The Preparation of Academic Librarians Who Provide Instruction: A Comparison of First and Second Career Librarians

Abstract

With the growing emphasis on information literacy and critical thinking in higher education, it is important that academic librarians who provide instruction have the necessary skills related to their responsibilities. The ACRL Standards for Proficiencies for Instruction Librarians and Coordinators include twelve skill categories that can serve as a measure of a librarian's ability as an instructor. The purpose of this study was to examine how academic librarians feel they have been prepared to provide instruction by determining the degree to which previous work experience (specifically a “first career”) may have had an impact on their ability to perform their teaching responsibilities and to examine the extent to which the MLS degree has prepared them in the area of instruction. A survey was sent to four library Listservs yielding 608 respondents. Results indicated that librarians who had another career prior to becoming an academic librarian who provides instruction felt that they were better prepared to provide instruction than those who did not have a prior career. Furthermore, these librarians' responses seemed to suggest that for the majority of the skill categories, their prior work experience provided them with a greater extent of preparation than did their MLS education.