Library Education and Personnel Utilization (LEPU), an American Library Association policy statement, provided the framework for this exploratory study of support staff career ladders in university libraries. The overall goal was to determine through a survey of 160 university libraries if the principles of LEPU have been implemented. Of specific interest were characteristics of existing career ladders, factors which influence those career ladders, and library managers' perceptions of advantages and disadvantages of career ladders. / The majority of university libraries use support staff categories similar to those described in LEPU (clerk, library technical assistant, and library associate). Career ladder components occur most often for the clerk category and least often for the library associate category. That high-level category, rather than the library technical assistant, is at a "dead-end" on the career ladder. / Several factors were found to have an apparent positive influence on career ladders. These included establishment of the categories by a city/state personnel system, unionization of either support staff or librarians, Association of Research Libraries membership, and public funding for the institution. In contrast, several factors which seem to reduce the likely existence of career ladders included library involvement in establishing support staff categories and library faculty formulation of policies affecting support staff promotions. / Administrators more often named career ladder advantages than disadvantages. Advantages included delineation of personnel policies, increased job satisfaction, retention of staff members, and better library service. Among the disadvantages were reliance on arbitrary requirements for promotion, establishment of alternate routes to professional positions, conflicts among staff members, and impairment of affirmative action programs. / LEPU has had little direct effect on career ladder policies for support staff in university libraries, and administrators believe that the practical value of LEPU as a model is limited. In light of this, a review of LEPU by ALA is imperative. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 44-12, Section: A, page: 3530. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1983.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_75245 |
| Contributors | CLEMENS, BONNIE JACKSON., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 378 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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