The Career Choices of Business Librarians: A Survey and Discussion

Abstract

This article reports the results of a survey that asked business librarians about their career choices, including prior work history, time in the profession, and satisfaction with their business librarian career choice. When possible, these results are compared with earlier research. Unlike previous business librarian surveys, a much higher percentage of respondents to this survey work outside of academic business librarianship. Significant findings include that a majority of the current business librarians surveyed had prior careers, and compared to previous surveys a much higher percentage had previously worked in business-related occupations. Also, there was a very high level of satisfaction with the career choice of business librarianship.

A New Look at the Background and Work Experience of Business Librarians

“…As discussed previously, Hines and Baker (2008) found that 48.8% of their respondents were specifically interested in a career in business librarianship (p. 401). However, 51.9% of their respondents worked in special libraries (Hines & Baker, 2008, p. 393), indicating that special librarians are probably making more deliberate choices in their career path to business librarianship.…”

“…Kendrick (1990) found that academic business librarians tended to be seasoned professionals with many years of library experience prior to becoming subject specialists. Hines and Baker (2008) also studied the prior work history of business librarians through an online survey of Business Librarians listserv (BUSLIB-L) and Special Library Association Business and Finance Division listserv (SLABF-L). More than one half of the respondents in this study were from corporate or special libraries, and the findings demonstrate a much more stable and experienced population of business librarians when compared to previous studies of academic business librarians (Hines & Baker, 2008, p. 393).…”

Choice of Library and Information Science in a rapidly changing information landscape

“…Journal article (41) Thesis Emanuel (2012) Type of Publication Conference Proceedings (3) Hallam and Partridge (2005), Bavakutty et al (2008), Newbutt and Sen (2008) Farley-Larmour (2000), Hackenberg (2000), Adomi and Ogbomo (2001), Deeming and Chelin (2001), Fikar and Corral (2001), Marcella and Baxter (2001), Winston (2001), Hallmark and Lembo (2003), Hackenberg and Chu (2004), Figyelo (2005), Ard et al (2006), Luzius (2006), Berry (2007), Davis (2007), Eells (2007), Kim et al (2007), Stanley (2007), Hines and Baker (2008), Issa and Nwalo (2008), Lian and Xiong (2008), Shannon (2008), Unagha (2) IFLA conference proceedings (3) Conference Proceedings …”

“…In total, 11 papers focussed on the choice of specific specialty within the LIS discipline, namely sci-tech (Eells, 2006;Hackenberg and Chu, 2004;Hackenberg, 2000;Winston, 2001), business (Hines and Baker, 2008), academic (Emanuel, 2012;Luzius, 2006), public (Rathbun-Grubb and Marshall, 2009), children (Winston, 2001) and school librarianship ( Jones, 2010;Shannon, 2008) (see Figure 8).…”

“…With respect to business librarianship, the reasons why professionals have chosen this specialty included interest in business, personal desire for this specialty, availability of the position as well as previous education or experience in business or business library (Hines and Baker, 2008;Winston, 2001) (see Figure 8). Luzius (2006) investigated a different population, academic librarians and explored the factors influencing them to pursue a career in academic libraries.…”