A study of the differences between students’ and librarians’ expectation of the Korean library and information science job market

Abstract

By studying the expectations of both Library and Information Science (LIS) students and practitioner librarians, this research hopes to discover ways to increase employment rates in the LIS job market and better prepare students for employment. This research was conducted as a survey comparing the views of both students and librarians on desired employment and employment readiness, job market, and employment prospects. First, both students and short-contract, temporarily-employed librarians have a strong desire for permanent employment in libraries. Second, both librarians and students highly desired a mentoring program with practitioner librarians, as well as short-term internships (2–3months, 6–9 credits), LIS fieldwork (3–4 weeks, 2–3 credits), and long-term internships (6 months, 15 credits or less). Third, both temporarily-employed librarians and students spent most of their job preparation effort on acquiring certification in order to eventually obtain their desired employment. Fourth, their desired working locations were mostly within the city of Seoul. Fifth, there were differences in perspectives on the LIS job market and job growth. The librarian samples were generally positive about the job market, but very negative about growth, while the student samples were generally negative about the current market, but very positive about future prospects.