Job analysis of academic librarians in Greece. Investigating differences among institutions regarding obligations and responsibilities
| Published date | 11 January 2016 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/LM-08-2015-0057 |
| Pages | 29-54 |
| Date | 11 January 2016 |
| Author | Anna Maria Mouza,Sofia P. Grigoriadou |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Librarianship/library management,HR in libraries |
Job analysis of academic
librarians in Greece
Investigating differences among institutions
regarding obligations and responsibilities
Anna Maria Mouza and Sofia P. Grigoriadou
Technological Educational Institute of Central Macedonia, Serres, Greece
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to identify the obligations and responsibilities of librarians,
working in Greek academic libraries and to investigate whether there are significant differences among
various institutions.
Design/methodology/approach –The survey was based on a questionnaire containing 161 duties
performed by academic librarians, classified into five main categories which are: general management,
collection management, materials organization, user service and system management.
The respondents were 31 managers at Greek academic libraries, who were asked to assess their
duties according to importance, difficulty and frequency, and whether such tasks were deemed
professional, para-professional or non-professional. A two-way ANOVA was applied to determine
whether performed duties significantly differed according to institution size and/or type.
Findings –The results revealed no significant differences regarding importance of duties while many
differences were detected across all main categories regarding difficulty. Differences were also
recorded concerning the frequency of duties for some of the subcategories under general and collection
management, materials organization and the subcategory cultural events and programs. Finally,
professional duties represented 86 percent of total duties, indicating the necessity of professional
librarians for the effective management of their responsibilities.
Originality/value –These findings, which are first recorded in Greece and refer to academic
librarians’duties, will be particularly useful for decision makers to reach the right decisions regarding
the implementation of human resource practices, taking into account the individuality of the
institutions under consideration. Also these outcomes can be viewed as a valuable guide for adapting
the indicated decisions under the rapidly introduced technological changes and properly tackling
problems stemming from the economic recession.
Keywords Greece, Academic libraries, Economic crisis, Job analysis, Job description,
Obligations and responsibilities
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
In the current climate of intense competition, a key factor helping organizations stand
out is human capital. However, to be effective and productive, the primary duty of
human resource managers is to conduct accurate and detailed job analyses of
organizations jobs titles. Reliable job analysis assists in decision making (Chang and
Kleiner, 2002) by providing considerable support to all human resource management
practices (Clifford, 1994; Gan and Kleiner, 2005), as it contributes to human resource
planning (Wooten, 1993), recruitment and selection procedures (Carless, 2007; Binning
and Barrett, 1989), training (Campbell, 1989), performance appraisal (Siddique, 2004)
and payments (Dessler, 2014).
As far as librarians are concerned, it enables them to cope with the constantly and
rapidly technological changes through the expansion of the required skills
and qualifications, as it provides updated information (Clifford, 1994; Siddique, 2004;
Library Management
Vol. 37 No. 1/2, 2016
pp. 29-54
©Emerald Group Publis hing Limited
0143-5124
DOI 10.1108/LM-08-2015-0057
Received 31 August 2015
Revised 8 November 2015
Accepted 27 January 2016
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0143-5124.htm
29
Job analysis
of academic
librarians in
Greece
Singh, 2008), comprising needed specific responsibilities and obligations ( job description)
and prerequisite skills, qualifications, knowledge ( job specification; Chang and Kleiner,
2002) for effective execution of their job (Dessler, 2014). Moreover, nowadays the need for
increased productivity and efficiency of librarians is imperative due to the adverse effects
of the economic crisis. For Greek academic libraries, the budget reduction began from
2010 and in some cases almost reached the 50 percent of initial funding. Its consequences
on academic libraries mainly refer to the reduction of libraries’personnel and materials
acquisitions as well as their lack to replace aged equipment due to the rapid budgets
restrictions imposed by the Government (Kostagiolas et al., 2011, 2013, 2015). In this sense
it is essential to ensure that a competitive advantage can be gained through human
resource practices (Schuler and MacMillan, 1984), considering that it is strongly related to
organizational performance (Siddique, 2004).
In our research we present the obligations and the responsibilities of the Greek
academics librarians, since no detailed list of their duties has been traced in relevant
studies. On the other hand, investigating the differences among institutions will assist
all human resource practices to reach the right decisions regarding their
implementation, taking into account the individuality of the institutions under
consideration. This work can be viewed as a valuable guide for improving the quality
of services provided and for adapting proper decisions, in terms of the constantly and
rapidly introduced technological changes, as well as for properly tackling problems
generated from the economic crisis.
2. Literature review
Many researchers have devoted significant effort to identify the duties as well as skills,
knowledge and qualifications required by librarian professionals (Figure 1).
Some studies have been based on job advertisements for librarian positions (see also
Gerolimos and Konsta, 2008; Wang et al., 2010; Xia and Wang, 2014) as they reveal
current trends in desired qualifications required by employers in the recruitment
process. Harper (2012) points out that researchers have mainly focussed on job
advertisements because of issues concerning accessibility to data. Other researchers
used survey questionnaires to identify librarians’skills and qualifications (see among
others Breen et al., 2002; Xu and Chen, 2000; Choi and Rasmussen, 2006). Harper (2012)
stated that this empirical method is characterized by detailed research presenting
practical difficulties in terms of organization and implementation. Furthermore, the
research process of interviewing, with a focus on groups, has been implemented to
collect the required data (see among others Partridge et al., 2010; Stanton et al., 2011).
This method has been successfully employed in a broad range of information seeking
in reference to academic settings (Walden, 2006). Moreover, numerous studies concern
the requirements of digital librarians in light of new technological developments (see
among others Choi and Rasmussen, 2006, 2009; Croneis and Henderson, 2002). Other
studies have highlighted the necessity for librarians to have the ability to adapt and
learn within this new context and acquire a wide range of information technology skills
(see also Heinrichs and Lim, 2009; Mathews and Pardue, 2009).
The content of most jobannouncement analysis has largely focussedon librarians’job
specifications, as only a limited number of advertisements report detailed job
responsibilities (Xu and Chen, 2000) related to job description analysis. Nevertheless,
researchers have also listed the most commonly cited job responsibilities, sourced from
retrieved information concerning digitallibrarians’positions, highlighting the differences
between electronic and digital librarians (Croneis and Henderson, 2002). Xia and Wang
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