A Chance of storms: New librarians navigating technology tempests

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2009

Publication Title

Technical Services Quarterly

Volume

26

Issue

4

First page number:

26

Abstract

Current scholarship identifies a gap between education obtained in library school and the technological skills needed to be successful on the job from both the employers' and new graduates' perspective. Students believe the courses for their accredited master's degrees will prepare them for their careers and are discouraged when they are met with unanticipated expectations from their new employers, while employers struggle with how much training they must provide to new employees so they can be successful in their jobs. This article explores the gap by surveying new librarians to discover their perceptions about how library school prepared them for their career and about what technology skills their new employer expects them to have. Suggestions are made for how new librarians can gain the skills they need to be successful in the workplace.

Keywords

Employees – Training of; Employment; Librarianship; Library education; Mentoring in library science; New employees; Employee orientation; Technology

Disciplines

Library and Information Science

Language

English

Permissions

Use Find in Your Library, contact the author, or use interlibrary loan to garner a copy of the article. Publisher copyright policy allows author to archive post-print (author’s final manuscript). When post-print is available or publisher policy changes, the article will be deposited

Publisher Citation

Del Bosque, D., & Lampert, C. (2009). A Chance of storms: New librarians navigating technology tempests. Technical Services Quarterly, 26, 261-286. doi:10.1080/07317130802678878

Find It

UNLV article access

Search your library

Share

COinS