Technology Skills in the Workplace: Information Professionals’ Current Use and Future Aspirations

Abstract

Information technology serves as an essential tool for today's information professional, with a need for ongoing research attention to assess the technological directions of the field over time. This paper presents the results of a survey of the technologies used by library and information science (LIS) practitioners, with attention to the combinations of technologies employed and the technology skills that practitioners wish to learn. The most common technologies employed were: email, office productivity tools, web browsers, library catalog and database searching tools, and printers, with programming topping the list of most-desired technology skill to learn. Generally similar technology usage patterns were observed for early and later-career practitioners. Findings also suggested the relative rarity of emerging technologies, such as the makerspace, in current practice.

The impact of information technology and communication systems on the agility of supply chain management systems

“…The competition in the business market, in investments and in the application of IT since mid-1990s has been very impressive (McAfee and Brynjolfsson, 2008). The most common tools were email, office productivity tools, Web browsers, the library catalog, database searching tools and printers (Maceli and Burke, 2016). So, IT is ubiquitously integrated into products and services to provide innovation (Del Giudice and Straub, 2011;Leonhardt et al, 2016).…”

Encouraging patron adoption of privacy-protection technologies:

“…Prior research on the technology skills employed by librarians in practice indicates a lack of engagement with deeply technical tasks (e.g. Maceli and Burke, 2016) and it is reasonable to assume that a similar problem of information asymmetry and the privacy paradox of inaction exists for librarians and library staff, mirroring the general population findings. These findings are therefore of interest both in our own educational practices, as well as in educating our patrons and communities, and numerous questions for future research efforts emerge.…”

Introducing web components into the LIS graduate curriculum

“…The increasing focus on information technology (IT) throughout the LIS professions has long been a discussion point in the literature (Maceli, 2016;Virkus, 2015;NMC, 2014 ;Breeding, 2013;Riley-Huf & Rholes, 2011;Audunson, 2007). Kelley (2015) notes the growing specialization of librarianship: generalists are being replaced by new specific roles such as "data analysis librarian, web instruction librarian, emerging technologies librarian, and metadata librarian".…”

“…Despite this, "computer and Web programming" are the technologies these librarians would most like to learn. Maceli and Burke (2016) report the same focus on "end-user" technology by LIS practitioners, with email and word processing being the most common technologies used. Library website creation or management appears 24th on this list and only 15 per cent of respondents use computer programming.…”

“…Despite the desire to learn programming, a majority of digital native academic librarians in the study by Emanuel (2013) felt that library school "prepared them well to deal with the technology". And Maceli and Burke (2016) comment that "A relatively small percentage of practitioners have technology-intensive roles that would require skills such as programming". However, they suggest that an awareness of the potential of such tools should be a core skill.…”