University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Student Workers: The Untapped Resource for Library Professions

Maxey-Harris, Charlene; Cross, Jeanne; McFarland, Thomas

Permalink

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/18726

Description

Title
Student Workers: The Untapped Resource for Library Professions
Author(s)
  • Maxey-Harris, Charlene
  • Cross, Jeanne
  • McFarland, Thomas
Issue Date
2010
Keyword(s)
  • Workforce Issues in Library and Information Science
  • Student library assistants -- United States.
  • Library employees -- Recruiting -- United States.
  • Library personnel management -- United States.
Abstract
For years libraries have hired hundreds of student workers to maintain crucial functions in the library. Without student workers, libraries cannot provide essential services to the university community. Yet limited research exists on how libraries have developed professional career tracks for student workers and library staff. Investigators from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Southern Illinois University Carbondale developed a survey to determine what portion of library employees started as student workers and to what extent there is career mobility within academic libraries. Librarians and staff were surveyed and participated in focus groups to share stories about their start in libraries. The study also explored what behaviors, opportunities, and experiences encouraged them to stay in library work. Based on the comments from the survey and focus groups, libraries do not actively promote library careers for student workers and staff. This research showed the student worker experience is an untapped strategy to develop library professionals. It also provides insight into specific strategies libraries can use to encourage student workers and library staff to develop a career in libraries.
Publisher
Johns Hopkins University Press and the Graduate School of Library and Information Science. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
ISSN
0024-2594
Type of Resource
text
Language
en
Permalink
http://hdl.handle.net/2142/18726
Copyright and License Information
Copyright 2010 Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Owning Collections

Library Trends 59 (1-2) Summer/Fall 2010: Workforce Issues in Library and Information Science, Part 2 PRIMARY
Library Trends 59 (1-2) Summer/Fall 2010: Workforce Issues in Library and Information Science, Part 2. Edited by Joanne Gard Marshall, Susan Rathbun-Grubb, Deborah Barreau, and Jennifer Craft Morgan