The evaluation of international credentials and the hiring of internationally trained librarians in Canadian academic and public libraries

Abstract

This study examines the way in which libraries in Canada approach the issue of the evaluation of international credentials (ICs) held by internationally trained librarians (ITLs) and the eventual short-listing and hiring of such individuals. In the United States and Canada, librarianship, a non-regulated profession, is to a large degree governed by the American Library Association (ALA), but the ALA's statements regarding ICs and ITLs are often ambiguous. It is therefore frequently left to individual libraries to decide how best to deal with ICs and ITLs. Based on a questionnaire sent to managers of large academic and public libraries in Canada, this study concludes that a significant percentage of Canadian libraries, especially academic libraries, are open to hiring ITLs insofar as these libraries and their managers do not consider an ALA-accredited degree to be mandatory for an applicant to be short-listed for a job position. At the same time, these library managers possess very little information about the state of LIS education in countries other than the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand, thus making their decisions about hiring ITLs problematic. Governing bodies of librarianship may wish to consider establishing nation-wide guidelines and/or bridging education programs to facilitate the integration of ITLs with ICs into the North American workforce.