Alan M. Rees

A Job-Task Index for Evaluating Professional Utilization in Libraries

An index designed to measure the extent of a subjects involvement in twenty-seven library-related job tasks is reported, together with data obtained in a survey of 4,000 professional and nonprofessional library employees in 2,100 health sciences libraries. The Job-Task Index was developed to measure the professionalism of a subjects work involvement and served as the basic tool in a study of manpower utilization. The general conclusion to be drawn from this application of the index is that library personnel are often employed at job levels which are inconsistent with their professional status, chief-librarian status, income, and age. This condition tends to result in a loss of professional talent to the field and of professional status to librarianship.