The essential skills and competencies of LIS professionals in the digital age: alumni perspectives survey

Abstract

Purpose The librarianship profession has gone through many changes over time, more so with the emergence of digital technologies. To thrive in the library and information science (LIS) profession, professionals must have knowledge, skills, competencies and abilities to perform their job duties. The purpose of this paper was to identify essential knowledge, skills and abilities (KSAs) for the LIS professionals. Design/methodology/approach The targeted survey group for the study were alumni of ten LIS schools in India, who are now working in various library sectors. A structured questionnaire was designed to seek their opinions, and the snowball sampling technique was adopted to collect the data. A total of 377 responses were received from the respondents. Findings Five broad areas of KSAs were identified: traditional library skills, research skills, computing skills, data management skills and soft skills. This study found that computing skills, library automation and library digitization are considered absolutely essential for the LIS professionals. The results also brought out the importance of “soft skills” for the LIS professionals. Prerequisite knowledge of library liaison services, technical services and foreign language were reportedly important only for working in special libraries. Practical implications This study identified 54 skills across five broad areas that are essential for the professionals working in library and information centres. The research findings will be helpful for the educators who want to design, develop and upgrade the LIS course curriculum in accordance with the skills that are in demand in the market. Originality/value This study establishes that though the participants expressed satisfaction with the practicum of the curriculum, the LIS course curriculum needs to be improved. It would be in the best interest of the LIS schools to identify and rectify the gap.

An assessment of professional competencies and skills required for library professionals of management institutions in Kerala (India)

“…Sewant and Yadav (2020) assessed knowledge, proficiency and expertise of smart librarians found that library professionals rated personal skills and generic skills as good and excellent and they were competent with few technical skills such as advance database management, advance web technology, content management system, educational copyright knowledge, and e-books acquisition and maintenance. Yadav (2022) observed that digital tools and technologies have brought sea change in the library profession and identified core competencies required for the library profession after consulting large number of research papers published in international journals. They were: traditional library skills, research skills, computing skills, data management skills, and soft skills.…”

“…Chawner and Oliver (2013) stress that apart from enhancing digital literacy, other skills such as managerial, communication, interpersonal and research are also equally important for librarians to manage and provide specialized information services. Yadav (2022) depicts that the most important task of the library professionals is to apply their specialized skills to identify the right source and share among the users. Apart from possessing technological expertise, the author suggested the librarians to posses other skills such as critical judgment skills, managerial skills, research skills.…”

Twenty-First Century Competencies: About Competencies for Industry 5.0 and the Opportunities for Emerging Economies

“…To understand exactly what soft skills are, [61] describes these as communicative qualities that improve interaction efficiency or a person's ''Emotional Intelligence Quotient". [59] outlined some important soft skills including effective communication and interpersonal skills, empathy and emotional intelligence, analytical thinking and innovation, conflict management, and problem-solving skills. teamwork and collaboration.…”

Professional Competencies of Canadian LIS Graduates

“…Much of this work examines competencies in relation to specific contexts. On a national level, studies of librarian professional competencies have been done in Pakistan (Khan & Mahmood, 2013;Ismail & Khan, 2021), India and South Asia (Kaur, 2015;Yadav, 2022), the United States (Goodsett & Koziura, 2016;Saunders, 2019;Hu et al, 2022;Saunders, 2015); Japan (Toshimori, Mizoue, & Matsumoto 2011), and South Africa (Bothma & Britz, 2000). There has also been a focus on competencies related to specific information work including competencies for data professionals (Kim, 2016;Harris-Pierce & Quan Lui, 2012), health information professionals (Pandolfelli, et al;, and knowledge management (Husain & Nazim, 2015) workers.…”