Academic Librarianship Without the Degree: Examining the Characteristics and Motivations of Academic Library Professionals

Oliver, Astrid; Prosser, Eric

doi:10.1016/j.acalib.2018.07.006

Cited by 4 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…Triumph and Beile (2015) found that about 90% of job ads from 2011 required the MLS but suggest that there is trend toward removing this requirement. Oliver and Prosser (2018) found that non-MLS professionals tended to be either hired into functional roles that do not require the MLS or are paraprofessionals performing professional work; the majority of both categories do not intend to obtain an MLS. Gremmels (2013) alone identifies the continuity in academic libraries hiring non-MLS professionals since the 1970s.…”

Section: Alternative Forms Of Professionalizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Empty Presence: Library Labor, Prestige, and the MLS

Seale¹,

Mirza²

2019

Library Trends

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In this essay, we explore the relationship between the MLS and professionalization within librarianship broadly and then look more specifically at academic librarianship, which increasingly turns to other means of professionalization, such as more prestigious forms of credentialing, due to its precarious existence within higher education. The emphasis on professionalization through credentialing invisibilizes library labor, which is already feminized and devalued. Academic librarianship instead seeks to gain prestige and power by associating itself with whiteness and masculinity, rendering its specialized work and knowledge domain unimportant. Removing the MLS requirement from professional library positions will not address these broader issues, and as hiring trends demonstrate, might already be a moot point. Prestige, professionalization, and credentialing within academic librarianship have been debated since the inception of the profession; the interaction of these with gender ideologies and a predominantly female workforce has received attention since the 1970s. Librarianship's constant state of crisis and search for external markers of prestige can only exist comfortably outside of historical memory and critical analysis, however. This essay problematizes individual solutions such as credentialing that paper over systemic sociopolitical issues; specific solutions are beyond the scope of this paper, but we do suggest that solutions need to account for broader context, such as current and historical gender ideologies.

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Section: Alternative Forms Of Professionalizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Empty Presence: Library Labor, Prestige, and the MLS

Seale¹,

Mirza²

2019

Library Trends

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“…By implementing the above factors, the passion and enthusiasm of subject librarians can be significantly improved. High income has a vigorous effect in promoting the work efficiency of subject librarians and providing quality service to customers [4][5][6][7][8][9][10]. The existing research mainly summarises the incentive factors and measures of subject librarians from the perspective of management, which is not only lack of solid theoretical support but also lack of empirical test based on data.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Compensation incentive contract of the subject librarians based on the H-M model

Wang

Lili

2021

Applied Mathematics and Nonlinear Sciences

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Based on the H-M model, the compensation incentive model is constructed under the inter-task cost function. The best compensation incentive contract is constructed by solving the incentive model, and the incentive characteristics are analysed. The results show that the best incentive intensity decreases as the subject service selectivity increases. The higher incentive intensity of university managers for specific tasks, the lower efforts of subject librarians for another specific task. Moreover, when the tasks are substituted for each other, the profit-sharing ratios corresponding to different tasks are complementary. Finally, we establish the econometric empirical models to test these results.

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