1. Librarians' Occupational Stereotype: Will It Ever Change?
- Author
-
David, Indra M.
- Abstract
The purpose of this study was to investigate whether the vocational interests and personality patterns of today's academic librarians are more like the traditional stereotype (i.e., that librarians are conventional, conservative, rigid types) or are beginning to change due to the changing nature of the profession and its work environment. To determine the impact of these changes, the personality patterns and vocational interests of academic, database, and systems librarians were compared to those who comprise the professional norm. The norm consisted of public school, special, and college librarians in the same proportion as in the general population of Michigan librarians. A total of 380 Michigan librarians were mailed the Strong Interest Inventory (SII) Form T325 and a fact sheet for demographic data from which 213 useable responses were received. Analysis of variance and T-tests were performed to test for differences on the SII scales between the professional norm and the three librarian samples. Unlike earlier studies, this study indicated that today's librarians are dominant on the artistic theme. There were no statistically significant differences in vocational interests or personality patterns between today's academic librarians and the occupational norm for librarians in general, nor between academic librarians and those working in technological environments of any type. (Contains 14 references.) (KRN)
- Published
- 1992