Survey of Canadian Academic Librarians Outlines Integration of Traditional and Emerging Services

Abstract

A Review of:

Ducas, A., Michaud-Oystryk, N., & Speare, M. (2020). Reinventing ourselves: New and emerging roles of academic librarians in Canadian research-intensive universities. College & Research Libraries, 81(1), 43–65. https://doi.org/10.5860/crl.81.1.43

Abstract

Objective – To identify new and emerging roles for librarians and understand how those new roles impact their confidence, training needs, and job satisfaction. To understand how librarians conceptualize the impact of these new roles on the academic enterprise.

Design – Electronic survey.

Setting – Academic research libraries at Canadian research-intensive universities.  

Subjects – 205 academic librarians.

Methods – An electronic survey was distributed to all librarians working at the 15 research-intensive universities in Canada. Archivists were included in this population, but senior administrators, such as university librarians, deans, and associate administrators, were not included. The 38-question survey was produced in English and French. Five focus areas for emerging skills were drawn from the literature and a review of job postings. Librarians were asked about their participation in particular activities associated with the different focus areas and about their training and confidence in those areas. The survey was sent to 743 librarians and had a 27% response rate with a total of 205 complete responses. Librarians participated from each of the 15 research universities and institutional response rates ranged from 14% to 51%. Survey Monkey was used to distribute the online survey. Cronbach’s alpha was used to measure reliability for each section of the survey and ranged from .735 in the confidence area to .934 in the job satisfaction area, indicating sufficient internal consistency. The data were analyzed using SPSS and RStudio.

Main Results – In the general area of research support, a majority (75%) of participants reported that they provided information discovery services like consultations and literature reviews, 28% engaged in grant application support, 27% provided assistance with systematic reviews, 26% provided bibliometric services, and 23% provided data management services. In the teaching and learning area, 78% of participants provided classroom teaching to students, 75% provided one-on-one instruction, 48% created tutorials, 47% taught workshops for faculty, and 43% conducted copyright consultations. Only around half of participants offered digital scholarship services, and copyright consultations were the most frequently offered service in this area, with 36% of participants indicating that they offered this service. The area of user experience had the highest number of respondents, and the top services offered in this area included liaison services for staff and faculty (87%), library services assessment (46%), and student engagement initiatives (41%). In the scholarly communication area, 49% of respondents indicated that they provided consultation on alternative publishing models, including open access, and 41% provided copyright and intellectual property services.

The majority of librarians were confident that they could perform their duties in the five focus areas. Teaching and learning had the highest confidence rate, with 75% of respondents indicating that they felt confident or very confident in their roles. Digital scholarship had the lowest confidence rating, with only 50% indicating that they felt confident or very confident about these roles. The survey also asked participants about their training and skills acquisition in the five areas. Most participants indicated that they acquired these skills through professional work experience and self-teaching. Based on the calculations from the survey focusing on participation in new and traditional roles, 13% of librarian participants performed only new roles, 44% performed only traditional roles, and 44% performed some new and some traditional roles. Additionally, 45% of librarians spent the majority of their time delivering traditional services, 19% delivering new services, and 36% dividing their time between new and traditional services. Job satisfaction and new or traditional roles were also examined, and statistically significant results indicated that librarians performing new roles were more satisfied with assigned duties (p = 0.009084), more satisfied with opportunities for challenge (p = 0.02499), and less satisfied with opportunities for independent action (p = 0.02904). Librarians performing new roles perceived a higher impact on scholarly communication (p = 0.02621) and supporting researchers (p = 0.0002126) than those performing traditional roles. Librarians performing new roles perceived a lower impact on contributing to student success (p = 0.003686) and supporting teaching and learning at the classroom level (p = 0.01473) than librarians performing traditional roles.

Conclusion – Results demonstrate that librarians are still engaged in traditional roles, but new roles are emerging particularly in the areas of copyright and publishing, bibliometrics, online learning initiatives, and new communication strategies. Job satisfaction and confidence in these roles are similar between traditional and emerging roles. Overall, participants felt that they had a significant impact on the academic enterprise when performing new or traditional roles but that the roles had different areas of impact. This study is meant to be a baseline for future investigations in the trends and developments of roles for Canadian librarians. The survey and data are available from the University of Manitoba’s Dataverse repository: https://doi.org/10.5203/FK2/RHOFFU