Job Satisfaction of Professional Librarians: a Comparative Study of Technical and Public Service Departments in Academic Libraries in Jordan.

Abstract

The main objectives of the study were to investigate job satisfaction of Jordanian professional academic librarians employed in technical and public service departments and to determine the applicability of Herzberg's two-factor theory of job satisfaction to academic library environments in Jordan. The following two main hypotheses were tested: (1) professional librarians in technical service departments in academic libraries in Jordan attain a higher level of satisfaction than do those of public service departments and (2) the motivator factors (satisfiers) are more likely to increase job satisfaction than they are to decrease it, and the hygiene factors (dissatisfiers) are more likely to contribute to job dissatisfaction than to job satisfaction. The population for the study consisted of all professional librarians employed in the two major library departments in Jordanian academic libraries. A questionnaire which included twenty-six job satisfaction dimensions was distributed to participants in eight university and twelve community college libraries in the East and West Bank of Jordan. One hundred and nine persons returned completed usable questionnaires; of those, seventy-four were technical service librarians and thirty-five were public service librarians. A one-way analysis of variance revealed statistically significant differences at the 0.01 level between participants on (1) sex and (2) marital status. There were no statistically significant differences (at the 0.05 level) between participants for (1) age, (2) education, (3) income, and (4) length of serice in the library. Results supported the first main hypothesis and revealed that technical service librarians were more satisfied with their work than were public service librarians. Statistically significant differences between the two occupational departments were found on: ability utilization, achievement, activity, authority, co-workers, creativity, independence, moral values, recognition, responsibility, social status, supervision-human, supervision-technical, variety, comfort, challenge, communications and career satisfaction. Technical service librarians scored significantly higher on those dimensions than did public service librarians. A multiple regression analysis was performed to test the second major hypothesis. The results of the study partially supported Herzberg's theory of job satisfaction and showed that both motivators and hygienes contributed to overall satisfaction of the two occupational groups of Jordanian librarians.