Library and Information Science (LIS) Transferable Competencies

What is it about?

This article uses data obtained from a content analysis of job advertisements to explore the questions of (1) what types of non-traditional jobs are available for library and information science (LIS) professionals and (2) how can LIS students and professionals take advantage of non-traditional job opportunities. Two groups of job advertisements were used in this investigation: advertisements from LIS-targeted job boards (two library school job boards and two library association job boards) and Government of Canada internal job postings. These two sets of job postings were selected to compare the competencies in job postings targeted to LIS graduates (the LIS job board advertisements) and job postings that were not targeted to the LIS community (the Government of Canada job advertisements). An analysis of these groups of job advertisements demonstrated that both samples focused mainly on transferable competencies. Due to the emphasis on transferable competencies, the analysis of job postings from the Government of Canada job list revealed that there are many non-traditional opportunities for LIS graduates. A typical LIS professional could apply for 51 (or 25.8%) of the job advertisements in this set, having met all of the listed criteria. This individual may be able to apply for an additional 40 (or 21.2%) of the jobs listed if they had certain additional competencies or knowledge obtained through prior experience working in the Government of Canada but not necessarily obtained by the average LIS professional. This supports the argument that there are numerous opportunities for LIS professionals in non-traditional jobs

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Why is it important?

The exploration of commonly requested competencies can be used to guide LIS job seekers to craft their resumes and CVs to address the competencies requested by potential employers.