What do they want?: A study of changing employer expectations of information professionals.

The 30 years from 1974 to 2004 have witnessed changes in information technology and information delivery. These years have also seen substantial change in the Australian workplace where industrial relation reforms have led to changed conditions of employment, a major one being a move to a more casualised workforce. The education of LIS personnel has also undergone substantial change; not only did the 1970s see the growth of professional LIS programs in Australian tertiary institutions, but also the beginnings of formal programs for library technicians in Technical and Further Education (TAFE) colleges. (1) All these factors have influenced jobs and the content of job advertisements.

This study looks at job advertisements to see what they can tell us about how jobs for librarians have changed over the last 30 years. Some of the questions addressed are:

* Who employs librarians and information studies (LIS) professionals?

* What requirements do employers have of librarians with regard to work status, experience and qualifications?

* What LIS knowledge, other competencies, and interpersonal and behavioural characteristics do employers list in job advertisements for professional librarians and has this changed over time?

* What does this mean for the future of LIS professionals?

Few LIS practitioners would deny that the workplace has undergone substantial change over the three decades (1974 to 2004) considered in this investigation. This change has been both in the work undertaken and in the conditions under which people are employed. The study reported here has gathered data on the extent and nature of this change from job advertisements for librarians and information managers during a four-week period in 1974, 1984, 1994 and 2004. Job advertisements provide an insight into the workplace, even though it must be acknowledged that a job advertisement indicates only what an employer explicitly says is required, rather than what is actually wanted or received. Job advertisements serve other purposes. While they are basically designed to attract the best possible staff member for the position, they also provide graduates, school leavers and the world at large with an opportunity to examine the working conditions, salaries, qualifications and career paths for a field or a profession." As this project sought to track change, job advertisements at various periods provided a good vehicle for doing so. Data were gathered from only one newspaper in one city, the Sydney Morning Herald (SMH); however, as Sydney is the largest city in Australia and a major commercial centre, it should provide a picture from which general trends may be extrapolated.

The data gathering focussed on positions calling for professional level LIS skills. When advertisements did not specifically mention the word 'librarian', the researchers used a mix of the available information including position titles, required qualifications, work descriptions and salary level to determine in cases of doubt, whether a position was at a professional level. The intention to include any identifiable non-traditional positions in some cases necessitated the use of all of these various guidelines. Broadbanding, a pay strategy that consolidates a large number of relatively narrow pay grades into much fewer bands with relatively wide salary ranges and an industrial relations reform of the 1990s, has led to some positions being advertised as suitable for paraprofessional or professional applicants and these positions have been included.

Background

In Australia the professional LIS association, the Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA), accredits entry-level professional LIS programs. Entry-level programs at universities exist at undergraduate level (almost all of three years full-time duration), postgraduate diploma (one year full-time duration) and masters level (one-and-a-half years full-time duration). Additionally, ALIA accredits programs equivalent to two years full-time study at technical colleges for paraprofessional staff (library technicians). This is different from other countries such as the United States where the American Library Association (ALA) accredits one qualification, the masters degree. (3)

Most Australian permanent positions are advertised in newspapers and/or their associated web sites (which have only been available for about the past ten years). Previously positions were also advertised in professional newsletters, on e-lists, and via a number of other sources. Newspapers thus provide the one source of advertised positions that has been available consistently over the period studied. Industrial relations legislation encourages public advertising of positions in publicly funded libraries, which includes most academic libraries. Non-permanent positions in all sectors and special library positions in corporations do not have the same requirements; however, special libraries do often advertise directly or use job placement agencies that advertise when necessary. Increasingly the trend is for print advertisements that refer potential applicants to web sites for further information, or indeed for the facility to apply online.

Literature Review

There is an extensive international literature on LIS jobs and a not insignificant number of Australian-based studies. Some studies have focused on the extent and vitality of the employment market, usually investigating the employment opportunities for new LIS graduates. Other studies have focused on the knowledge and skills mix desired and/or required by employers.

A number of Australian and international LIS schools have surveyed recent graduates, gathering data on their early employment experiences. These studies have usually had multiple functions, collecting data useful for developing curricula as well as information about the LIS graduate employment market. In the United Kingdom, the Department of Information Studies at the University of Sheffield has tracked its masters programs graduates for more than thirty years, maintaining that these ongoing investigations have been valuable in developing curricula relevant to the changing LIS workplace. (4, 5) They found examples of changing demands over a 15 year period, including an increase in the proportion of new graduates whose first positions involved user education (10% for graduates of the period 1979-1985, 68% for those of 19861989 and 59% for those of 1990-1993); and a substantial change in the requirement to be involved in management activities (28%, 50% and 50% respectively for the three periods). (5) Perhaps not surprisingly, the report of the findings of the survey of their MSc graduates for 1994-1996 reported that 'use of the Internet, practical computer skills and database design' were the elements of most use in their jobs. (6)

Following the growth of Australian LIS schools in the 1970s, and influenced by Moore (7) and others who wrote of an emerging market of nontraditional jobs, the 1980s saw a number of papers which sought to assess both the traditional and non-traditional markets for LIS graduates. Job advertisements were the data sources for studies by Schauder (8) and Middleton, (9) while Australian LIS school data was used by Rochester (10) and the data from one school by ,Willard. (11) The 1990s produced similar Australian investigations with Brittain (12) analysing job advertisements and Genoni, Exon and Farrelly surveying LIS graduates. (13) More recently Willard, Wilson and Cole (14) and Middleton (15) have gathered data on the work performed and the skills required in jobs held by LIS graduates. These Australian studies have taken snapshots rather than gathered longitudinal data. Generally, these studies found that penetration by LIS graduates in emerging, or non-traditional, employment markets was low with modest increases over time. Most also found an increasing requirement for skills in information technologies, and behavioural characteristics and communications skills in both traditional and non-traditional job markets.

In similar studies in the United States, Xu (16) analysed job advertisements in American Libraries over the period 1971 to 1990 to assess the effect of automation on job requirements for cataloguers and reference librarians. He found an increasing demand for computer skills in both areas and for bibliographic instruction duties for reference librarians. He noted that the demand for oral and written communication skills first appeared in his data period 1976-1980. Helmet (17) also used job advertisements from American Libraries…