. 381). The library can assist with this goal in three ways: (1) by building relationships directly between the user and library staff, (2) by helping the user meet and bond with their peers, and (3) by helping them to feel like they belong in their peer group.

Previous work applying Maslow's theory of motivation to library services also ascribes good relationships with library staff at this level (Anderson, 2004). We certainly concur as more of the services we propose in this tier require library staff than any previous tier. Examples might include information services, reference, and teaching. All interactions with staff should communicate that the user is welcome and belongs at the library. For example, outreach and liaison programs are important for building and maintaining warm relationships between the user and the library, but these must be backed up by courtesy and warmth from the library's public service staff or the liaison/outreach efforts will be undermined.

Libraries' status as a "third place" in the community means that it is a popular place for community members to gather. This happens in both structured and unstructured ways. In a public library, parents with young children love storytime programs while teens appreciate the safe and free space to be with their friends away from the direct supervision of their parents and teachers.

We also see a broader application of the "love needs" to libraries. Library services and resources can help a user develop skills for success in their academic, professional, or personal lives, depending on the library's mission and community. These skills can help a person to feel secure in their place in the community. For example, a workshop or reference interaction can help a student complete an assignment successfully thereby maintaining good (academic) standing amongst their peers.

4. Library as Incubator

Maslow's fourth level has to do with feelings of prestige and self-esteem which he defines as "that which is soundly based upon real capacity, achievement, and respect from others" (1943, p. 382). In this, the parallel to library services is quite direct. These are the things we can do to help users achieve prestige and success in their chosen fields. Here we imagine services and resources meant to address more advanced user needs, like audio-visual content creation or mapping software.

These services and resources require mastery from both the user and library staff. They require significant time and energy and are therefore likely to be accessed only by motivated or more sophisticated users. It follows that these services will be accessed less frequently than those discussed in the previous tiers. The specialized services in this tier often require significant funding to create and maintain. For example, a small, underfunded public library system may struggle more than a large, urban system to be able to afford a fully appointed makerspace.

5. Community as Library

Maslow's highest tier describes the drive to reach self-actualization, which he explains "as the desire to become more and more what one is, to become everything that one is capable of becoming" (1943, p. 382). This level has been criticized as being ill-defined (Daniels, 1982), but we will take him to mean realizing one's highest potential. Within a library context, this will depend on the community served, but fundamentally it will involve community-led practices and projects. In this tier, the library seeks to remove the divide between service provider and user. This category also includes areas in which libraries can use their expertise to advocate for the central ideals and values of our profession.

It is at this tier that the barrier between library and community becomes permeable. Initiatives such as community-sourced metadata, services co-created with community partners, and collaborative design projects all require libraries to invite people not employed by the library to contribute in significant ways. The libraries provide the structure, space, or resources and invite the community to build it up. In this tier, libraries may also move outside the realm of service provider to become advocates for causes that are central to our values. The results of these efforts may be intangible, hard to measure, require a longer period for results to become clear, or fail entirely.

Community as Library will look different depending on the type of library and its mission. We imagine that the actions in this tier will be guided by the community's needs. Libraries may not spend significant resources in this area, but they will frequently be high-profile projects that may involve collaborations that leverage the resources of multiple libraries or library organizations.

Applying the Model in Theory

To illustrate this conceptual model, we present three examples of how it might look if applied. We have provided a brief sampling of what might fit into each tier for three very different fictional libraries and their communities. The example libraries below are meant to demonstrate how variable service prioritization can look, not to provide an authoritative representation.

Both Maslow's hierarchy and the Hierarchy of Library User Needs have fixed tiers. Maslow's hierarchy has also defined what falls into each tier, whereas the Hierarchy of Library User Needs is a bit looser, allowing the arrangement of services within each category to vary depending on the library's unique mission and community. The goal is to provide a frame for libraries to use to organize their understanding of their user communities. Any library wanting to apply this model will have to validate it with data and input from users at their own institutions and consider local mission, needs, services, and contexts.

Example 1: Academic Library

This academic library serves a mid-sized, centralized, publicly funded, doctoral granting, urban university. This is the only library on campus. The student population is mostly commuter.

Library as Minimum Viable Product

Sample Services:

A cataloged collection with access points such as a catalogue

Wireless internet and computer workstations

Safe and accessible physical space

Rationale:

Implications:

Library as Convenience

Sample Services:

Independent study spaces so users can view the collection or work

Printers and scanners

Technology and technology accessory loans such as laptops, dongles, or phone chargers

Rationale:

Implications:

Example 2: Public Library

This library system is comprised of three small branches in a rural area that has few job opportunities. There is a large population of retirees, and the system is underfunded by its municipality. Internet quality and coverage in the region is low.

Library as Minimum Viable Product

Sample Services:

A cataloged print collection strong in both leisure reading and practical non-fiction topics

Safe and accessible physical space

Computer workstations and strong wireless internet throughout each branch

Rationale:

Implications:

Example 3: Online-Only Medical Library

This library is embedded in a teaching hospital, but not responsible for patient service or education. Researchers and clinicians work on multiple physical sites in several clinical disciplines and access library resources and services online. There is no physical library location, only office space for library staff.

Library as Convenience

Sample Services:

Rationale:

Implications:

What Goes Where?

As Maslow was talking about an individual, relating his theory of motivation to an organization that serves individuals requires careful thought. To help us organize library services into the five tiers, we consider three concepts (see fig. 4):

Key question: How important is an element to those who use it?

The absence of lower tier items will have a stronger negative effect on users than the absence of those in the higher tiers. For example, an accessible entrance is essential to using the physical library for those who require mobility accommodations. This feature may only be needed by a small percentage of the user community, but those who need it would be greatly affected if it were not there.

We think of this concept in terms of value proposition design (Osterwalder, Pigneur, Bernarda, Smith, & Papadakos, 2014). The services in the lower categories tend to be "pain relievers" that remove obstacles to achieving users' goals while the upper categories are more likely "gain creators" that add unexpected value to users' lives. Circulation relieves the pain of having to access the collection in person at the library, whereas an experienced reference librarian can help create gains for researchers embarking on a difficult project.

More than the other concepts, determining the degree of an element requires user research. In order to fully understand which services are important to users and the role that service plays in their lives, library staff must get the users' perspectives or risk making erroneous assumptions. Degree should not be determined by library staff alone.

Fundamentality

Key question: Which elements depend on which?

The more fundamental an element is, the more other elements depend on it to function. For example, a reference desk is impossible without a library building and a research guide is impossible without a website. An element with few or no other elements depending on it is less fundamental than one with many depending on it.

Service design tools are well suited to help determine fundamentality as they help make explicit "how different touchpoints work together to form a complete experience" (Polaine et al., 2013, p. 45). By understanding the interconnectivity of services from a user perspective, libraries will be better able to determine fundamentality.

Key question: What proportion of the user population accesses each element frequently?

Some elements may affect everyone while others affect very few. Elements that are higher up in the hierarchy will be directly beneficial to fewer users. For example, more users will benefit from the library's free Wi-Fi than its music librarian's expertise. Items in the fifth category, Community as Library, have a narrow scope because fewer users are involved or benefit directly even though the indirect benefits may be strong indeed. Advocacy work with government, for example, has a narrow scope because few users are involved, but the effects of successful efforts could have a very broad indirect scope.

In general, the more fundamental, the higher degree, and the broader scope, the lower the service or resource should appear in the Hierarchy of Library User Needs. As we ascend, the services and resources become less fundamental with a weaker degree of impact, and a narrower scope.

There are library resources and services that may be high in one area, but low in the others. Gender-neutral washrooms, baby changing stations, and accessibility accommodations are examples of services with high degree but low scope and fundamentality. Following the Seven Principles of Universal Design (National Disability Authority, 2012), we weigh degree more heavily as "Provisions for privacy, security, and safety should be equally available to all users" (1.c.). Additionally, although these services may be developed to ensure accessibility and usability for specific user groups, universal design benefits all users.

When applying this model, consider that a library unit's activities may fit in multiple tiers, depending on the context. For example, a map library within the context of a library system could fall into the fourth tier, Library as Incubator. Within that library, however, the space and collection would be considered the first tier, Library as Minimum Viable Product. When placing services within the model, context is important. This could help units prioritize their activities for smaller-scale planning within a broader strategic context. It might be useful for units to know where the bulk of their activities fall within the broader organization's tiers, just as it could be for administrators to be reminded of each unit's contributions to each tier. It works as both a macrocosm and a microcosm, in this way.

Discussion

Using the Model for Decision-Making

We offer this model as a possible strategic planning tool for libraries. We especially hope that it may be used to assess (or reassess) staff and budgetary allocations. The most time and money should go to the bottom tier of the model and decrease as the tiers rise. We have not included benchmarks for each tier-though a library could certainly aim to devote 5 percent to Community as Library activities, 10 percent to Library as Incubator initiatives, and so on. Instead, we hope it will stimulate conversations within a library, especially at administrative levels. Any tier could be over- or under-invested in; the model is there to help libraries identify and correct imbalances.

One common position we have seen is an overinvestment or overemphasis in the fourth tier, which we call Library as Incubator and entails specialized facilities, services, and staff to serve a minority of advanced users. These services are very exciting and allow the library to address emerging needs that may become more standard in the future. 3D printing, for example, was once a fringe interest but is now becoming commonplace in many occupations and even taught in elementary schools (Trust & Maloy, 2017). Many special, academic, and public libraries are rushing to implement 3D printing services and facilities for their communities. These facilities certainly benefit the patrons who use them, but we fear that they are sometimes adopted at the expense of more quotidian community needs. We hope that under the model we propose, libraries evaluate whether the efforts they pour into such a service are in proportion with the other tiers. Have the low tiers been satisfactorily addressed? User experience work should be able to answer this question if it is not already apparent from the number of complaints (or lack thereof) from your users. If the answer is no, it may be best to scale back your 3D-printing plans until the basic needs are addressed. Put another way: don't buy a 3D printer until your regular, paper printers are reliable and easy to use.

We understand that several factors may tempt a library's administration to put higher-tier activities above those in the lower-tiers. They are more exciting to donors and funding bodies than operations, so it may be possible to obtain funding for these projects over other, less "sexy" (though perhaps more necessary) budget lines. Participating in these advanced or emerging areas of needs also signals that the library system is keeping pace with rapid technological change. These are not trivial concerns. However, these services do not make the strongest impact on the most users. In addition to providing the high-level services, a user-focused library will also value improvement of the more basic elements, as they are aware that they have broader impact. Advanced services should not be implemented in such a way that diverts funding or staff attention from the urgency and primacy of the services and resources discussed in the previous tiers.

Another common situation is an underinvestment in the top tier ("Community as Library"). This tier is easy to forget about because it might not be explicitly included in a library's mandate-though we encourage libraries to do so. It is also the tier that contains activities that may not benefit users directly or immediately. It can be hard to justify activities that produce intangible results, such as advocacy. Libraries are interested in quantifying their activities in order to demonstrate value. Taking on partnerships or advocacy work often yields increased awareness or improved relationships, which cannot be easily visualized in an annual report. Some libraries have managed to quantify their contributions, however. After the Edmonton Public Library hired outreach workers to engage members of the community at the library's downtown branch, they produced a social return on investment report estimating that their program saved the city 3.56 million CAD (Berry, 2014). Short term, quantifiable measures such as savings or return on investment are persuasive to a funding body, but longer-term, subtler impact may provide value that is hard to measure. How could a library quantify the extent to which they are acting on their most deeply held values?

Maslow (1943) acknowledged that a person's basic needs were in a constant state of partial fulfillment. Otherwise, we would not be able to go on a date or to a class lecture if we were at all hungry or cold. As long as we are usually adequately well fed and warm, we can still focus on higher order needs such as love or self-actualization. Similarly, we do not expect a library to be perfect on every level before tackling items on the higher levels, but the lower levels should be more functional and well-resourced than the ones above it.

This model is meant to highlight the unique value each of the library's services and activities provide to users irrespective of their perceived prestige. Lower tier elements are in no way lesser because they fall lower on the hierarchy. Rather, they are crucial to the operation of the whole organization, and usually touch a far greater number of users. Making improvements to these areas will have a broad impact. Those that fall in the higher tiers are likewise not rarefied extravagances that must be abandoned. On the contrary, these are services that few others are positioned to offer. Libraries can capitalize on their unique role to support users in ways that few other organizations can. We should shine a light on these services to draw attention to our value.

Where Do Users Fit In?

UX research is essential to interpreting this model in a specific library's context. Taking a user-centered approach to evaluating resource allocation will allow libraries to honestly assess how they are meeting user needs. We anticipate that many libraries already have access to studies like LibQual+, Ithaka S+R Faculty Survey, or Measuring Information Service Outcomes that can help them triangulate where a service or resource should fit in the pyramid. Additionally, institutions could use some of our criterion, especially degree and scope, to place items into tiers by asking users if they use a service and how important it is to them. The authors conducted a pilot study to do just this (Logan & Everall, 2019). The point of this tool is to help libraries allocate resources in proportion to user needs and expectations, but these needs and expectations should be researched and validated using both qualitative and quantitative methods, since we are not our users. Libraries should review and update their understanding of user needs often to ensure that we keep pace with changes. If we are making decisions based on library assumptions about what our users need, or worse yet, based on what we think is best for them, we risk obsolescence.

It is important to be inclusive and broad in identifying users when applying the Hierarchy of Library User Needs. Libraries can easily miss marginalized or non-traditional user populations. Frankle Olinsky's model includes a sixth tier placed below physiological needs for accessibility and safety to acknowledge that people are free to visit or choose not to visit a museum (2017a). She insists, "We throw out the entire rest of the pyramid if the visitor never enters the building" (slide 20). Libraries are in a somewhat similar situation. We tend to have assigned communities. Public libraries serve municipalities or regions; academic libraries serve their institutions of higher learning; legal libraries serve their law firms. However, we are well aware that our users now have a great deal of choice about how to access resources in our digital age. We cannot complacently assume that our user community is a captive audience. User research, liaison, and Library as Connector activities can help us to connect with, understand, and build relationships with aspects of our community that we may not be as familiar with.

Not all members of the community will access all levels equally. Community members with economic or experience advantages may not access services in the lower tiers, but they may come to the library for those in the higher tiers, the "gain creators" that have lower degree. For example, those that have good internet service at home may not care very much about the library's free Wi-Fi just as an advanced researcher may not need to come to the library for information literacy instruction. These users have already satisfied the needs that the lower tiers are aimed at addressing elsewhere and do not need the library's help. Conversely, users whose lower-tier needs have not yet been met may be less likely to access services and resources in the higher tiers. First year undergraduates are more likely to need a quiet place to study than a librarian's text mining expertise just as a person struggling with underemployment is more likely to attend a job interview preparation workshop than have the time to sit on the library's board. It is up to the library to understand their user community and address their variety of needs in the most appropriate way; the Hierarchy of Library User Needs is one lens that libraries can use to do this.

Conclusion

We believe Maslow's hierarchy has the potential to be a helpful mental model for contextualizing and prioritizing library user needs. Since UX and service design experts are few in libraries, they frequently choose to focus their attention on projects with broad reach that can have a positive impact on the most users. Although this is the modus operandi within the UX field, it can be challenging to communicate these values to decision makers. The Hierarchy of Library User Needs might provide a framework that can be used to start those conversations. Libraries can draw upon the vast amount of data and research they generate to start populating the categories. This exercise could not only help staff think honestly about user needs, but also potentially provide a chance to speak openly about the organization's priorities. This is messy work. The goal of it, though, is to ensure that libraries keep our users' needs at the very core of our organizations. It can be part of a process of continual discovery and realignment, of questioning and listening without agenda, and of acting in good faith on our discoveries: empathy in action.

References

Al-Aufi, A., & Al-Kalbani, K. A. (2014). Assessing work motivation for academic librarians in Oman. Library Management, 35(3), 199-212.

https://doi.org/10.1108/LM-03-2013-0020Anderson, S. B. (2004). How to dazzle Maslow: Preparing your library, staff, and teens to reach self-actualization. Public Library Quarterly, 23(3-4), 49-58. https://doi.org/10.1300/j118v23n03_09

Berry, J. N. (2014). 2014 Gale/LJ Library of the Year: Edmonton Public Library, Transformed by teamwork. Library Journal, 139(11), 30.

Clarivate. (2018). Web of science [Database]. Retrieved from https://www.webofknowledge.com

Conley, C. (2007). Peak: How great companies get their mojo from Maslow. John Wiley & Sons.

Crumpton, M. A. (2016). Understanding the grumbles. Bottom Line: Managing Library Finances, 29(1), 51-55.Current Psychological Reviews, https://doi.org/10.1108/BL-10-2015-0019Daniels, M. (1982). The development of the concept of self-actualization in the writings of Abraham Maslow. 2(1), 61-75.https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02684455

Downer, A. (2017). Hierarchy of needs pyramid parodies. Retrieved August 21, 2018, from https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/hierarchy-of-needs-pyramid-parodies

Elsevier. (2018). Scopus [Database]. Retrieved from https://www.scopus.com/

Francis, M. (2010). Fulfillment of a higher order: Placing information literacy within Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. College & Research Libraries News, 71(3), 140-159.All roads lead to the bathroom. Presented at the IA Summit 2017. Retrieved fromhttps://doi.org/10.5860/crln.71.3.8336Frankle Olinsky, E. (2017a). https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1aAjm54ZennXeFwJOlS0umzgC5JVHYDFWrOvsM4RT0Ps

Frankle Olinsky, E. (2017b). Maslow in museums [Blog]. Retrieved March 5, 2018, from https://www.museums365.com/maslow-in-museums

Gabor, M. R. (2013). Endowment with durable goods as welfare indicator. Empirical study regarding post-communist behavior of Romanian consumers. Engineering Economics, 24(3), 244-253.

Hazen, D., Horrell, J., & Merrill-Oldham, J. (1998). Selecting research collections for digitization. Council on Library and Information Resources. Retrieved fromhttps://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/hazen/pub74/

Hosoi, M. (2005). Motivating employees in academic libraries in tough times. In Association of College Research Libraries Twelfth National Conference. Minneapolis, MN.

IDEO. (2015). Design thinking for libraries: A toolkit for patron-centered design. Palo Alto: IDEO. Retrieved fromhttp://designthinkingforlibraries.com/

James, I. J. (2011). Effective motivation of paraprofessional staff in academic libraries in Nigeria. Library Philosophy & Practice, 38-46.

Kenrick, D. T., Griskevicius, V., Neuberg, S. L., & Schaller, M. (2010). Renovating the pyramid of needs: Contemporary extensions built upon ancient foundations. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 5(3), 292-314.UX strategy: How to devise innovative digital products that people want. Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly Media.https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691610369469Levy, J. (2015).

Logan, J., & Everall, K. (2019, June). How would users prioritize library services in a Hierarchy of Library Needs? Poster session presented at the Evidence Based Library and Information Practice (EBLIP) 10, Glasgow, Scotland. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/1807/96449

Lusk, J. (2018, August 21). Hierarchy, disagreement, and food politics. Retrieved September 4, 2018, fromhttp://jaysonlusk.com/blog/2018/8/15/disagreement-and-food-demandMarquez, J., & Downey, A. (2015). Service design: An introduction to a holistic assessment methodology of library services. Weave: Journal of Library User Experience, 1(2).https://doi.org/10.3998/weave.12535642.0001.201

Maslow, A. (1943). A theory of human motivation. Psychological Review, 50(4), 370-396.Motivation and personality (1st ed.). New York: Harper.https://doi.org/10.1037/h0054346Maslow, A. H. (1954).

National Disability Authority. (2012). The 7 principles. Retrieved August 28, 2018, fromhttp://universaldesign.ie/What-is-Universal-Design/The-7-Principles/

Osterwalder, A., Pigneur, Y., Bernarda, G., Smith, A., & Papadakos, T. (2014). Value proposition design: How to create products and services customers want. Hoboken: Wiley.

Pateman, J., & Pateman, J. (2017). Managing cultural change in public libraries. Public Library Quarterly, 36(3), 213-227.Developing community-led public libraries: evidence from the UK and Canada. Farnham, Surrey, UK: Burlington, VT, USA: Ashgate Publishing Company: Ashgate Publishing Limited.https://doi.org/10.1080/01616846.2017.1318641Pateman, J., & Williment, K. (2013).

Polaine, A., Løvlie, L., & Reason, B. (2013). Service design: From insight to implementation. Brooklyn, N.Y.: Rosenfeld Media.

Richter, M., Wright, R. A., Brinkmann, K., & Gendolla, G. H. E. (2017). Motivation - Psychology. In Oxford Bibliographies Online.

Soper, B., Milford, G. E., & Rosenthal, G. T. (1995). Belief when evidence does not support theory. Psychology & Marketing, 12(5), 415-422.Journal of Aging and Health, https://doi.org/10.1002/mar.4220120505Tomaka, J., Thompson, S., & Palacios, R. (2006). The relation of social isolation, loneliness, and social support to disease outcomes among the elderly. 18(3), 359-384.https://doi.org/10.1177/0898264305280993

Trust, T., & Maloy, R. W. (2017). Why 3D Print? The 21st-century skills students develop while engaging in 3D printing projects. Computers in the Schools, 34(4), 253-266.Library Philosophy and Practice (e-Journal). Retrieved fromhttps://doi.org/10.1080/07380569.2017.1384684Ugah, A., & Arua, U. (2011). Expectancy theory, Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, and cataloguing departments. Journal of Library Administration, 53(1), 27-42.https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/libphilprac/637Vinopal, J., & McCormick, M. (2013). Supporting digital scholarship in research libraries: Scalability and sustainability. https://doi.org/10.1080/01930826.2013.756689

Walker, M. E. (1994). Maslow's hierarchy and the sad case of the hospital librarian. Bulletin of the Medical Library Association, 82(3), 320-322.

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First Things First: Exploring Maslow's Hierarchy as a Service Prioritization Framework

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This paper proposes a model for categorizing library services and resources by their importance to users based on the service's fundamentality to the other resources and services in the library's offerings, the degree to which the service affects users, and the scope of users that access the service.

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I appreciated this infographic defining humanistic psychology that pulls out some key ideas of
- considering subjective experience
- promoting sensitivity
- supporting an individual's choices and preferences
- valuing a person's ideas and connections
Suzi Loosen

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In this cartoon by Aaron Bacall, two teachers are leaving school. One teacher is commenting that while she has an educational practice that is "rooted in humanism" that today was an exception because things weren't going well so she had to "put on [her] intimidating face." The humor here comes from the idea that a teacher with a humanistic teaching philosophy would normally present themselves as very open and engaged and willing to listen to everything a student has to say, but that some days that's just not possible and so she had to change her positioning from always inviting to intimidating today to be able to manage the students and engagement in her classroom. - Suzi Loosen

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TEDx Talk: "Leading Youth Using Humanistic Coaching" William Falcao

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TEDx Talk: "Leading Youth Using Humanistic Coaching" William Falcao

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In this talk, William Falcao discusses the importance of adults asking children questions and then sincerely listening for their answers and working to build meaning together. Children are seen as agents of their own learning. Falcao applies this to a coach/athlete setting to encourage coaches to not just bark orders at the young athletes but to involve them in decision-making and responsibility-sharing within athletics. - Suzi Loosen

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Leading Youth Using Humanistic Coaching | William Falcao | TEDxMcGill

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This article focused on Maslow's self-actualization theory as justification for humanistic educational approaches. The theory of self-actualization, and the idea of students achieving it on a wide scale can be seen as idealistic. The article states "Maslow thought that less than one person in one hundred was truly self-actualizing" (p.168) and goes on to explain that truly self-actualized people can overcome their inherent prejudice, racism, sexism, etc. Is it valid for humanistic education practices to be founded on an idealistic goal that few truly meet? Or is the value in the moral principle of trying to get students to that goal?

-Grace

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This podcast takes an interesting, and perhaps unique, stance on humanistic learning theory. Dr. Johnson argues that humanism in education is partly a response to traditional education practices which can be considered dehumanizing because they're not treating students as whole people.
Some of these practices include:
- In traditional curriculum, only cognitive aspects of a student's humanity are addressed, not emotional.
- Typically, curriculum only treats dominant cultural knowledge and views to be of worth
- Students do not have any personal connection to some or much curriculum material and its relevance to their life and self-improvement can be questionable
- Students are sometimes manipulated by rewards or punishments in the classroom.

I do not necessarily agree with all of his points, but I do think they reflect an interesting case for why humanistic learning theory is important to incorporate in the classroom.

- Grace

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This is a picture from literacywagoll which is an educator website/teaching blog. I liked it because it shows that in Humanism, the results are not really what is being looked at. How you got the results is more important.
-V

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I liked reading over this article because it offers a perspective from public librarians whose goals are more centered around lifelong education. Some criticisms for humanistic learning in standard classrooms explain that curriculum frameworks and standardized tests often constrain instructors from allowing students more individualized learning. (Saunders & Wong, 2020 p.41). This article argues that humanistic approach to learning is something that would be beneficial to implement in a public library setting since these structures are usually absent in library settings.
-Danielle

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This article looks into using Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs in libraries. I thought that this also tied in nicely with last week's reading by Kauhlthau. Both authors address patron's anxiety with information seeking when using libraries. By using Maslow's hierarchy, the author offers an approach to learning and understanding more about the motivations of patrons and how they use the library.
-Danielle

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Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a motivational theory in psychology comprising a five-tier model of human needs, often depicted as hierarchical levels within a pyramid. Needs lower down in the hierarchy must be satisfied before individuals can attend to needs higher up.

From the bottom of the hierarchy upwards, the needs are: physiological, safety, love and belonging, esteem, and self-actualization" (McLeod, 2020, para. 1).

In other words, Maslow believed there is a sequence of things we need before we can move up the pyramid. For example, we need our physiological needs met before we can worry about safety and belonging. This theory is regularly used in education when seeking to understand motivations and behavior.

So how can you use this in the library?

We can use Maslow's hierarchy when we teach. Many library users experience anxiety when they do not know how to do something. They don't feel as if they belong in the library. Making sure patrons feel like they belong will help them reach the esteem and self-actualization stages. Meredith Francis published an article in 2010 titled Fulfillment of a Higher Order: Placing Information Literacy within Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. This article is geared toward academic libraries, but I think it has application for all librarians-especially the part in the article about library anxiety. Regarding library anxiety, she wrote, "By working to decrease library anxiety in [library visitors], we will be increasing their ability to use the library. Comfort within the library often involves the creation of an atmosphere that is welcoming and accepting. This includes both the physical library and the disposition of the staff. The purpose of the library is not to judge a patron's interests or need for information. The patron must know that we consider their privacy of upmost importance and feel no judgment in whatever question he or she may ask" (Francis, 2010, Library Anxiety, para. 5).

Second, we can use Maslow's hierarchy when we seek to understand the motivations of our users. Consider what is motivating your users to visit the library. Why do they seek out the space? Why do users contact you for research assistance?

Are users seeking information to further their career? Are they seeking information to keep their job? Are they looking for new information to help them deal with a problem that has arisen? Understanding needs-based motivation can help you provide better services.

To understand the needs of users, develop a survey with questions that align to different areas of Maslow's hierarchy. For example:

Do you use the library to complete your job responsibilities? [Safety-the user needs to keep their job]

Do you use the library to seek information for professional development? [Self-esteem]

Do you use the library to understand company knowledge in order to feel knowledgeable about the organization? [Belonging]

These questions can be reworked for your organization, but the idea is to ask questions that help you understand what motivates your stakeholders to use the library. Once you have a better understanding of what motivates users, then you can focus on support that meets needs.
Additional Readings
This blog post does not get into all the nuances of Maslow's hierarchy. Therefore, I recommend these additional readings:

Burton, N. (2012). Our hierarchy of needs. Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/hide-and-seek/201205/our-hierarchy-needs

Logan, J., & Everall, K. (2019). First things first: Exploring Maslow's hierarchy as a service prioritization framework. Weave: Journal of Library User Experience, 2(2). Maslow, A. (1943). A theory of human motivation. Psychological Review, 50, 370-396.
References
Francis, M. (2010). Fulfillment of a higher order: Placing information literacy within Maslow's hierarchy of needs. College & Research Libraries News, 71(3), 140-159. doi: https://doi.org/10.5860/crln.71.3.8336

McLeod, S. (2020). Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Simply Psychology. https://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html

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Understanding and Applying Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs in Special Libraries | Lucidea

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Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a motivational theory in psychology comprising a five-tier model of human needs, often depicted as hierarchical levels within a pyramid. Needs lower down in the hierarchy must be satisfied before individuals can attend to needs higher up.

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Article: "Humanistic Education: Concerns, Implications and Applications"

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Article: "Humanistic Education: Concerns, Implications and Applications"

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This article discusses application of the Humanistic education theory as it pertains to language instruction. It emphasizes that the teacher should pay close attention to a student’s psychological state. “Humanistic education does not need teachers who are merely good academic ones, rather it prefers to take advantage of those teachers who not only know the academic topic and methods well, but also recognize and respect the psychological and emotional states of their students” (p. 50).
-Elizabeth R.

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Tenets of Humanism from University of Wyoming

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Tenets of Humanism from University of Wyoming

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This webpage from the University of Wyoming gives a snapshot of the main tenets of Humanism and how the Humanistic learning theory is applied during instruction, as well as explaining the roles of student and teacher.
-Elizabeth R.

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Five Basic Principles | Implication for Instruction | Student's Role | Teacher's Role

Basic principles of humanistic education:

1. Students should be able to choose what they want to learn. Humanistic teachers believe that students will be motivated to learn a subject if it's something they need and want to know.

2. The goal of education should be to foster students' desire to learn and teach them how to learn. Students should be self-motivated in their studies and desire to learn on their own.

3. Humanistic educators believe that grades are irrelevant and that only self evaluation is meaningful. Grading encourages students to work for a grade and not for personal satisfaction. In addition, humanistic educators are opposed to objective tests because they test a student's ability to memorize and do not provide sufficient educational feedback to the teacher and student.

4. Humanistic educators believe that both feelings and knowledge are important to the leaming process. Unlike traditional educators, humanistic teachers do not separate the cognitive and affective domains.

5. Humanistic educators insist that schools need to provide students with a nonthreatening environment so that they will feel secure to learn. Once students feel secure, learning becomes easier and more meaningful.

SUMMARY

The five basic principles of humanistic education can be summarized as follows:

Students' learning should be self-directed.

Schools should produce students who want and know how to learn.

The only form of meaningful evaluation is self-evaluation.

Feelings, as well as knowledge, are important in the learning process.

Students learn best in a nonthreatening environment.

Implication for Instruction

Instruction should be intrinsic rather than extrinsic; instructional design should be student centered.

Students should learn about their cultural heritage as part of self-discovery and self-esteem.

Curriculum should promote experimentation and discovery; open-ended activities. .

Curriculum should be designed to solicit students' personal knowledge and experience. This shows they are valuable contributors to a nonthreatening and participatory educational environment.

Learned knowledge should be applicable and appropriate to the student's immediate needs, goals, and values.

Students should be part of the evaluation process in determining learning's worth to their self-actualization.

Instructional design should facilitate learning by discovery.

Objectives should be designed so students have to assign value to learned ideals, mores, and concepts.

Take into account individual learning styles, needs and interests by designing many optional learning/discovery experiences.

Students should have the freedom to select appropriate learning from many available options in the curriculum.

Allow students input in instructional objectives.

Instruction should facilitate personal growth.

STUDENT'S ROLE

The student must take responsibility in initiating learning; the student must value learning.

Learners actively choose experiences for learning.

Through critical self-reflection, discover the gap between one's real and ideal self.

Be truthful about one's own values, attitudes and emotions, and accept their value and worth.

Improve one's interpersonal communication skill.

Become empathetic for the values, concerns and needs of others.

Value the opinions of other members of the group, even when they are oppositional.

Discover how to fit one's values and beliefs into a societal role.

Be open to differing viewpoints.

TEACHERS ROLE

Be a facilitator and a participating member of the group.

Accept and value students as viable members of society.

Accept their values and beliefs.

Make learning student centered.

Guide the student in discovering the gap between the real and the ideal self, facilitate the student in bridging this gap.

Maximize individualized instruction.

To facilitate independent learning, give students the opportunity to learn on their own ~ promote open-ended leaming and discovery.

Promote creativity, insight and initiative.

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Five Basic Principles | Implication for Instruction | Student's Role | Teacher's Role Students should be able to choose what they want to learn. Humanistic teachers believe that students will be motivated to learn a subject if it's something they need and want to know.

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This video gives a general overview of the Humanistic learning approach. This approach centers on individual students and their needs and small-group learning as opposed to competitive large-group learning. Teachers are simply guides in a student’s educational journey. Teachers practice empathy and offer encouragement to help students achieve their personal educational goals.
-Elizabeth R.

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youtube humanism learning theory - Google Search

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This video mini-lecture describes the salient elements of humanistic learning theory. Theories do not predict human behavior; rather,…

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Article: "Educational motivation meets Maslow, Self-actualization as contextual driver"

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Article: "Educational motivation meets Maslow, Self-actualization as contextual driver"

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Here is an article that discusses the relationship of the Humanism theory to the self-actualization needs developed by Abraham Maslow. The article offers different scholarly perspectives in a literature-review style, with discussion emphasizing the importance of considering the Humanism theory as it relates to motivating students in an academic environment.
-Elizabeth R.

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I found this article that goes into depth about the startup called Learning Beautiful. The project involves creating hands-on materials for children ages 3 to 9 that are designed to explain concepts in computer science such as binary code. The article also connected a lot of Learning Beautiful's ideas with the Montessori method of education. Like V points out, humanism demonstrates that as humans we desire to learn new things to achieve self-actualization. With these materials, children can experiment and discover through tactile learning.
-Danielle

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MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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People at MIT know "mens et manus," or "mind and hand," as the school motto. But it's also a good framework for early childhood education. Kids often learn best when they're allowed to explore the environment around them, building models of the world by picking things up and moving them around.

Back in 2014, that insight was the inspiration for a Media Lab project that designed new learning environments. Four years later, that project became the inspiration for a startup called Learning Beautiful.

Learning Beautiful makes tactile materials to inspire hands-on learning for kids between the ages of 3 and 9. The materials, which are designed to explain simple concepts in computer science, promote child-driven, physical learning that aligns with the Montessori method of education.

"For young children, being able to build and then experience with their hands is so important," Learning Beautiful founder Kim Smith Claudel SM '17 says. "I don't think I need to do much convincing about the importance of limiting screen time for kids. I focus more on the positive things we can give to children, and I think giving them these sensorial, tactile materials is a developmentally enriching opportunity."

The company's materials include things like binary cards and pixel boards made from sustainably sourced wood, cork, and canvas. To date, Learning Beautiful has sold over 2,000 materials to schools and libraries and trained about 500 teachers to guide learning activities.

Smith Claudel believes the concepts illuminated by the materials are a great primer to more advanced computer science education later in life.

"If we think about how we scaffold learning for subjects like reading and writing and math, we have all these things in place to build a strong foundation in early childhood to help progression in these subjects," Smith Claudel says. "But there really wasn't something that did the same thing for computer science."
From project to product
In 2013, Smith Claudel began collaborating with Sepandar Kamvar, who was a professor of media arts and sciences at MIT and the director of the Social Computing group at the Media Lab. After Smith Claudel worked on a show Kamvar was organizing in Sweden, he asked her to join his lab as a research scientist.

"His vision was to bring together a lot of different people," Smith Claudel recalls. "My background was art and design, and we had architects, computer scientists, videographers, biologists, educators, and philosophers."

The diverse team soon began exploring alternative approaches to education, partially inspired by Kamvar's own struggles to find a good prekindergarten school for his child. Their ideas coalesced into the first of what the team called "Wildflower Schools" described as open-source learning environments inspired by the century-old Montessori learning method that emphasizes self-directed learning activities based on children's natural interests.

The schools served as test beds for experiments in teaching and learning, with the project advertised as "blurring the boundaries between home-schooling and institutional schooling, between scientists and teachers, between schools and the neighborhoods around them."

"I worked in the school for a year doing art projects with the kids, and that was my crash course in Montessori education," Smith Claudel says.

The first school sparked interest in the Cambridge community, so the group opened more. Each one featured aspects of the research going on in Kamvar's lab, including small-scale agriculture projects and experiments with different learning materials - even some of the teachers were members of the lab.

"The idea was to test different things with the community and cultivate this research within the school," Smith Claudel says. "It became a link to what we were doing in the Media Lab."

Smith Claudel became enamored with some of the materials being used in the classrooms and intrigued by the research showing young children learn more effectively by physically interacting with their environment. She officially enrolled in the Media Lab as a graduate student in 2015.

After hearing frustration from MIT computer scientists that too many educational materials were screen-based and focused solely on coding, Smith Claudel and others in her lab worked with them to build materials that demonstrated different computational concepts.

"The children are very helpful because it either works or it doesn't work," Smith Claudel says. "Feedback from teachers is also helpful because either they understand it or they don't, and if they don't then we've failed."

Smith Claudel went through the MIT DesignX accelerator run through the School of Architecture, where they started hearing from people who wanted copies of their research materials for their classrooms and libraries.

"DesignX shifted the whole paradigm of how I thought about the research, and turned it into 'How can we take this solid foundation and spin it into a business?'" Smith Claudel says.

As Smith Claudel neared graduation in 2017, she got her first order for materials from the Chicago Public Library, which had seen her work develop at the Media Lab. She still remembers juggling finishing her master's work with building each of those early sets by hand in MIT's makerspaces, using CNC machines and spending hours sanding, painting, and gluing.

The company's first series of materials includes pixel boards that demonstrate how computers represent images through 1s and 0s and a "binary tree" that introduces the concept of data structures as the child connects the branches and builds the tree.

"With the binary tree, a 2- or 3-year-old might start playing using what we call sensorial exploration," Smith Claudel says. "What they're doing is experimenting and discovering through a physical process. They're starting to see things fit together. They're starting to build something, getting a sense of balance. They're also noticing the pieces are different shapes, different colors, so they're building these models. They're learning from that whole process."

Learning Beautiful also provides support and educational materials for teachers.

"We learned early on you can't just hand someone new materials and expect them to be comfortable with an unfamiliar subject area, so we created children's books, a full curriculum, lesson plans, and then training," Smith Claudel says.

When school shut down during the pandemic, the team developed instructions for at-home learning activities and offered them for free to parents and teachers. The slowdown also gave them time to plan their next series of materials, which will be released over the next year.

"A pause can be a healthy thing," Smith Claudel says. "Especially in the beginning [of the pandemic], our attitude was what could we make that would be helpful right now?"
Helping everyone learn beautiful
Lately the company has been focusing on scaling its teacher training efforts, including by building a virtual training program.

Last fall, after partnering with a school district in Iowa, Learning Beautiful hosted a training workshop with 250 teachers, giving them each their own set of materials to bring back to their classrooms.

Smith Claudel also believes her materials can help a broader set of children than computer-based learning programs. Learning Beautiful has even begun conversations with schools in other countries that don't have access to electricity.

"I think accessibility is really important on a few different levels," Smith Claudel says. "We all learn differently, so to provide a variety of different kinds of learning opportunities is crucial. We use sound and touch in our materials, and we've had early conversations about working with blind children, because the materials are not solely dependent on sight."

Learning Beautiful's next products will expand beyond computer science to encourage ecological thinking, helping children understand environmental systems around them and their schools.

As the company's sales grow, it's developed a program where proceeds from sales to one community can help fund donations to communities with fewer resources.

"Hands-on learning is effective for all of us," Smith Claudel says. "For children, most of their brain development is happening between zero and three, so physical interaction is so rich - understanding spatial relationships, how to hold things, how to use their body, how to take inputs from the world and process them in their minds. That's what MIT's 'mind and hand' motto is about: this connection between the physical experiences and what we're building in our mind."

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Learning Beautiful brings MIT's "mind and hand" ethos to early childhood education

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People at MIT know "mens et manus," or "mind and hand," as the school motto. But it's also a good framework for early childhood education. Kids often learn best when they're allowed to explore the environment around them, building models of the world by picking things up and moving them around.

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Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs in Education

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Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs in Education

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Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs in Education - Education Library

This was an easy-to-follow article about how Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs can be applied by educators. Because humanism is about seeing students as whole people with different cognitive and emotional states, Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is a great conceptual and visual tool to remind educators of all the needs a student should have met in order to thrive in a learning environment and be motivated to do so. While some tiers of the hierarchy may be out of an educators' control, it may still help us develop empathy for students and work to find ways to help them get to a place where they are intrinsically motivated to learn.

- Grace

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Students in classrooms or training courses may be distracted. They have other considerations running through their minds, such as their other classes, personal lives, friendships, hobbies, physical distractions like hunger or tiredness, and so much more. When students are sidetracked by these or any other issues, their own education and accomplishment may be prioritized below their more immediate needs. Why is this? One human psychologist suggests that this occurs because immediate needs determine the immediate action of the student. When they are worried about these things, they focus solely on those distractions. Those preoccupations will take priority over education and accomplishment. What's the best way to capture our students' attention and get them to prioritize education? Teachers can assist students in eliminating their distractions, allowing the student's top priority to become course material, education, and accomplishment.

Maslow's Hierarchy

Human beings are motivated by goal accomplishment. Achieving goals allows humans to meet their individual wants and needs. Needs are mentally prioritized in order of importance (Maslow, 1943). Less immediate needs have to be met before more important needs can be satisfied. A person's actions will be focused around satisfying the lower-priority needs and will then move on to reach higher-priority needs.

Starting at the bottom of the pyramid (Figure 1), physiological needs are the first priority and must be satisfied first. These needs include nourishment, sleep, clothing, and shelter. People must have these basic needs met in order to focus on anything else - otherwise, their actions will focus solely on meeting these physiological requirements. They are the top priority and are therefore the most important driving factor for human beings. If a person is hungry, they will ignore any other wants or wishes to focus on satisfying their hunger. If a student is hungry, they could exhibit distracting or rule-breaking behavior because education is not their priority - hunger is. A student might fall asleep in class instead of working on their assignments because they lost sleep the previous night. In this example, the student would naturally prioritize sleep over education.

Once physiological needs are satisfied, the next priority is safety. Safety needs are usually environmental, which includes a student's home environment, school environment, and any other environment they're regularly a part of. If the student is having personal issues at home (for example, arguing parents, parents struggling with addiction, lack of parental structure, etc.) or they live in a dangerous area, they will have difficulty learning because their basic safety needs have not been met. Similarly, if the student is being bullied or if they don't feel accepted and liked by their educator, they will struggle to learn and complete their work. Their priority will be acquiring safety. Students thrive on predictability and structure, and they associate these factors with a feeling of safety. They do best with no disruptions in their routines. If they lack a routine, or if there are factors threatening their routines, they may feel unsafe and apprehensive. This can cause the student to perform poorly.

After physiological and safety requirements have been met, love and a sense of belonging become the priority. This applies to family and friend relationships. A student may develop their sense of belonging through joining clubs, volunteering, participating in church groups, or making other group-centered commitments. When a person does not feel loved or does not feel like they belong, they crave affection or acceptance in group settings. The need for love and belonging may be forgotten, but it can be just as critical to a student as their physiological requirements.

Self-esteem is the next need that must be met. Self-esteem involves individuality, respect for others, accomplishment, and confidence. Most people are extremely critical of themselves, which stems from their own evaluation of self-accomplishment and potential. Self-esteem can be two-fold. First, people will crave accomplishment, confidence, competence, and fortitude. Secondly, they will yearn for importance, appreciation, acknowledgment, and status. When all of these needs are met, people will feel adequate, capable, strong, and worthy. If these needs are not satisfied, people will feel incompetent, unprotected, and unimportant.

These first four needs can all be considered deprivation needs. If these needs are not satisfied, those shortcomings will motivate people to focus on meeting their highest-priority needs. One more need follows these deprivation needs, and that is self-actualization. This is an aspiration to fulfill one's own potential. This need is not driven by inadequacy, but instead by a craving for self-improvement. Maslow suggests that very few people ever attain this level. Self-actualized people tend to be impulsive, independent, analytical, and realistic.

Applying Maslow's Hierarchy - Teaching and Learning

Now that we've covered the premise of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, it is also vital to comprehend how this information can be used in education. First, it is important to understand that regrettably, we cannot satisfy every physiological need of every student. It would be impossible for a teacher or leader to equip every student with sufficient sleep, shelter, clothing, and nourishment. Luckily, free and reduced lunch programs are a great way to solve some of the issues of hunger in schools. Providing clothing, sufficient hygiene practices, and sufficient amounts of sleep are still factors. Based on the model, it is clear that if these basic needs fail to be provided, students will be unable to prioritize education. These are needs that teachers cannot always meet. However, teachers can strive to offer students resources and referrals to school programs in order to satisfy as many needs as possible.

Many aspects should be considered by teachers and leaders in order to help students feel a sense of safety. As previously mentioned, a sense of safety can come from routines and predictability. Teachers and leaders should enact routines in their classrooms. Set forth clear-cut rules and processes for your students. Maintain a predictable daily schedule, allowing students to anticipate and expect order in the classroom. Students will feel a sense of control in their classroom environment because they are able to anticipate what will happen next. Additionally, students must have a sense of psychological and emotional safety in their classroom environment. Teachers should foster an environment that allows for healthy levels of risk-taking, question asking and answering, open thought sharing, and healthy discussion. They should not feel fearful of judgment from other students. Students crave a trust-based relationship with their teacher.

To meet belongingness, self-esteem, and love needs, students want to feel needed, loved, and nurtured. Students may seek gratification from teachers or school staff. As teachers and leaders, it is important to regard each student as a unique individual, appreciating them for their one-of-a-kind character traits. Emphasize healthy, positive behavior and self-esteem. Make an effort to show students that their hard work and dedication are genuinely appreciated. This prioritization will support the development of each student's self-esteem and self-worth.

Teachers and leaders tend to primarily handle the four deprivation needs (self-esteem, sense of belonging, safety, and physiological). Every step an educator makes toward contributing to those fundamental needs will enhance their students' capacity for learning and achievement in the classroom. Ensure that you make a true effort to know each student and comprehend the level of their knowledge and their level on Maslow's Hierarchy. In doing so, you can best help students progress through the hierarchy. It may be necessary to explore outside or government resources for students with lower-level needs to help the students thrive in their learning environment. However, a greater comprehension of each student's basic needs is likely to lead to the teacher's ability to help the student overcome their personal educational obstacles, allowing each student to reach their educational potential.
References
Maslow, A. H. (1943). A theory of human motivation. Psychological Review, 50(4), 370-96.

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Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs in Education - Education Library

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Applying Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs to Education Students in classrooms or training courses may be distracted....

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National Library of Medicine View on Humanism 

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National Library of Medicine View on Humanism 

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I liked this resource as it explains other learning theories together but gives a perspective in a medical field about them. They define humanism theory as "... learning is a natural desire with the ultimate goal of achieving self-actualization." Basically it is natural to want to learn and learning is a way to achieve freedom and autonomy. It also builds off of the Maslow's hierarchy of needs that Grace posted and combines how the learner can use the knowledge.
-V

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Learning Theories - StatPearls - NCBI Bookshelf

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Learning is the change in the behavior of an organism that is a result of prior experience.[1] Learning theory seeks to explain how individuals acquire, process, retain, and recall knowledge during the process of learning. Environmental, cognitive, and emotional influences, along with prior experien…

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Here is a video that explains Rogers and Maslow's theories for humanism and then critiques them. One of the biggest pitfalls with humanism that the video discusses is that the theory is contradictory because the Hierarchy of needs is too restrictive.
-V

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Strengths and Weaknesses of Humanistic Theory - Psychology of the Individual