Facilitating the move to competency based staffing in academic and research libraries in the globalised era

Abstract

Libraries are evolving rapidly from physical spaces providing on-site services and resources to providers of electronic resources and virtual services. Globalization has enable librarians moving into dramatically different roles as new services are implemented. This implies that the move to competency based staffing in both academic and research libraries are germane. It has become more important than ever to have flexible and motivated librarians who possess the skills, attitudes, and traits that enable them to meet multiple informational needs of global age information users and adapt as those needs change. Encouraging those librarians to continue growing as professionals over their careers is equally important. Competency-based hiring and evaluation can enable information organizations including academic and research libraries to: “recruit employees who can meet the organization’s current needs and who are willing to fulfill the required job duties; evaluate employees based on their current activities as well as their professional development efforts; and set benchmarks for employees’ continued professional development and learning that are beneficial to the organization. The fact that competency-based recruitment of personnel is essential in this age, culminated into the discussion in this paper. Therefore, the paper discussed competency as relate to the recruitment of librarians, what are involved in using competencies in the selection of library personnel, the process, and the creative approach/approaches to recruitment of personnel into libraries. The paper recommends based on the discussion that an empirical investigation version of this discussion should be considered. This could be focused on examining the intriguing question of how users in academic and research libraries in this global era cope with the absence of an endorsed competent librarian.

Keywords: Library personnel, Hiring, Recruitment, Globalisation, Competency Based Staffing