REPORT OF THE GENERAL LIBRARY TASK FORCE

ON LIBRARIAN RECRUITMENT AND RETENTION

Submitted 10-5-01

I. RECRUITMENT AND RETENTION OF NEW LIBRARIANS

The Task Force was requested to investigate and provide recommendations about how the General Library might improve its efforts to attract new librarians into its ranks, and specifically what advertising strategies might be employed, as well as what responsibilities librarians, now on staff, have to assist in attracting and retaining new librarians.

STATE OF THE PROBLEM

In reviewing the current literature on the subject, the Task Force had a very considerable advantage in that in the spring of this year (shortly before the Task Force began its work) Jennifer Sweeney prepared a Literature Review for Position Paper on Recruitment and Retention Issues in Academic Libraries 2001 under the editorial direction of George Bynon. The Task Force believes this paper provides an excellent summary of current and recent literature relating to recruitment and retention issues in academic libraries. As such, we have included it, as appendix A, at the end of this report. Likewise, Jennifer Sweeney compiled an Annotated Bibliography: Recruitment and Retention during the same period. The Task Force finds this document to be equally valuable and we have included it as Appendix B.

As these documents provide an excellent overview of the recruitment situation within American academic libraries in general at the beginning of the twenty-first century, we will not attempt to repeat that discussion here. It suffices to say for now that the current challenges that the UCD General Library is facing in its recruitment efforts are not confined to UC Davis, or to California, but appear to be part of broader national situation. While two decades ago, one found references in the literature to a perceived oversupply of library school students to fill available positions, the current situation after two decades of closing library schools, is that there appears to be a widespread shortage of well-qualified professional librarians and that most academic libraries throughout the country are now facing increased difficulties in their current recruitment efforts.

RECOMMENDATIONS ON RECRUITMENT

The Task Force believes that the advertising and recruitment strategy used in individual recruitments will need to be tailored to the needs of the specific position, but that the following elements are likely to apply in most if not all recruitments, and thus we make the following recommendations.

1. Speed. We recommend the Library continue to use fast track recruiting whenever feasible. Examples of fast tracking include: continuing to make telephone reference calls, continuing to accept online applications, and may include accepting letters of reference via e-mail.

2. Innovation. We recommend the development of new and innovative strategies when needed to fill especially hard-to-fill positions. One example of this type of innovation is the Library's current decision to use an executive search firm to assist in the process of recruiting several administrative and department head positions simultaneously, which offers us the opportunity to significantly expedite the recruitment process, while simultaneously reducing organizational workload.

3. Increase use of online recruitments venues. The Task Force recommends that opportunities to take advantage of new online advertising venues should be aggressively pursued. Electronic bulletin boards and job postings sites are rapidly proliferating. Their use offers us an expedient and cost effective means of reaching potential job candidates, and will contribute to efforts to accelerate the overall recruitment process.

4. Multiple advertising venues. We recommend that the Library continue to take full advantage of the multiple venues for advertising available. While a number of the members of the Task Force believe that advertising in established library journals is still a useful and appropriate element of an advertising strategy, not everyone continues to believes that the results from advertisements in professional journals justifies their cost. The majority of the committee believes that, at least in the near term, it is still valuable to advertise in a broad array of media and venues, and that this breadth of coverage is still worth the extra cost and effort. However, as the situation continues to evolve, these options will need to be reassessed periodically.

5. Send them home smiling. We recommend the adoption of a variation of the UCI model of assigning a "host" to candidates being interviewed. This host would stay with the candidate during the day and serve as a friendly neutral presence guiding them around between the interview events and assisting them with their personal needs and questions. This will help the candidate to leave at the end of the day feeling that this would be a nice place to work, rather than being simply relieved that they survived our endurance test.

6. Flexibility. We recommend that position announcements be carefully constructed so as to "require" only those job requirements absolutely necessary for successful job performance. When feasible and appropriate there is advantage in listing characteristics as "desired" rather than "required" in order to generate a larger pool of applicants and also to allow a reasonable degree of flexibility in assessing the various combinations of helpful experience, training, education, and expertise one may find in the candidate pool.

7. Outreach to library schools. We recommend that the General Library review and expand the list of Library Schools that are routinely sent job announcements as part of our standard recruitment procedures.

8. Positive advertising. We recommend that the Library continue to promote the positives of UCD in our advertising (including favorable salaries relative to other regions of the country, and of cost of living relative to other regions within the state).

9. Timing. While only occasionally possible, we recommend that the Library take into consideration the timing of job postings to take fuller advantage of the periods when most library school students are graduating and beginning their job searches.

10. Retirements. We believe that in the current situation it works against the best interests of the General Library to have senior librarians retire early. While the timing of retirements are a matter of personal preference, we recommend that the General Library make full use of retired librarians and other staff in part-time and temporary positions whenever these appointments are deemed as beneficial.

11. Dot-Com Layoffs. We recommend that consideration be given to opportunities that might exist to recruit technologically sophisticated employees from the current waves of laid off employees of Dot-Com companies.

12. Alliances. We recommend that the General Library consider forming alliances with other UC campuses, or other academic libraries, to mount joint recruitment efforts or to work together on campaigns to influence library schools.

For example, UC libraries could cooperate in efforts to promote the growing of its mid-level staff for the new leadership positions, within the different UC libraries, by identifying potential leaders and providing them with appropriate training

opportunities or mentoring.

B. RESPONSIBILITIES OF CURRENT LIBRARIANS

The Task Force was asked to comment on what responsibilities that our current librarians have for attracting and retaining new librarian hires (i.e. training and mentoring programs).

Everyone is part of the recruitment effort

The Task Force believes that we all have roles to play, to varying degrees, in the recruitment and retention of new librarians. We believe that librarians at UCD already understand that they are representatives of the Library, and serve as advocates of the Library within the broader community, and that all of us have a role in promoting the Library to potential future colleagues. Whenever we present a library lecture to a class, or provide assistance to a researcher, we may be influencing a student to consider a future library career.

Retention of librarians

The Task Force finds that while the Library is currently facing challenges in recruiting new librarians, we find no evidence to suggest that the Library has had a significant problem with retention of librarians once they are employed at UCD. The majority of librarians leaving the General Library have left as a result of retirement. When we examined the cases of permanent full time librarians leaving the UC Davis General Library during mid-career we found most of these to be accountable to personal reasons and goals of the librarian involved and not to have been the result of dissatisfaction within the Library. Of course, it is always possible that this will not continue to be the case in the future. Therefore as a preventive strategy, and as a means to improve the professional lives and productivity of existing librarians (particularly new librarians), the following retention strategies are recommended:

1. Mentoring and Training. We recommend giving greater emphasis to the mentoring and training of new librarians. Also, because lifelong learning is inherent in a profession that is rapidly evolving, we should be aware of the need and value of training and mentoring of mid-level and senior librarians as well, especially in areas of newly emerging technologies, cross-disciplinary studies, and new campus research initiatives and research frontiers.

2. Mentoring by department heads. We recognize the primary role that department heads play in the training and mentoring of new librarians, however we note that effective mentoring is a skill that is not universally held, and is too frequently taken for granted. We recommend that review initiators and review boards give fuller consideration to skills and accomplishments in this area, and assign them appropriate weight in the review process.

3. Mentoring by colleagues. We are also aware of the benefit of having other senior librarians, not necessarily in the same department, mentor younger, or even not so young colleagues. One example of this is where a librarian has developed particular technological expertise that they might impart to others. The Task Force believes that it is important to recognize that mentoring is an important service wherever it may occur, and we recommend that review initiators and review boards be requested to recognize it and assign it appropriate weight in the review process.

4. Leadership. We believe that the leadership role of Librarians is important and needs to be fostered more broadly. We recommend that opportunities should be investigated for the provision of mentoring or training to prepare a new generation of librarians to assume leadership roles in the future, including as department heads or administrators. Examples of leadership development would include leading projects and task forces, and serving as assistant department heads and section leaders.

5. Continuous education. We recommend that the Library continue to promote and support opportunities for further education, classes, workshops, and training

sessions for librarians at all levels of their career.

6. Contributions to profession and university. We recommend that the Library and University continue to encourage librarians to seek out opportunities to take leadership roles within the profession, and to contribute to the life of the University through participation in university and public service, and that this work should continue to be strongly supported by the Library. To the degree that librarians become invested in the broader life of the campus and its academic community, their loyalty and likely continuance within the Library is proportionally increased.

7. Mitigate against job burnout. One of the best ways to mitigate against job burnout is to avoid staffing shortages. Regardless of how work is distributed between professional and paraprofessional staff members, if there are too few bodies to get the work done, and the situation persists for too long, the staff will become burned out and this is likely to have long-term consequences, which can be very difficult to correct. The Task Force recommends that adequate staffing be maintained in all units, even if this requires transferring staff between units during periods of economic downturns and staff retrenchment.

8. Sabbaticals & Librarian Renewal. We believe that librarians need the opportunity to periodically renew themselves professionally. We recommend that a sabbatical program directed specifically at the needs of library professionals should be investigated and developed.

9. Job Enrichment. We recommend that various job enrichment programs and opportunities be explored and implemented when deemed feasible and appropriate. Examples of job enrichment opportunities would include job-sharing programs and intercampus librarian exchange programs.

II. PARTNERSHIPS WITH LIBRARY SCHOOLS

The Task Force was asked to comment on how we might influence library schools to prepare librarians for academic librarianship, and specifically to examine whether there were partnerships with library schools that the Library might develop which would ultimately interest graduates to pursue a career in academic librarianship and that might lead students to return to the UCD General Library for their first employment experience after graduation.

The Task Force understands that the General Library has very limited opportunities to influence library schools in our region (northern California) in the preparation of librarians for academic librarianship. When there was a library school at UC Berkeley, the General Library occasionally had the opportunity to sponsor library school student internships. The transformation of this school into a graduate program in information science with very little reference to libraries, academic or otherwise (and no ALA accreditation) has very significantly reduced opportunities to work with Berkeley. However, the Berkeley school may offer opportunities for recruiting expertise for our Systems Department or for specialists in online information retrieval and database management. To the degree these skills continue to increase in their importance, then partnerships with Berkeley will be useful to investigate.

The other obvious possibility for partnerships is San Jose State University, as it has the only remaining library school in northern California. The Task Force believes that there will be some opportunities to partner with San Jose State, but that these opportunities will be limited due to the geographical distance between the two universities. There was also a sense within the Task Force that the members were not convinced that the San Jose program has demonstrated enough strength in the area of academic librarianship to meet the General Library needs, at least in the short term.

III. NEED AND ROLE OF MLS LIBRARIANS

The Task Force was asked to review and discuss the necessity of the MLS as a degree requirement for professional positions in the General Library.

There has been much discussion within the profession recently regarding the place of the MLS in the fast evolving academic library workplace. A review of the recent literature and of recent discussions within professional bodies suggests that the majority of librarians and library administrators still believe that the MLS is an important requirement for professional librarians. There is, however, a distinct minority view that suggests that the rapidly developing need for technological expertise has significantly transformed the educational and academic background needed to be successful in the library jobs of the future to the point where the relevance of the MLS now needs to be reconsidered. One way of stating this dichotomy is to ask whether it will be more effective to hire professionals with library backgrounds and train them as needed to meet the new technological demands placed on the Library, or whether it is more feasible to meet these emerging needs by hiring computer and online or other experts and training them to understand how libraries work. Many libraries of course, and the UCD General Library is among them, will choose a middle road of having it both ways and then trying to integrate these two somewhat disparate groups of staff into a single team working towards a common purpose. Each strategy has its inherent disadvantages and difficulties. It is important periodically to step back from the immediacy of meeting current demands, and to assess where exactly we are going, and whether with strategic planning there is a better way to get there.

A. CHANGING ROLE OF PARAPROFESSIONALS

The Task Force was asked to review the work now done by paraprofessionals within libraries, and to speculate about additional duties that might migrate to paraprofessionals in the future.

The Task Force did not have to look very far to examine substantial changes in the roles of paraprofessionals with respect to work previously associated with professional librarians, as significant changes have already occurred, and are in the process of occurring, within the UCD General Library. Already the General Library, along with most other academic libraries, has seen a major transformation in the makeup of the staffs in the technical services areas. The number of professional Librarians working in cataloging departments throughout the country has shrunk dramatically. This has resulted directly from major changes in the work needing to be done in these units. The technological emergence of shared cataloging has resulted in a major decrease in the amount of original cataloging needing to be done. It is generally agreed that the large increase in copy cataloging work is most economically handled by using teams of Library Assistants and Students Assistants, under the overall supervision and administration of professional Librarians.

Likewise, the technical services workforce of the Library (including acquisitions, binding, preservation and conservation, etc.) is currently made up in large part of paraprofessional staff, with a small top tier of professional staff working either as administrators or on work requiring a higher level of technical expertise. We can add to this model the Access Services Department, which has a large workforce of Students Assistants handling the most basic tasks, followed by a moderately large group of Library Assistants handling higher level functions or supervising, under the overall supervision of a professional librarian as administrator of the unit.

The areas where professional Librarians still largely serve in their traditional roles, and are the primary workforce, are in the public services departments, where they continue to provide reference, instruction services, and collection development. Although, these units also have seen a number of significant changes recently. One of the most significant changes is that activity levels at reference desks have undergone a gradual but steady decrease, as more of our users are turning to online sources to seek information and research resources through the Internet and elsewhere. Some would argue that these changes in user patterns have not resulted in our users getting better results, or even perhaps reliable or accurate results. We conclude, nevertheless, that it is unlikely that the reference desk of the future will serve as the primary venue for students and faculty accessing us for our technical expertise in information and research. Even if this is so, the primary functions of the reference desks will continue and our clientele will still need well-trained information specialists with an appropriate public service orientation, and the ability to instruct users in the use of a growing network of online systems, databases and other specialized research tools.

Increasingly, however, other venues of information provision and research assistance will come into the forefront. Some have theorized that the reference desk service function will simply be transferred from physical desks in the library, to electronic desks accessed over the Internet, and that therefore the level and essential nature of reference services will change only with respect to their initial avenue of access, but not in their basic nature, or collectively in its level of intensity. While it is true that the level of online reference has significantly increased as the level of in-person reference desk activity has been decreasing, we believe that this simple model of the transfer of reference services breaks down because the nature of the reference provided online is proving to be significantly different from the overall nature of the reference desk services provided in the Library.

One can find evidence that significant changes in staffing have been occurring with respect to the General Library's reference desks. These changes have been largely confined to reference desks in Shields Library so far. Within Shields, the assignment of paraprofessionals to work at reference desks has been gradually, but steadily, increasing over the last several years. Simultaneously, the number of hours of reference desk service assigned to professional librarians within the affected departments has decreased somewhat during this period, as librarians in these departments have been shifting to other duties. However, in the branch science libraries, we see no evidence of comparable changes, and little evidence to suggest that professional librarians are likely to be displaced from their core reference desk assignments any time in the near future.

One can also find evidence that some changes in staffing are also beginning to take place in the area of library instruction. Gradually, paraprofessionals are being added to the mix of library personnel providing basic level library instruction for new students, as well as introductory library tours. To date, these staffing changes have been largely confined to Shields Library, and have little impact in the science departments and branches. However, if present trends were to continue, it is possible to speculate that the paraprofessional staff could in the future be responsible for providing a significant proportion of the Library's general undergraduate library instruction program.

One way of explaining these developments is to propose a general theoretical model built on the assumption that there will be fewer professional Librarians in the General Library for the foreseeable future, and that rather than addressing this by attempting to increase the number of librarians, a different strategy is needed. This new strategy is based on a rethinking of the roles and duties of professional librarians that are now considered to be necessary and appropriate in the new library environment. The theory is based on a hierarchical model of public service where more general and basic level tasks are performed by paraprofessional level staff, while more complex and specialized tasks are handled by professional staff. Therefore, in order to examine the transfer of duties and responsibilities that had previously been assigned to professional librarians to the paraprofessional staff, it is necessary under this theory to show that the work involved has changed in its nature. This, in fact, appears to be what happened with respect to the emergence of copy cataloging as predominant over original cataloging which thus changed the basic nature of the work handled by cataloging departments.

It is prudent to ask whether the same type of change has occurred in the nature of the work performed in the public services units of the Library. When this theory is applied to the actual workings of the Library units some complications arise. One has to quickly point out that a hierarchal model is strongly effected by organizational size, therefore within smaller units (branch libraries would be one example) one will typically see a considerable flattening of the hierarchal model and will usually find both the professional and paraprofessional staffs there performing a wider range of duties than would be the case in larger units. This is a difference that should always be kept in mind when considering the ways that work might, or should, change.

Nevertheless, clearly substantial changes have been occurring. It seems that, at least in the areas of public services operations where a higher percentage of the reference and instruction provided is of a more basic or general nature, there appears to be a de facto consensus that the use of Library Assistants (with the appropriate training and support) is an effective alternative to using professional Librarians on the Reference Desk and in the provision of basic instruction. It is less clearly the case that this is a useful strategy in public service units providing science reference, which in general require more specialized training.

If the overall model of transferring more general and basic reference and instruction to the paraprofessional staff, while maintaining the more subject-specific and advanced duties among professional librarians, then theoretically the place where one would be seeing the most shrinkage in the professional staffs would be in those departments which have historically carried a higher percentage of these more general responsibilities. In fact this is not what appears to be happening. Thus this model breaks down in the area of public services staffing. Unlike the technical services staffing changes, which can be shown to closely parallel changes in the unit's workload, it is difficult to demonstrate that the changes in public services have resulted directly and proportionately to workload factors.

With respect to the relationship between reference provided at public service desks and online-reference, a number of points can be advanced. First, some would say that while reference desks in the Library serve all users of the Library without regard to status, the majority of the users are clearly UCD students, staff, and faculty, and overwhelmingly the service provided there fulfills the core mission of the Library to support the educational and research missions of the University. Reference services provided online are considerably more far ranging, but include elementary and high school students working on term papers, and a general public seeking a broad array of information (who previously would have turned to public libraries for information help, but that are now turning more to university and college libraries because they have more of an online presence).

Some would disagree and point out that librarians, as part of their normal reference responsibilities, are providing an advanced level of electronic reference through the development of web pages specifically for UCD faculty, staff and students within various disciplines. While designed specifically for UCD personnel and students, these web pages provide a wealth of information to all users. They point out that traditional reference interactions online, either through e-mail or "real-time" reference, are just a part of the picture. They also point that the number of complex reference queries received on-line is not insignificant, and is likely to increase in the future.

For some departments in the General Library, current trends suggests that assistance to UCD students, staff, and faculty, as well as assistance to researchers involved in university-level research may make up only a minority of our online reference queries. To the degree that the General Library makes a transition to being more of a primary provider of information to the general public, it may be desirable to do an assessment of the economics of providing these services with professional Librarians as opposed to Library Assistants (well-trained and appropriately compensated), especially considering the more general and basic nature of most of these queries. This could be considered to be part of a broader strategy that could be developed to triage reference and research queries. Basic and general queries could be routed to a trained paraprofessional public services staff, while more advanced information needs could be routed to professional librarians, and the most advanced research support needs could be directed to the appropriate subject specialist within the librarian ranks.

What is important to realize is that a very substantial transition is already occurring in the area of public services, and that these changes are likely to continue and may accelerate, with or without general discussion of the merits or difficulties to be expected. The Task Force recommends that LAUC-D provide a forum for a general discussion of current trends in public services in the General Library as we move into the twenty-first century.

Another area of professional responsibility that has historically been assigned to professional librarians is collection development. At this point in time, this appears to be one area of traditional professional responsibilities that has not changed much yet as it relates to staffing. The Task Force is not aware of any recent examples of paraprofessional staff being assigned collection development responsibilities, although such assignments have occurred on a limited basis in the past. Some have speculated that current trends might lead to Librarians with only collection development responsibilities, however the members of the Task Force still feel that the model of the integrated librarian, who while developing the subject collections, is also guiding students and faculty in its use of those collections through reference desk work and library instruction, is still a viable one.

B. LIBRARIANS AS VISIONARIES AND LEADERS

The Task Force was asked to discuss how our MLS graduate/professionals should serve as visionaries and leaders.

The Task Force believes that librarians may serve as visionaries and leaders in as many different ways as there are librarians, but that one universal need is that librarians must be provided with time and opportunity if they are to be successful in filling these roles.

Over the last decade, the number of librarians within the General Library has diminished significantly, while the demands of a fast growing campus and rapidly evolving profession have increased. While it is possible to partially account for the shrinkage of the professional librarian ranks by pointing to the increase in work formerly done by Librarians that is currently assigned to paraprofessionals, it is important to note that the paraprofessional staff has also shrunk. In some departments it is already the case that Librarians are currently not able to maintain the level of professional activity they had previously maintained, due to staffing levels. Thus, while the work of professional Librarians has significantly changed in its nature, most librarians' workloads have not decreased, and for some they have significantly increased. Therefore, if librarians are to have the time and ability to perform the leadership roles envisioned for them in the future, we must now take the time to reassess carefully and thoroughly what our roles are to be in the new Library of the twenty-first century. We will need to set new priorities and we will need to apply our energies in new areas, while in some cases giving up some old territory. Laying out a path to follow in these new times, is something that a single task force in a few weeks time is not likely to be able to adequately do. However it is our hope that this brief report might at least serve as a catalyst to get us thinking and begin the process of bringing us to together to work collectively towards meeting the challenges facing us now and in the future.

IV. SECOND MASTERS.

The Task Force was asked to discuss the necessity of a second master's degree in the context of hiring professionals fresh from receiving their MLS.

The Task Force believes that the appropriateness of requiring a second masters degree can only be examined in terms of specific librarian positions and that a general guideline is not very helpful. The Task Force recognizes the value of advanced subject degrees with respect to demonstrating subject expertise. On the whole, however, we would advise caution in listing second master degrees as required, as opposed to desired. Since few librarians are hired to work within a single academic field, we find that subject breadth and versatility can be as valuable as subject depth and also, in our collective experience, the candidates with the most advanced degrees are not necessarily the candidates that turn out to be the best librarians. Listing advanced subject degrees as desirable, as opposed to required, allows the Library more flexibility in evaluating the candidate pool, while still allowing appropriate weight to be to given for the candidate's subject expertise. In a tight job market, a reasonable level of flexibility has an advantage over a too narrowly drawn specificity. We believe that over the long run, given ongoing rapid changes in the profession, the best librarians are often generalists with the ability to adapt to various ongoing technologically driven changes, while serving as interdisciplinary research bridges for faculty working within their narrower fields of specialization.

Members of the Task Force

Jo Anne Boorkman

George Bynon

Robert Heyer-Gray

Annie Lin

John Sherlock