What are the information technology skills needed in information institutions? The case of “code4lib” job listings

Abstract

Job lists are essential data sources for revealing the core information technology skills and needs of practitioners, job seekers, and vocational trainers. This study aims to determine the information technology skills needed in information institutions (e.g., library, archive, museum, etc.) from job lists. The study data was collected from the code4lib platform, a popular interface for technology developers in the library and information science. Data covering 6959 job postings during the years 2004–2020 were collected in May 2020. A total of 5941 postings containing tags were included in the study's scope among 6959 job postings. Web Crawling and text mining techniques were used to collect and process the data. Knime Analytics software and its extensions (Palladian, Text Processing, R) were used in all these processing. The results of the study revealed the most frequently mentioned common features in the job advertisements. These are programming languages (PHP, JavaScript, Java, and Python), operating systems (Linux, Unix, and MS Windows), Web technologies (XML, HTML, CSS, and XSL), databases (MySQL, Oracle, and PostgreSQL), metadata standards (MARC, DC, EAD) and other skills. Also, results show that there are different technology skills mentioned for librarians or archivists and other positions. The results include the list of information technology skills required in information institutions, especially for educators, potential information workers, and technologists.