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This study took place on the campus of a Hispanic-serving institution, and used Q methodology to assess the attitudes and perceptions of academic librarians toward a social justice role for the university library. Among librarians and others in higher education, there is a great deal of confusion around social justice as a concept because over the past forty years, it has often been subsumed under, or diverted by the neoliberal discourse of multicultural education, which conflates social justice with providing equal opportunities for under-represented students primarily as a means of enabling them to obtain jobs and become consumers in our neoliberal capitalist society. Unfortunately, this perspective dovetails neatly with the positivist traditions of the library profession, which also eschews political involvement and exhorts librarians to remain neutral in the services and collections they provide. Within this discourse, universities and their libraries are stripped of their political and social potential for addressing the structural problems and inequalities which circumscribe the lives of the very students they purport to serve. The results of this study indicate that many librarians believe that their profession’s ethos of neutrality renders the debate over social justice within the library moot. These librarians equate social justice as equivalent to giving equal access to materials that promote the advancement of marginalized groups, and to those that encourage the continuation of the status quo or opposition to equality. Only a small number of librarians envision themselves as well positioned to promote social justice by empowering students to use the resources currently available within the library. Despite the different viewpoints represented by the factors uncovered in this study, there did emerge areas of consensus from which library leaders can mediate conversations aimed at uncovering and evaluating the principles, practices, and attitudes within the library that arise from the dominant White worldview and hinder the library’s ability to serve all students equitably. Conversations about topics such as those implicated in this study, including institutional racism, diversity, social justice, and White privilege are not always comfortable conversations, but they are required if the library is to enact the changes necessary to allow it to serve all students more effectively and more justly. These discussions are especially needed at this time, when academic librarians as a profession remain 86 percent White, while many of our campuses are becoming increasingly racially diverse. If the library is to retain its place as the center of social and political discourse within the university, it is critical that it fully represent and respect the perspectives of non-dominant groups and recognize alternative epistemologies. Breaking with the positivist traditions of the library will allow opportunities for librarians to authentically connect with more of our students, which is particularly needed at Hispanic-serving institutions.

This study is motivated by the need to look continually for ways to improve Griffith University’s learning assistance services so that they meet the changing needs of stakeholders and are at the same time cost-effective and efficient. This study uses the conceptual tools of cultural-historical activity theory and expansive visibilisation to investigate the development and transformation of learning assistance services at Griffith University, one of Australia's largest multi-campus universities. Cultural-historical activity is a powerful theoretical framework that acknowledges the importance of dimensions such as cultural context, local setting, collective understanding, and the influence of historical variables on interactions in settings. Expansive visibilisation is a practical four-stage process that was used in this study to make visible and analysable the work context of the Learning Assistance Unit. The study uses these conceptual tools to illustrate how learning assistance services at the University have moved through several stages of historical development and that historical variables, such as the political setting and physical location of services continue to influence current work practices. The investigation involved gathering data through interviews and focus group discussions with key stakeholders in order to map the University's Learning Assistance Unit as an activity system that appears to have separated out from the overall activity system of the University. It involved making visible problems and tensions in the activity system, and identifying ways of improving future practice. The study reveals problem clusters and underlying tensions amongst the interacting activity systems of the Learning Assistance Unit, faculty, library and student. These problem clusters relate to different understandings about the purpose of the Learning Assistance Unit and the role of the learning adviser, the difficulties in offering a quality service on a restricted budget, and tensions between contextualised and de-contextualised learning assistance. The study suggests that resolving these tensions depends on staff taking an active role in critically examining their practice, in particular the way that they collaborate with key stakeholders in the learning environment. The dissertation concludes by suggesting that one way forward is to expand the activity system on its socio-spatial, temporal, moral-ideological, and systemic-developmental dimensions (Engeström, 1999c).

This study was designed to ascertain, analyse and compare the perceptions of College Librarians and their associates about the role responsibility which College Librarians in libraries in New South Wales Colleges of Advanced Education (CAEs) were actually assuming and ideally should be assuming as part of their role as library managers. Using as its basis a theoretical framework of role and role-related concepts, as developed by social psychologists such as Kahn et al. (1964), a role set group of Principals, Registrars and Senior Library Staff was identified as the survey population. A review of the literature about CAEs and their libraries and overseas studies about the role of library managers assisted with the development of a role responsibility questionnaire. Data from the questionnaire was analysed in respect of actual and ideal role responsibility and any gaps between actual and ideal role responsibility. Gaps between perceptions of actual and ideal role responsibility between College Librarians and associates may indicate a potential for role conflict for persons enacting the role of College Librarian. This study found statistically significant results in respect of both actual and ideal role responsibility between College Librarians and Senior Library Staff, which indicated that there was not clear agreement between the two groups about either the role responsibility currently assumed by College Librarians and that which ideally should be assumed. In respect of the gap between actual and ideal role responsibility, however, there was no statistically significant result between College Librarians and associates, indicating that the potential for role conflict resulting from divergent perceptions between role set groups was not evident. This does not preclude the potential for role conflict from other sources.

This study has three major purposes: to describe systematically the practice of librarianship in Australian Commonwealth Government departments and agencies from the perspective of librarians employed in that environment; to relate the characteristics of government librarianship to librarians' perceptions of and attitudes to their work; and to assess the extent to which the work of Commonwealth Government librarians needs to be redesigned to improve the level of job satisfaction they experience. A subsidiary purpose is to test the job characteristics theory of work motivation on a population of librarians. Information was gathered by a survey questionnaire on a range of variables relating to librarians and their perceptions of different aspects of their jobs. The primary instrument for gathering data on perceptions was the complete form of the Job Diagnostic Survey. The population under investigation comprised those Commonwealth Government department and agency librarians employed on a full-time, permanent basis under the Public Service Act 1922. and located in Canberra. Because the population was small but diverse, it was decided to survey the total population rather than a random or stratified sample. One hundred and eight usable responses were received which represented a response rate of 83 percent. The results of the survey were analysed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences. Frequency distributions and Pearson's Product-Moment Correlations were calculated to determine the percentage of respondents who selected each option and the strength of relationships between pairs of variables. The study found that Commonwealth Government department and agency librarians in Australia are highly satisfied with their work generally, and with the environment in which it is performed. None of the null hypotheses relating to Commonwealth Government librarians and job satisfaction were rejected. All but one of the null hypotheses retating to the application of the job characteristics model to Commonwealth Government librarians are rejected. The study concludes by identifying issues and areas for further research in public sector librarianship.

The basic purpose of this study is to analyse in general terms Schools Commission policy and planning in regard to the development of library resources and services for Australian primary schools in both the government and non-government education systems. The core of the study is a survey of the provision and needs of primary school libraries in the Australian Capital Territory, based on the Schools Commission Guidelines for library services in primary schools. The survey is not an end in itself, but is a means of appraisal of the school libraries program of the Australian government as viewed at the grass roots level in one particular area. The report falls into two sections. Section I is an introductory section which gives firstly an overview of the work of the Federal government in the development of school libraries and services between 1968 and 1975. The introductory section also analyses the development of the Schools Commission guideline standards for primary school libraries, and explains the role of the standards in relation to both the 'needs' criterion of the Commission's educational program and the equitable distribution of government funds. The standards are not absolutes in terms of precise structural specifications to be applied in all circumstances, but rather an affirmation of possibility in relation to a given ambit. It is in Section II that the data from the survey of the primary school libraries in the Australian Capital Territory is analysed, and some comparisons are made with the Monash University study of provision and needs in primary school libraries carried out in 1975. The objectives of the ACT survey are not, however, oriented simply to a factual statement of provision and needs, but also to highlighting the instrinsic and recurring administrative problems associated with the provision of library resources services in schools. Issues raised by the survey relate to differentiated staffing patterns, obsolescence of materials, centralised versus decentralised collections, tolerable loss rate for books, custodial attitudes of teacher-librarians, teacher attitudes to the library, production and use of audiovisual materials by teachers and students, community use of school libraries, identification of needs by individual schools, availability of central support services for selection and processing of materials, funding for resource provision. In regard to conclusions the report does not attempt to offer anything but tentative suggestions, because of the range of variables in most cases, which could not be eliminated or controlled in a survey of this. type. However, some factors do emerge which could be the basis for more detailed analysis, such as the nature of obsolescence in regard to school library materials, and the relationship between types of library service and the 'open' or traditional1 structure of the school program. There is one factor which the survey does show quite clearly, namely the gap that exists between policy decisions taken at the national level and the implementation of that policy at the local level.

This study traces many of the highlights which occurred during the first decade of the history of the School Library Association in Canberra and District (SLACAD). The roots of this association lie deep in the history of school libraries and teacherlibrarianship in Australia. Many SLACAD members belonged to other state school library associations and to the Australian School Library Association (ASLA) confederation since the establishment of these associations in the 1960's. These teacher-librarians have been dedicated in their attempts to further the cause of school libraries and their teacher-librarianship profession. The decade covered by this study embraces the greatest period of expansion in the development of school libraries seen in Australian history. During this decade the A.C.T. established an independent education system and it took many years for the A.C.T. Schools Authority administration to finalise its organisation. SLACAD members were anxious that school libraries in the A.C.T. should keep pace with school libraries in other Australian states and this study documents the constant efforts of its members to obtain improvements in school librarianship. Teacher-librarians in the A.C.T. have continued to maintain a close liaison with ASLA and many A.C.T. teacher-librarians have held executive office in ASLA. SLACAD has hosted seminars and conferences and this study documents numerous submissions and reports which were a necessary feature of the expanding A.C.T. school library association milieu.

The present study attempted to measure the overlap of tasks being performed by Librarians Class One and Library Technicians Grades Two and Three in special libraries located in Commonwealth Government Departments and Statutory Authorities in the ACT. Overlap was also measured between the two groups in libraries with six or more staff, since size of library could have affected the results; and between graduates (those employees with university or college of advanced education degrees or graduate diplomas in library and information science), and nongraduates (those without such qualifications). To measure the overlap, a task list questionnaire was devised based on task lists utilised in other research studies or which had been the outcome of professional workshops. Work level guidelines and position classification standards developed by pertinent Australian employing authorities and the Library Association of Australia were also used. Results suggested that there may be considerable overlap in work being performed by Librarians Class One and Library Technicians Grades Two and Three in the nominated libraries. Of the eight functional areas of library work into which the task list questionnaire was divided, only two areas, Reference, and Current Awareness and User Services, resulted in proportions of the groups tested being assigned the tasks in significantly different proportions. For the six other functional areas, representing 125 of the 160 tasks Librarians Class One and Library Technicians Grades Two and Three performed the same tasks in similar proportions. Testing for size of library and qualifications of respondents made very little difference to these results. Conclusions drawn from the present study are limited because the questionnaire ignored the level of importance and the time occupied in completing these tasks. Other constraints occurred in relation to conclusions which could be made. The questionnaire methodology as utilised by the present study is more likely to evoke responses to what is there; and it does not identify what should be done or how well tasks are performed. The study is limited to special libraries within Commonwealth Government Departments and Statutory Authorities and is confined to three levels of staff only, Librarians Class One and Library Technicians Grades Two and Three. Despite these limitations, it seems clear that the levels of staff included in the present study are often assigned tasks on the basis of what tasks have to be done, rather than with regard to matching level of task to level of position within the boundaries of the work level guidelines; and this situation is also true of the larger libraries with six or more staff. These results have implications for those involved in educating professional librarians and library technicians, for the interpretation given by the profession to the meaning of professionalism and for staff relations between librarians and library technicians. Debate by the profession concerning the roles of librarians and library technicians is an issue demanding urgent attention.

<p>Open access to scientific literature on Internet is a concept which is supposed to change librarians' work. The aim of the thesis was to examine librarians' perception of Open access. A questionnaire survey was conducted among librarians at libraries with specialisation in technique, natural sciences, medicine and pharmacy in Sweden. Even though Open access can be regarded as an alarming for librarians' work, the results of the survey showed that the future of the librarians' profession can be positive if they flexibly adopt their work routines according to changes in publication forms and library users' needs.</p>

This study examines the preservation practices of academic law libraries and argues that the survey results illustrate the growing gap between current preservation practices and new technology. The introduction to the study discusses challenges for libraries and cultural institutions in the digital age. In the second section, the paper analyzes U.S. copyright law and the effect of recent amendments on library preservation activities. The third section reports the results of a preservation practices survey. In the fourth section, the paper explores options for future law library preservation including institutional repositories and collaborative preservation efforts. The paper concludes that a new approach to scholarship and preservation is necessary to ensure that future generations have access to historically important legal literature.