Improving Library Personnel Management. A Case Study of Kuwait
| Date | 01 February 1994 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/01435129410049016 |
| Published date | 01 February 1994 |
| Pages | 19-25 |
| Author | Sulaiman Al‐Hassan,A.J. Meadows |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science |
It was evident before the Gulf War that
management practices in many state-controlled
organizations in Kuwait were less than
satisfactory. An obvious example was
overmanning. Some government employees in
Kuwait performed little by the way of job
activity: indeed, some were excluded from such
activity in order not to hinder their more
productive colleagues[1]. Prior to the war, the
Kuwaiti Planning Ministry had already decided to
reduce gradually the incidence of overmanning
(estimated at 30 per cent) in government-
supported establishments. This was by no means
the only mismanagement identified: another
obvious area was the continuing influence of
favouritism[2]. These problems were
compounded by the employment of large numbers
of expatriates (some 60 per cent of the population
pre-war) whose work prospects were different
from those of native Kuwaitis.
It was expected that these same deficiencies
would be evident in Kuwaiti libraries, most of
which are controlled directly or indirectly by the
government, though the evidence for this
assumption was primarily anecdotal. The lack of
hard data, the culture-dependence of the problems
involved and the probable need to redefine
aspects of the investigation as it proceeded all
suggested the need for a flexible methodological
approach. It was finally decided to apply
Checkland’s soft systems methodology[3] to the
problem of personnel management in Kuwaiti
libraries. This is believed to be its first application
to this sort of context.
Libraries in Kuwait cover the entire spectrum –
public, school, academic, special – though on a
small scale as compared with most countries. The
beginnings of the public library service date back
to 1923, but it was only in 1988-89 that the
Ministry of Education took over responsibility for
public libraries (with the exception of Kuwait
Central Library). The total number of public
libraries was then 23, employing 75 qualified
librarians. The Ministry of Education is also
responsible for school libraries. In 1989-90, there
were 695 state schools and 110 private schools in
Kuwait. The latter, mainly intended for the
children of expatriates, were also governed by
Ministry of Education regulations, so all schools
were expected to have library facilities.
Altogether 890 staff, more than half with
professional library qualifications, were employed
in school libraries. Nearly three-quarters were
female and a high proportion (nearly 90 per cent)
were Kuwaiti.
Colleges come under a different state body –
the Public Authority for Applied Education and
Training (PAAET) – which looked after 15
college libraries (with a total staff of 51 pre-war).
The libraries attached to Kuwait University are
governed separately, and employed 132 library
staff, a majority of whom were expatriate, prior to
the war. The exact number of special libraries in
Kuwait has never been determined, but at least 30
existed pre-war[4]. The most important of these is
the National Scientific and Technical Information
Centre (NSTIC), the information division of the
Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research (KISR).
Before the war this employed 33 library/
information staff, as compared with some ten
such members of staff in the next largest special
libraries.
It was decided to investigate a representative
sample of all these Kuwaiti libraries in order to
determine the nature and extent of the personnel
management problems they presented. After the
initial fieldwork in Kuwait had been carried out,
the Gulf War intervened. Hence, it was necessary
to return to Kuwait to compare the post-war
VOLUME 15 NUMBER 1
1994
19
Improving Library
Personnel Management
A Case Study of Kuwait
Sulaiman Al-Hassan and A.J. Meadows
Library Management, Vol. 15 No. 1, 1994, pp. 19-25
© MCB University Press, 0143-5124
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