Challenges and strategies to attain leadership positions for female library professionals: A narrative review

Abstract

This literature review analyzes the literature on female librarians, focusing on the workplace challenges and issues they face and the skills and strategies required to create a workplace conducive to learning and scholarship and seizing leadership opportunities. A narrative review of the relevant literature was undertaken. Publications from five major scholarly databases (Scopus, Web of Science, LSA, LISTA, and LISA) were chosen for this review. A comprehensive search query was performed and all pertinent records were downloaded and imported into Endnote Software. Finally, the relevant 23 studies were selected for this review. The included articles were published between the range of 1996–2021 and most of the articles were published in 2021 (n = 08). The findings revealed that the fundamental challenges for female library professionals were related to administrative, financial and skills issues, gender discrimination, societal and cultural norms, lack of research and scholarly contributions, and harassment in the workplace. The skills and strategies needed to create a better and congenial workplace for the female library professionals were a positive workplace culture, financial benefits, empowerment and gender equality, mentoring and skills development, work-life balance, and active involvement in research and scholarship. The practical, policy and social implications are presented.