Paraprofessionals Libraries: Coping With \'Digital

Paraprofessionals

Libraries: Coping With 'Digital Squeeze'

The role of paraprofessionals in technical services in academic libraries

The role of paraprofessionals is in flux. Over the past 20 years, shrinking budgets caused more and more libraries to employ paraprofessionals to take on the tasks of library professionals. In 1991, it was noted that the tasks demanded of paraprofessionals "required sophisticated judgment calls, supervision, and complex operations in the current library environment" (Zhu 2012). The article "The role of paraprofessionals in technical services in academic libraries" chronicles a 2011 survey of paraprofessionals conducted by the author that was designed to examine how the profession had evolved over the past five years. Questions focused upon educational requirements for paraprofessionals; complexities of duties; roles; and incentives to expand paraprofessionals' knowledge of technology in informational science. Overall, the trend indicated that in recent years, the changing technology marketplace had reduced the need for paraprofessionals and increased the need for library professionals with higher-level skills.

The article begins with a literature review of previous surveys. One of the most recent indicated that more than a quarter of paraprofessionals were being used for tasks such as original cataloging and master bibliographic record enrichment as well as more routine copy cataloging (Zhu 2012). Zhu's own study was conducted upon 820 individuals, involving a mix of professionals and paraprofessionals, to ensure diversity of views: 318 (43.6%) were professionals and 411 (56.4%) were paraprofessionals. Several trends emerged: because of cutbacks or outsourcing of jobs, more than half reported a reduction in paraprofessionals in areas of technical staffing. There was a corresponding increase in hiring of library professionals due to the complexity of such tasks. The survey also indicated that the vast majority of paraprofessionals had undergraduate degrees and of the tasks and "high-level skills required for professional positions and paraprofessional positions" there was little appreciable difference (Zhu 2012). However, there still remained tasks which library professionals alone could take on such as conducting research for scholarly publications and communication; writing grant proposals; dealing with licensing and copyright issues and developing and preserving collections.