Are Today's Science and Technology Librarians Being Overtasked? An Analysis of Job Responsibilities in Recent Advertisements on the ALA JobLIST Web site

Abstract

This article presents the results of a study analyzing the position descriptions from science and technology librarians as described by online job advertisements. Fifty-five job ads listed in the American Library Association JobLIST Web site were discovered in 2008 and 2009. Content analysis was used to determine the number of job responsibilities each library position required. The results show the remarkably high amount of multitasking required of science and technology librarians and an increase in the number of job tasks over the past few decades when compared with previous studies.

A review of advertisements for part-time library positions in Pennsylvania and New Jersey

“…Others have used job advertisements to describe the demand for librarian positions that may be new or newly popular, such as electronic resources librarian (Heimer, 2002), digital librarian (Croneis and Henderson, 2002;Choi and Rasmussen, 2009), instructional design librarian (Shank, 2006) or copyright librarian (Kawooya et al, 2015). Because this kind of research invites examination of the detailed lists of desired and required qualifications present in most advertisements, it has also been used to identify changes in the job duties or expectations associated with specific kinds of librarian positions (Lynch and Smith, 2001;Albitz, 2002;Clyde, 2002;Fisher, 2003;Adkins, 2004;Frederiksen, 2005;Deeken and Thomas, 2006;Meier, 2010;Hansen, 2011;Rebmann et al, 2012;Nielsen, 2013;McClelland, 2014).…”

Desired Characteristics of Management and Leadership for Public Library Directors as Expressed in Job Advertisements

“…Studying job advertisements has also been used to define emerging specialties such as electronic and digital librarianship, (Heimer, 2002;Youngok & Rasmussen, 2009), expectations of employers (Deepthi & Tadasad, 2010), number of job responsibilities (Meier, 2010), development of curricula in master's programs in library and information science (LIS) and the placement of LIS graduates in jobs (Yunfei, Stein, & Martin, 2007); as well as to study changes in roles, responsibilities, and titles of positions over time (Applegate, 2010).…”

The Value of Subject Specialization and the Future of Science Liaison Librarianship

“…Academic science librarians may also have a degree in a science discipline because this is often listed as at least a "desired" quality (if not required) in position descriptions of job announcements. 28 Of the 218 respondents who answered this question about degrees held (see table 2), biology and life sciences had the most science degrees (75) earned among the respondents, followed at a distance by chemistry and biochemistry with the second-most degrees (25). There were 79 respondents to this question who had bachelor's degrees in nonscience areas.…”