An Informal Examination of Technological Skills in Library Jobs

Abstract

As any librarian can attest, librarianship has always required a widevariety of skills from its professionals. Librarians have always had to cultivate a highly diverse knowledge base to maintain their skills and keep up with the changing requirements of the field. Various discussions have been made about how the librarian’s position is evolving and how librarians must seek new skills to grow with it.1 Recently, however, technological knowledge and skills have been increasing at a phenomenal rate. In 1996, 66.9% of academic library jobs required some form of computer skills.2 While many traditional skills continue to form the bulk of library job descriptions, one sees technological jargon, acronyms, software names, and so on appearing in library job advertisements with increasing frequency.