University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

AN ANALYSIS OF THE RELATIONSHIP OF CERTAIN PERSONALITY FACTORS TO THE AMOUNT OF TIME ALLOTTED TO SPECIFIED PUBLIC SERVICE TASKS BY SELECTED SCHOOL LIBRARIANS.

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AN ANALYSIS OF THE RELATIONSHIP OF CERTAIN PERSONALITY FACTORS TO THE AMOUNT OF TIME ALLOTTED TO SPECIFIED PUBLIC SERVICE TASKS BY SELECTED SCHOOL LIBRARIANS.

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73-31,625
ADAMS, Elaine Parker, 1940-
AN ANALYSIS OF THE RELATIONSHIP OF CERTAIN
PERSONALITY FACTORS TO THE AMOUNT OF TIME
ALLOTTED TO SPECIFIED PUBLIC SERVICE TASKS
BY SELECTED SCHOOL LIBRARIANS.
University of Southern California, Ph.D.,
1973
Library Science
University Microfilms, A XEROX Company, Ann Arbor, Michigan
^ Copyright by
Elaine Parker Adams
1973
THIS DISSERTATION HAS BEEN MICROFILMED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
AN ANALYSIS OF THE RELATIONSHIP OF CERTAIN PERSONALITY
FACTORS TO THE AMOUNT OF TIME ALLOTTED TO SPECIFIED
PUBLIC SERVICE TASKS BY SELECTED SCHOOL LIBRARIANS
by
Elaine Parker Adams
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(Library Science)
September 1973
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UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
THE G RADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY P ARK
LO S ANGELES. CALIFORNIA 90007
This dissertation, written by
E ^ IN E J P ^ E R ADAMS
under the direction of h^J..... Dissertation Com
mittee, and approved by a ll its members, has
been presented to and accepted by The Graduate
School, in partial fulfillm ent of requirements of
the degree of
D O C T D R O F P H IL O S O P H Y
D ate_
DISSERTATION COMMITTEE
hairman
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter Page
I. INTRODUCTION..................................... 1
Statement of the Problem
Hypotheses
Assumptions
Definition of Terms
II. REVIEW OF PERTINENT LITERATURE................. 18
The Personality Make-up of Librarians
The Public Service Performance of
Librarians
Summary
III. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY.
Selection of the Research Sample
Selection of the Research Instruments
Data-gathering Procedures
Analysis of Data
Summary
IV. ANALYSIS OF DATA.
The Personality Tests
The School Librarian's Questionnaire
The School Principal's Questionnaire
The Public Service Observation Record
Summary
V. CORRELATION ANALYSIS............................... 112
The Personality Tests
The School Librarian's Questionnaire
The School Principal's Questionnaire
Summary
VI. SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS . . . 139
Summary of Research Findings
Conclusions
Recommendations for Future Res'^arch
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Chapter Page
APPENDIX A. LETTER OF INQUIRY TO SCHOOL DISTRICTS . . 161
APPENDIX B. PARTICIPATING SCHOOL DISTRICTS.........163
APPENDIX C. COVER LETTERS ............................ 165
APPENDIX D. PERSONALITY INVENTORIES . ................168
APPENDIX E. QUESTIONNAIRES.......................... 171
APPENDIX F. PUBLIC SERVICE OBSERVATION RECORD .... 174
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY......................................179
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L IS T OF TABLES
Table Page
1. District Size and Number of Research
Participants. ............................... 54
2. District per Pupil Expenditures.............. 56
3. District Library Book and Pupil Averages .... 57
4. Ranges and Medians of Librarians' Scores on
the Gordon Personal Inventory........... . 85
5. Librarians' Percentile Ranks on the Inventory. . 87
6. Percentile Ranks in Cautiousness for Various
Female Groups ................................. 88
7. Percentile Ranks in Original Thinking for
Various Female Groups ........................ 89
8. Percentile Ranks in Personal Relations for
Various Female Groups . . . ................. 90
9. Percentile Ranks in Vigor for Various Female
Groups.........................................92
10. Ranges and Medians of Librarians' Scores on
the Gordon Personal Profile .................. 93
11. Librarians' Percentile Ranks on the Profile. . . 94
12. Percentile Ranks in Ascendancy for Various
Female Groups ..... ...................... 95
13. Percentile Ranks in Responsibility for
Various Female Groups ............. ..... 96
14. Percentile Ranks in Emotional Stability for
Various Female Groups ........................ 97
15. Percentile Ranks in Sociability for Various
Female Groups ................................. 98
16. Comparison of School Librarians by Age Range . . 99
17. Comparison of School Librarians by Duration
of Assignment
103
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Table Page
18. Means and Standard Deviations of Time Allot
ments to Public Services....................... 10 8
19. Comparison of Average Percentages of Time
Devoted to Public Services..................... 109
20. Relationships between Inventory Factors and
Public Service Activities .................... 114
21. Relationships between Profile Factors and
Public Service Activities .................... 118
22. Relationships between Age and Public Service
Activities. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
23. Relationships between Course Recency and
Public Service Activities .................... 120
24. Relationships between Years of Experience and
Public Service Activities .................... 121
25. Relationships between Duration of Present
Assignment and Public Service Activities. . . 122
26. Relationships between Type of School and
Public Service Activities .................... 128
27. Relationships between Enrollment and Public
Service Activities............... 129
28. Relationships between Professional Staff Size
and Public Service Activities ............... 130
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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
Milton Mandell, assigned as a management expert with
the United States Civil Service Commission, stated in the
introduction to his book, The Selection Process; Choosing
the Right Man for the Job, that "selection is big busi
ness. Mandell pointed out that employers in the United
States hire 750,000 new employees every month - — 9,000,000
a year.^ According to 1971 statistics, it would seem that
library employers played an active role in this selection
industry. A survey conducted by Carlyle Frarey and Carol
Learmont, faculty members at the time at the Columbia
University School of Library Service, revealed that 33
library schools accredited by the American Library Associa
tion reported 22,463 job vacancies listed with them.^
Mandell cautioned that employers should exercise
careful scrutiny in their selection activities. He based
Milton M. Mandell, The Selection Process; Choosing
the Right Man for the Job (New York; American Management
Association, Inc., 1964), p. 11.
"Placement
and Salaries, 1971; A Modest Employment Slowdown," Library
Journal, XCVII (June 15, 1972), p. 2156.
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his warning on the increasing cos-s of finding, screening,
testing, and placing new employees; the waste created by
erroneous hiring; and the turmoil produced by continuous
employee turnover.^ Guy R. Lyle, who served as Director of
Libraries at Emory University, considered staff selection
to be the most important administrative duty of the chief
librarian. He remarked that, "Time spent in organization,
acquisition, cataloging, or reference service will be only
partially effective unless the staff is well educated and
competent."^
During the period in which Lyle wrote his comments
on staff selection, jobs in librarianship were plentiful
and library school graduates were not available in suffi
cient numbers to meet the demand. "At the moment, staff
selection is more a matter of getting than choosing," Lyle
noted.^ Today, library employers have an additional incen
tive for exercising judicious selection procedures in hiring
personnel, because of the current job shortage in the
library field and the resultant surplus of available
workers. Frarey and Learmont disclosed that library
schools responding to their survey awarded 101 more degrees
^Guy R. Lyle, The Administration of the College
Library (3rd ed.; New York: H. W. Wilson Company, 1961),
p. 189.
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in 1971 than in 1970, but cited a decline of 8,137 listed
positions from 1970 to 1971.^
Leigh Estabrook, a library science instructor at
Simmons College, expressed the current outlook in library
employee selection practices :
. . . the present state of the job market may serve
to improve the quality of library service. Employers
are now able to ask for more specialized skills, to
interview prospective employees, to choose among
them in terms of qualities they deem important for
effective job performance.2
Although Mandell emphasized that there was no uni
versal selection method and that organizational need should
determine selection practices, he mentioned eleven primary
sources of information useful in selecting, placing, or
promoting personnel. They were:
1. The application blank.
2. The interview.
3. Tests: general intelligence, knowledge, aptitude,
performance, interests, personality.
4. Reference checking.
5. Physical examination.
6. Follow-up before completion of conditional employ
ment period.
7. Appraisal during training.
8. Evaluation during temporary or part-time
employment.
^Frarey and Learmont, "Placement and Salaries,
1971," pp. 2155-56.
^Leigh Estabrook, "Job Seekers in the Buyer's Mar
ket," Library Journal, XCVIII (February 1, 1973), p. 386.
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9. Special work assignments.
10. Credit and police record checks.
11. Appraisal of job performance and potential.
Authorities in librarianship have encouraged the use
of several of these selection devices in choosing profes
sional personnel. E. W. McDiarmid, University Librarian
at the University of Minnesota in 1946, recommended;
(1) careful evaluation of credentials, (2) tests, and
(3) personal interviews.^ Almost two decades later, Joseph
Wheeler, a library consultant, and Herbert Goldhor, a pro
fessor in the University of Illinois Graduate School of
Library Science, suggested: (1) the paper record, including
the application blank, letters of reference, and a tran
script of school and college grades, (2) an interview,
(3) the results of tests given by the library, and (4) a
probationary period.^ Five years later, Elizabeth Stone,
a library science professor at the Catholic University of
America at the time, reaffirmed support of the four "well
established bases for the final choice of a candidate":
Mandell, Selection Process, p. 21.
^E. W. McDiarmid, "A University Library Personnel
Program," in Personnel Administration in Libraries, ed. by
Lowell Martin (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1946),
p. 75.
Administration of Public Libraries (New York: Harper & Row,
Publishers, 1962), p. 224.
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(1) the paper record, (2) the interview, (3) testing, and
(4) a probationary period.^
Library employers have varied in their approaches to
hiring. In 1942, Goldhor conducted a study comparing hiring
practices of civil service libraries with those of non-civil
service libraries. From his sample of six public libraries,
he determined that the civil service librarians fared some
what better than the non-civil service librarians on a list
of twenty "basic principles of employee selection." The
employment policies of libraries under civil service were
rated superior in the following categories to those of
libraries not operating under civil service; (1) the posi
tion classification plan, (2) the public announcement of
vacancies, (3) the examination of knowledge, (4) the evalua
tion of personality, (5) the medical examination, (6) the pro
bationary period, and (7) the eligibility list.^
More recently, Bruce Thomas, Librarian of Antioch
College, investigated selection procedures in seventy small
to medium sized academic libraries. Thomas concentrated on
Elizabeth Stone, Training for the Improvement of
Library Administration, University of Illinois, Graduate
School of Library Science, Monograph Series, No. 2 (Urbana:
University of Illinois, Graduate School of Library Science,
1967) , p. 44.
^Herbert Goldhor, "The Selection of Employees in
Large Civil Service and Non-Civil Service Public Libraries"
(unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago,
1942), p. 147.
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the utilization of six selection devices by these libraries:
(1) application blanks, (2) interviews, (3) tests, (4) ref
erence inquiries and performance records, (5) medical
examinations, and (6) job and situation descriptions.
Thomas found that the majority of the libraries did not use
application blanks, tests, or medical examinations. Approx
imately half of the libraries provided job descriptions.
Most relied on interviews, reference inquiries and perfor
mance records for securing desirable candidates.^
Estabrook's current survey of library job markets
was based on a questionnaire mailed to a number of large
public and academic libraries. Returns obtained from 144
libraries indicated the following sources of data were
deemed most important in evaluating a candidate for a
library position: (1) a personal interview, (2) appearance
(dress, grooming), (3) suggestions from professional col
leagues, (4) written recommendations, (5) grades achieved
in library school, (6) previous work experiences, and
(7) advanced study or degree in a field other than library
Staff in a Group of College Libraries" (unpublished Ph.D.
dissertation, Ohio State University, 1970), pp. 144-48.
Estabrook, "Job Seekers in the Buyer's Market,"
p. 387.
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Although authorities in librarianship, such as
Kathleen Stebbins who wrote a basic text in the field of
library personnel administration, took notice of the fact
that personality testing of employees in industry had been
increasing,^ the personality test was notably absent from
the tools used by most library employers to choose candi
dates for professional positions. It was not that person
ality was overlooked as a quality affecting the suitability
of a job seeker for an assignment. On the contrary,
decades ago, Clara Herbert, who was Librarian of the
Washington, D.C. Public Library, declared, "The most impor
tant qualification is that of character.Herbert
endorsed the following traits : "refinement, a certain spiri
tual outlook, sincerity, responsiveness, and a generous
attitude toward the work and co-workers, along with vigor
and genuine enthusiasm.
The librarians in the Thomas study were asked to
indicate their reasons for failing to utilize tests (includ
ing personality tests) in their selection efforts. The
excuses that they checked were in the following order of
selection;
Libraries (2nd ed.; New York: Scarecrow Press, 1966), p. 38.
^Clara W. Herbert, Personnel Administration in
Public Libraries (Chicago: American Library Association,
1939), p. 52.
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1. People who have achieved professional status
should not be required to take tests in the area
of their competence.
2. Am not aware of any appropriate tests.
3. Tests can't predict success on the job.
4. Tests are rigid, cold, impersonal.
5. Candidates would resent being asked to take tests.
6. Testing is too costly when properly devised and
administered.^
Determination of personality qualifications by means
of the face to face contact encountered in the interview
seemed to have prevailed in the hiring offices of libraries.
During the forties, Goldhor reported that both civil service
and non-civil service libraries relied on this method.^
Lyle wrote in the early sixties that:
The chief value of the interview is the opportunity
it affords to make some assessment of the candidate's
personality. The academic and professional qualifi
cations are primary, but it is also desirable that
the prospective employee have a stimulating and
agreeable personality and be able to fit in with the
library staff. This quality can best be gauged in
an interview which, if properly handled, also
affords the prospective staff member an opportunity
to size up the new library situation and its staff.
Recently, Estabrook reaffirmed that in the personal inter
view libraries were
and "personality."^
view libraries were most interested in assessing "attitude"
„4
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Goldhor pointed out the weakness of reliance on the
interview for evaluating the personality of a job applicant.
Such a method was highly subjective, he felt, and the per
sonal likes and dislikes of the interviewer often influ
enced the acceptability of an applicant's personality
traits.^ Although Goldhor did not condone abandonment of
the personal interview as an aid in personnel selection, he
supported exploring the validity of paper and pencil per
sonality tests as screening devices in the library field.^
The research project presented on these pages sought
to determine if, in fact, a personality test could be a
serviceable instrument in choosing the appropriate indi
vidual for a library position. The cautions of Laurence
Siegel, a professor of psychology at Louisiana State Univer
sity, were borne in mind. Siegel warned that psychological
tests were fallible; that they provided only one source of
personnel data (additional information could be assembled
from interviews, application blanks, references, previous
job histories, and similar sources); and that personnel
decisions were not irrevocable.^
Prior efforts in industry provided some assistance
in developing a model for executing this research endeavor.
"Selectio
p. 102-3.
Homewood, 111.: Richard D. Irwin, Inc., 1969), p. 128.
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10
0. A. Ohmann, who was attached to the Employee Relations
Department, Standard Oil Company, made the following sug
gestions for research in the field of executive selection
that were incorporated into this study:
1. We should do well to start with job studies rather
than studies of executives.
2. Instead of trying to predict the total conglomerate
of executive behavior, would it not be more pro
ductive to narrow our focus to the prediction of
some of the specific components of the over-all
executive function?
3. In terms of the practical needs in industry,
definitive research on the selection of foremen or
first-line supervisors should be given priority
over studies of higher-level executives.^
Following Ohmann's advice, research was based on
the job analysis conducted as part of the School Library
Manpower Project; the focus was on public service behavior,
rather than the entire range of library activities; and the
sample studied was limited to school librarians, a segment
of the librarian population that functioned primarily as
first-line supervisors in their positions.
Dale S. Beach, a professor in Rensselaer Polytechnic
Institute's School of Management, had several recommenda
tions for creating a testing program:
tion Research," in Research Needs in Executive Selection,
ed, by Renato Tagiuri (Boston: Harvard University, Graduate
School of Business Administration, Division of Research,
1961), pp. 10-13.
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1. Decide objectives of testing program.
2. Analyze jobs to identify those characteristics
that appear necessary for job success.
3. Make a tentative choice of tests for a tryout.
4. Administer these tests to an experimental group
of people.
5. Establish criteria of job success.
6. Analyze results and make decisions regarding
test application.!
Beach's methodology was incorporated into the
research being reported in a number of ways. The objec
tives of the testing program were to explore the potential
of the personality inventory as a device for selecting
school library personnel on the basis of their compatibil
ity with the assignments to be filled, specifically their
public service tasks. The School Library Task Analysis
Survey listed duties of school librarians in instruction,
special services, and circulation, the elements composing
public services. The Gordon Personal Inventory and the
Gordon Personal Profile, two concise and well-known commer
cial personality inventories were selected for the testing
instruments. They were administered to an experimental
group made up of twenty-four secondary school librarians.
Quantity of output in terms of public services was
established as the criterion of job success. It should be
mentioned that Beach listed several commonly used criteria
as possibilities in addition to quantity of output. They
^Dale S. Beach, Personnel; the Management of People
at Work (2nd ed.; New York: Macmillan Company, 1970),
p. 257.
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were: (1) quality of output, (2) grades in training
courses, (3) accident frequency, (4) attendance, (5) rate
of promotion in the organization, (6) professional achieve
ments, and (7) performance ratings made by supervisors.^
Quantity of output appeared to be a feasible criterion for
use with school librarians. The finale of the research
program was the application of statistical measurements to
the personality-public service data gained from the librari
ans, the analysis of the results, and the judgment of the
suitability of the testing instruments for screening candi
dates for school library positions.
Statement of the Problem
Was the amount of time allotted to public services
by a selected group of secondary school librarians signifi
cantly related to the ratings earned by the librarians on
two standardized personality inventories?
Hypotheses
The major research hypothesis proposed that the
ratings obtained by the selected secondary school librarians
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13
in factors measured by the Gordon Personal Inventory and
the Gordon Personal Profile were significantly related to
the amount of time the librarians devoted to instruction,
special services, circulation, and the combined total of
these public services. Personality ratings constituted the
independent variables, while public service schedules com
posed the dependent variables.
There was speculation that elements other than per
sonality, such as the librarians' backgrounds or work envi
ronments, might be linked to their time investment in
public services. Two subordinate hypotheses were developed.
The first was that the personal, educational, and experi
ential backgrounds of the librarians, as revealed in their
responses to the School Librarian's Questionnaire, were
associated with the public service schedules of the librar
ians. The personal factor was age; the educational factors
included number of college degrees, sources of college
degrees, amount of library science course work, and course
recency; the experiential elements consisted of length of
time in the library field and duration of current library
assignment.
The second hypothesis asserted that the school envi
ronment described by the administrators in the School Prin
cipal ' s Questionnaire was connected to the pattern of library
services offered by the librarians. School environment
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14
was examined from the angle of school type, size of student
body, and staff size.
The focal point of the research was the personality-
public service relationship. Knowledge of the effects pro
duced by elements of the librarians' backgrounds or work
environments would assist future research in this relation
ship. Research samples in subsequent projects could be
refined on the basis of this information.
Assumptions
For the purposes of this study, several assumptions
were made. First of all, although the selected secondary
school librarians were not a random sample, it was assumed
that knowledge derived from analyzing and correlating their
responses to the questionnaires and their observed behavior
patterns would contribute some useful insight into the
characteristics of secondary school librarians and their
professional assignments.
Another supposition was that the selected librarians
would respond truthfully to the Gordon Personal Inventory,
the Gordon Personal Profile, and the School Librarian's
Questionnaire. Additionally, it was anticipated that the
administrators under whom the librarians served would be
cooperative and precise in answering questions on the
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15
School Principal's Questionnaire. Finally, it was presumed
that observation of the amount of time the librarians
invested in public service activities over a period of time
would produce objective gauges of their commitment to their
public service roles.
Definition of Terms
In this research project, the terms "certain per
sonality factors," "specified public service activities,"
and "selected school librarians" were defined as follows:
The "certain personality factors" consisted of
cautiousness, original thinking, personal relations, vigor,
ascendancy, responsibility, emotional stability, and
sociability. The Gordon Personality Inventory, devised by
Leonard V. Gordon, who was affiliated at the time with the
United States Army Personnel Research Office, provided the
scores in cautiousness, original thinking, personal rela-
author yielded the scores in ascendancy, responsibility.
^Leonard V. Gordon, Gordon Personal Inventory Manual
(Rev. ed.; New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1963),
p. 3.
^Leonard V. Gordon, Gordon Personal Profile Manual
(Rev. ed.; New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1963),
p. 3.
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16
discusses why the Inventory and Profile factors merited
study and the meanings attached to each test trait by
Gordon, the test developer.
The "specified public service activities" included
tasks in three categories of the School Library Personnel
Task Analysis Survey, a research study sponsored by the
School Library Manpower Project in order to identify the
work assignments of school library employees. The cate
gories were instruction, special services to faculty and
students, and circulation. The specified tasks constituted
forty-five activities performed in the three categories by
50 per cent or more of the heads of secondary school
library media centers participating in the survey.^ The
individual duties are presented in Appendix F along with the
Public Service Observation Record.
The "selected school librarians" consisted of twenty-
four librarians from nine school districts in three
Southern California counties. Each of the librarians
possessed a master's degree in library science from a
library school accredited either by the American Library
Association or the California State Department of Educa
tion. The librarians worked with students at either the
Special Report, School Library Personnel Task Analysis
Survey (Chicago: American Library Association, 1969),
pp. 31, 39-41, 61.
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17
junior high school level (grades seven through nine), the
high school level (grades nine through twelve), or the
senior high school level (grades ten through twelve). They
worked as the sole professional librarian at their respec
tive schools, but were assisted by a single full-time
clerical helper at each of the schools. Chapter III
describes in detail the rationale underlying the selection
of the sample population.
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CHAPTER II
REVIEW OF PERTINENT LITERATURE
Numerous bibliographical sources were searched for
leads to research projects linking personality characteris
tics of librarians to their on-the-job performance of public
services. It became apparent that the field of library
science had little research in this area. Personality
studies in librarianship generally focused on defining the
basic traits of librarians and of sub-groups of library per
sonnel. The public service performance research concen
trated on identifying the librarians' task assignments in
the public service category, estimating the amount of time
these professionals allotted to these tasks, and determining
how library education related to the performance of public
service activities- Still, it was felt that a review of
the personality tendencies of librarians, along with an
examination of their service performances, would aid the
development of conclusions and recommendations for this
research project.
The Personality Make-up of Librarians
Librarians as a Group
Robert Douglass, then Director of the University of
Texas Graduate School of Library Science, completed a
18
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19
classic examination of the personality composition of librar
ians in 1957. He hoped to determine the extent to which the
library profession "selects" members with particular person
ality traits. Douglass enlisted the aid of 525 men and
women enrolled in various library schools in 1947-1948, and
20 men enrolled in the University of Texas library school
during 1955-1957. The subjects completed several person
ality tests, including the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality
Inventory and the AlIport-Vernon Study of Values.^
Scores on the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality
Inventory revealed that the male library school students
differed significantly from the male normative population
in several factors. The future librarians scored signifi
cantly higher in femininity, which suggested that the male
librarian might be more emotionally sensitive than the
average male. The male library school students earned
lower scores than the normative group on the psychopathic
deviate scale, the psychasthenia scale, the schizophrenia
scale, and the hypomania scale. These scores indicated
that the library sample tended to be more conventional,
easygoing, stable, and apathetic than was the male norm.
The female library school students contrasted significantly
with the female normative population in the hysteria.
^Robert Raymond Douglass, "The Personality of the
Librarian" (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. University of
Chicago, 1957), pp. 30, 35.
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20
masculinity-femininity, and hypomania categories. The
potential librarians scored lower, hinting that they were
more antisocial, submissive, and apathetic than were the
females setting the normative pattern. When compared to
each other, the male and female potential librarians dif
fered in two characteristics. The males described them
selves as more pessimistic and self-centered.^
From the ratings on the Allport-Vernon Study of Values
it was learned that theoretical and aesthetic values, along
with social values, played a greater role in the lives of
male library school students than in the lives of the male
normative group. Economic and political values were signi
ficantly less important to the male samples of future
librarians. The female library school students were moti
vated by religious values and social values to a greater
extent than were the members of the female normative popu
lation. Female potential librarians expressed significantly
less interest in economic and political concerns. A com
parison of the male and female library groups showed that
the males demonstrated significantly more interest in the
theoretical and less concern for the religious.^
Like Douglass, Anne McMahon, assigned as State
Librarian of Tasmania in Charge of Bookmobile Service and
Bibliographic Centre, utilized the Minnesota Multiphasic
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21
Personality Inventory. Additionally, she employed the
Allport-Vernon-Lindzey Study of Values. A major focus of
the McMahon research was the personality characteristics
of Tasmanian librarians and the prevailing values of these
librarians. Thirty Tasmanian librarians from various areas
of librarianship cooperated with the research activity
during 1965.^
The most notably significant scores on the Minnesota
Multiphasic Personality Inventory belonged to the male
librarians. Their ratings in femininity revealed that they
were more emotionally sensitive than were the members of
the male normative group. Scores in depression and
hysteria suggested that male librarians tended to be haunted
by self-doubt. Their earnings on the schizophrenia scale
showed them to be prone to worry. The female librarians
merited significant scores in the depression, hysteria,
masculinity-femininity, and social introversion factors.
They described themselves as somewhat self-doubting, and
inclined to be submissive and withdrawn.^ In comparing her
results with those obtained by Douglass, McMahon noted that
Anne McMahon, The Personality of the Librarian;
Prevalent Social Values and Attitudes Towards the Profes
sion, Libraries Board of South Australia, Occasional Papers
in Librarianship, No. 5 (Adelaide: Libraries Board of South
Australia, 1967), p. iii.
^Ibid., pp. 70-79.
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achievements on the femininity scale by both male and female
librarians reiterated Douglass' research findings.^
On the Allport-Vernon-Lindzey Study of Values^
McMahon's male subjects received scores on the aesthetic
scale that were higher than those of the normative popula
tion, and scores on the economic scale that were lower than
the norm.^ McMahon pointed out that this placement of
values supported some of the relationships uncovered in the
pattern of values similar to that established by the female
normative group.
During the 1965-1966 academic year, Patricia Ann
Reeling, who was at the time a library science professor at
Rutgers University, also investigated the values orientation
of females attracted to the library profession. She used
the Allport-Vernon-Lindzey Study of Values to test whether
or not female undergraduates expressing a favorable attitude
towards a library career differed in their values from
female undergraduates opposed to a vocation in librarian
ship. All full-time students at Our Lady of Cincinnati
College, with the exception of nuns and nursing students.
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were invited to join the research effort.^ Ultimately, two
sharply contrasting groups developed, with 73 students
favoring library careers and 317 students definitely reject
ing a vocation in librarianship.^
Reeling discovered that the potential recruits to
librarianship were motivated to a significantly higher
degree by aesthetic values than were the undergraduate women
rejecting library science. The letters' scores in economic
and political values surpassed the scores obtained by the
potential librarians.^ Reeling's data affirmed Douglass'
contention that, compared to other females, the librarians
were influenced by economic and political motivations to a
lesser degree.^
Reeling administered the Edwards Personal Preference
Schedule to these same two undergraduate groups. She hoped
to learn whether or not the personality traits of the poten
tial recruits to librarianship differed from those of non
recruits. Three distinctions of significance arose. The
potential librarians received higher scores in the trait
denoting order, and lower scores in the factors representing
Patricia Ann Reeling, "Undergraduate Female Students
as Potential Recruits to the Library Profession" (unpublished
D.L.S. dissertation, Columbia University, 1969), pp. 31-39.
^Ibid., pp. 51-52.
^Ibid., p. 101.
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24
autonomy and heterosexuality. Compared with the other mem
bers of the female undergraduate population, the women
desiring library careers were neater and better organized,
but less independent of external influence and less con
cerned with the opposite sex.^
Using the Edwards Personal Preference Schedule, Nancy
Rainwater, while a student in the master's degree program at
the University of Texas Graduate School of Library Science,
compared 94 fellow students enrolled during 1957-196 0 with
1,509 college men and women who set the norms. Rainwater
also contrasted the test scores of forty library school
students who had completed requirements for the professional
degree with the scores of thirty-five students who either
failed to complete degree requirements, or were unlikely to
Rainwater learned that library school students, as a
whole, scored significantly higher than other college men
and women in achievement, deference, order, and endurance.
The library school students obtained significantly lower
scores than the normative group in exhibition, affiliation,
dominance, heterosexuality, and aggression. Male library
tial Recruits," pp. 99-101.
Traits of Ninety-Four Library School Students as Shown by
the Edwards Personal Preference Schedule" (unpublished
M.L.S. thesis. University of Texas, 1962), pp. 5-6.
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25
school students, as compared with college men, tested higher
on achievement, deference, order, and endurance. They made
significantly lower showings in exhibition, heterosexuality,
and aggression. The female library school students also
excelled in deference, order, and endurance. They fell
significantly below the normative group in factors such as
exhibition, affiliation, dominance, and aggression.^ The
inclination of female librarians to be more orderly than
the average college woman was consistent with Reeling's
research outcome.^
Although the graduated and non-graduated women from
the library school sample demonstrated no outstanding per
sonality differences, the males from the library school
group that graduated contrasted significantly with males
who were not graduated. The graduates made higher showings
in affiliation, abasement, change, nurturance, and endurance.
Their non-graduated counterparts surpassed them in exhibi
tion, succorance, heterosexuality, achievement, and aggres
sion. As Rainwater pointed out, the males who were
eliminated from librarianship possessed some characteristics
tial Recruits," p. 99.
^Rainwater, "Per
Library School Students," p. 23.
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26
In a similar vein, Gordon Stuart Baillie, who
directed the University of Denver School of Librarianship,
utilized the California Psychological Inventory to determine
the value of a personality test as one predictor of success
in library school and on-the-job. Baillie's sample popula
tion was composed of 65 librarians who had graduated from
the School of Librarianship at the University of Denver
between 1954 and 1958. These graduates all had been
employed in their positions for two or more years.^
From his research conducted during the 1958-1959
school year, Baillie deduced that librarians who achieved
success in library school rated high in intellectual effi
ciency and psychological-mindedness. They might be
described as intelligent and perceptive individuals. The
librarians who were rated as successful employees measured
at high levels in dominance and self-acceptance, while
receiving low scores in tolerance. The successful career
librarians considered themselves to be aggressive, self-
assured, and suspicious.^
Alice McKinley, as a student in the master's degree
program of Western Reserve University's School of Library
tive Admission Variables as They Relate to Academic and Job
Success in One Graduate Library Education Program" (unpub
lished Ed.D. dissertation, Washington University, 1961),
pp. 17-19.
^Ibid., pp. 124-26.
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27
Science, endeavored in 1953 to extend to the field of
librarianship work done by Marvin Weinstein in the area of
personality and vocational choice. Weinstein's dissertation
research had attempted to demonstrate that the personali
ties of lawyers, social workers, and engineers tended to
exert influence on each group's choice of vocation.
McKinley was curious as to whether or not librarians shared
personality characteristics leading them to library
careers.^
Instead of standardized tests, the McKinley research
project, like Weinstein's effort, utilized the Q-sort
technique to determine whether the research subjects fit
oral aggressive, oral receptive, anal retentive, or anal
expulsive categories. The oral aggressive trait implied
verbosity and competitiveness; the oral receptive trait
suggested sympathy and willingness to listen to others; the
anal retentive characteristic hinted at miserliness and
thoroughness; while the anal expulsive factor revealed
tendencies to attack.^ Twenty library school students from
Western Reserve University each divided a set of statements
on cards into piles indicating statements most applicable
to themselves, statements least appropriate to themselves.
of Librarianship as a Vocation" (unpublished Master's pro
ject, Western Reserve University, 1953), pp. 1-2.
^Ibid., p. 6.
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28
and statements considered unsuitable for these two cate
gories. The results showed that the library school students
formed a relatively homogeneous group whose only significant
score on the oral and anal traits was a negative rating in
oral aggressiveness.^ The library school students tended
not to be competitive, verbose individuals.
Sub-Groups of Librarians
Public Librarians
In 1946, the American Library Association urged the
Social Science Research Council to conduct an investigation
of public libraries and public librarians. The Carnegie
Corporation funded the project which came to be known as
the Public Library Inquiry, and Alice I. Bryan, then a pro
fessor of library science at Columbia University, conducted
the personnel study.^ Bryan's survey of the personality
characteristics of public librarians involved 1,808 public
librarians who responded to the Guilford-Martin Inventory
of Factors GAMIN. This particular test measured; (1) gen
eral activity, (2) ascendancy, (3) masculinity-femininity,
^Ibid., pp. 27-2 8.
^Alice I. Bryan, The Public Librarian; a Report of
the Public Library Inquiry (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1952), pp. v-vii.
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(4) lack of inferiority feelings, and (5) lack of nervous
tension.^
Compared with university students as a whole, male
and female librarians expressed below-average need for
physical activity, below-average leadership, and below-
average self-confidence. Both male and female librarians
scored in the middle range on the masculinity-femininity
factor. This was interpreted as a sign of compatibility
between the two groupsc While female librarians did not
differ from the college students in degree of nervous ten
sion, the male librarians merited higher ratings that
implied that they were more relaxed.^
Sara H. Wheeler, who was a professor of librarian
ship at the University of Michigan, departed from the
customary utilization of non-projective tests in research
on the personality make-up of librarians. As part of the
Pacific Northwest Library Association Development Project,
she adapted the Thematic Apperception Test, an unstructured,
projective instrument, to explore the emotional reactions
of children's librarians working in the public library
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dren's librarians performing reference activities and story
telling activities were offered to the twenty-nine members
of the sample population for comment. Wheeler felt that
little new information was obtained through the use of the
pictures; most children's librarians appreciated the oppor
tunity to offer reference services and to encourage reading
through book talks and story hours. There was some hint,
however, that a few children's librarians did not care for
the storytelling aspect of their work, and Wheeler recom
mended that further research be executed to determine
whether or not this distaste was due to reluctance to speak
before groups, lack of preparation time, or some other
cause.^ If shyness were discovered to be the reason, this
might be linked to Bryan's findings of below-average leader-
Academic Librarians
By means of Edwin B. Ghiselli's Self-Description
Inventory, Perry D. Morrison, at that time the social
Sara H. Wheeler, "Children's Librarians in the
Northwest," in Libraries and Librarians of the Pacific
Northwest, ed. by Morton Kroll (Seattle: University of
Washington Press, 1960), p. 143.
^Ibid., p. 166.
^Bryan, Public Librarian, pp. 41-42.
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31
sciences division chief at the University of Oregon Library,
compiled psychological data on academic librarians. The
Gh'iselli test purported to measure intelligence, supervisory
qualities, initiative, self-assurance, occupational level,
and decision-making power.^ The 707 academic librarians
participating in Morrison's research during 1958 were
divided into three sub-groups: (1) major executives,
(2) minor executives, and (3) non-executives.^
No significant difference in intelligence or super
visory qualities was discerned among the three sub-groups
of librarians. However, on the scale for intelligence, the
librarians rated significantly higher than the general
populace. This was not considered unusual since librarians
belonged to a profession requiring advanced education.
Unfortunately, the librarians' scores on the supervisory
scale indicated that they lacked attributes common to suc
cessful supervisors in comparable occupations. Although as
a group the librarians did not distinguish themselves in
initiative quality from the general public, the higher the
administrative position held by the librarians, the greater
Librarian; a Study of the Social Origins, Educational
Attainments, Vocational Experience, and Personality Charac
teristics of a Group of American Academic Librarians"
(unpublished D.L.S. dissertation. University of California,
Berkeley, 1961), pp. 272-76.
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32
was their initiative quality. This correlation between
library position and scores was discovered to be true also
in the self-assurance and occupational level factors.
However, in self-assurance the librarians surpassed the
general public, and in occupational level they scored simi
larly to others in middle management positions. No norma
tive data were available for comparing the decision-making
trait; however, academic librarians earned their lowest
scores in this category.^
Morrison's comparison of academic librarians by sex
evoked considerable interest. The female librarians in the
major executive category responded to the inventory on a
par with male members of that group. However, female
librarians in the minor executive and non-executive samples
made significantly better showings in self-assurance and in
decision-making than did their male counterparts. Morrison
noted that limitations in employment opportunities confined
many women with leadership ability to lower ranking posi
tions in the library profession.^
Howard Clayton, who taught library science at the
University of Oklahoma, felt that the personality make-up
of the academic librarians might account for the "inferior
^Ibid. , p. 280.
^Ibid., pp. 291-93.
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status of academic librarianship in American higher educa
tion."^ To test his theory, Clayton administered the
California Psychological Inventory to 150 potential academic
librarians enrolled in a 1967 summer session at the Univer
sity of Oklahoma.
Males choosing careers in academic librarianship
obtained means less than the composite profile on seventeen
of the California Psychological Inventory's eighteen scales.
The females planning to become academic librarians received
lower means on twelve of the eighteen scales.^ The most
outstanding scores achieved by the library sample, espe
cially the males, occurred in the femininity characteristic,
a trait unrelated to sexual performance. The potential
academic librarians' femininity scores hinted that they
possessed conserving, maintaining, and restoring natures,
and were disinclined towards initiative, decision-making,
and assertiveness.^ Clayton was convinced that if academic
librarians were to become leaders in the academic arena, the
librarians, particularly the males, would have to possess
Howard Clayton, An Investigation of Personality
Characteristics Among Library Students at One Midwestern
University, ERIC Document 024-422 (Brockport, N.Y.; State
University of New York, 1968), pp. 1-3.
among Male Library Students at One Midwestern University,"
College and Research Libraries, XXXI (November, 1970),
p. 392.
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more aggressiveness and less nurturance than the students
participating in his research project.^
Comparison of Public and Academic Librarians
The personality attributes of public and academic
librarians were compared in a 1967 research project con
ducted by Laurent-Germain Denis, who directed the Ecole de
Bibliothéconomie, University of Montreal. Canadian
library school graduates cooperated in the attempt to iden
tify factors, including personality, that might influence
the choice of public or academic library careers. For his
personality study, Denis obtained responses to the Edwards
Personal Preference Schedule and the Allport-Vernon-Lindzey
Study of Values from 237 public librarians and 411 academic
librarians.^
The male public librarians outperformed the male
academic librarians on the Edwards Personal Preference
Schedule scales for change and heterosexuality. The female
public librarians excelled in deference and exhibition over
their academic librarian counterparts, while the latter
Laurent-Germain Denis, "Academic and Public Librari
ans in Canada; a Study of the Factors Which Influence
Graduates of Canadian Library Schools in Making Their First
Career Decision in Favor of Academic or Public Libraries"
(unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Rutgers University, 1969),
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group scored significantly higher in achievement, autonomy,
and succorance.^ Distinctions also existed in the values
systems of the public and academic librarians. Male public
librarians rated themselves significantly higher in
aesthetic values than did the male academic librarians,
while the latter group held more esteem for religious
values. The female academic librarians valued theoretical
School Librarians
Clifford Fortin, who was a professor of library
science at Wisconsin State University, produced one of the
few personality projects involving school librarians. A
portion of Fortin's dissertation investigating personal and
environmental characteristics of school librarians explored
the values profile of school librarians. During the 1965-
1966 school year, the Allport-Vernon-Lindzey Study of Values
again was utilized as the measuring device. The rosters of
the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction for the
1965-1966 school year provided 783 volunteers, predomi-
Personal and Environmental Characteristics of School
Librarians to Their Life Values and Work Satisfactions"
(unoublished Ph.D. dissertation. University of Minnesota,
197b), pp. 5-8.
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36
The school librarians rated the six values measured
by the Allport-Vernon-Lindzey test in the following order:
(1) religious, (2) aesthetic, (3) social, (4) economic,
(5) political, and (6) theoretical.^ Compared to Denis'
academic and public librarians, the school librarians placed
religious values much higher in their scheme of values, and
theoretical values considerably lower.^
The Public Service Performance of Librarians
Librarians as A Group
As an expression of his concern for improved voca
tional guidance, Fred Adair, while serving as Assistant
Registrar at Duke University, devised a scale aimed at
measuring the service orientation of librarians. He
examined both personality and public service attributes of
librarians for this purpose. Adair's work during 1966
involved 282 employed librarians assigned to either a judg
ment group or a criterion group, and 133 library school
students placed in a validating group. The members of the
judgment group responded twice to Harrison Gough's
Canada," pp. 105, 139.
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37
Adjective Check List. They described service-oriented
librarians on the first trial and non-service-oriented
librarians on the second try. Based on the dichotomy, the
members of the judgment group chose co-workers to form a
criterion group whose members utilized both the Adjective
Check List and Gough's California Psychological Inventory
to describe themselves. Library school students, as vali
dators, also completed edited versions of the two tests.^
Within the criterion group, twenty-three adjectives
on the Adjective Check List distinguished between service-
oriented librarians and non-service-oriented librarians at
the 10 per cent level of significance or better. However,
the Librarian's Version of the Adjective Checklist (LI-ACL),
based on these twenty-three adjectives, failed to discrimi
nate between the service-oriented and non-service-oriented
library school students serving as validators. Seventy-two
items on the California Psychological Inventory succeeded
in screening service-oriented librarians in the criterion
classification from non-service-oriented librarians in that
category. In this case, the Librarian's Version of the
California Psychological Inventory (LI-CPI) managed to
distinguish between service-oriented and non-service-
Measure the Service Orientation of Librarians: Preliminary
Investigations" (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. University
of North Carolina, 1967), pp. 4-6.
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oriented validators. According to Adair, the LI-CPI, with
further improvement, might be an aid in determining a
librarian's service orientation.^
Sub-Groups of Librarians
Public Librarians
Anna C. Hall, at that time Assistant to the Director
of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, concerned herself
with the adequacy of library school training for enabling
public librarians to execute public services. She first had
to determine those skills needed by librarians in their
public service role. Later, she examined how well library
schools presented those skills. Using a critical incident
technique. Hall visited and collected data from the staffs
of thirteen large public libraries. She identified the
abilities needed by librarians in order to perform public
services, and from these task requirements, she derived a
"Taxonomy of Educational Objectives for Public Service
Librarians." Hall then contrasted the vocational charac
teristics outlined in the taxonomy with course information
gathered from printed materials and interviews with
faculty members at twelve library schools whose master's
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degree programs were accredited by the American Library
Association.^
Several interesting conclusions were reached.
Knowledge from disciplines such as sociology, psychology
and human relations, communication, management, and educa
tion, although considered important by public service
librarians, was treated peripherally in library schools.
Instead, library science instruction concentrated on tradi
tional topics of librarianship, with much of the emphasis
centered on acquiring facts, rather than developing higher
intellectual abilities, such as analysis, synthesis, and
evaluation.^ Hall recommended several solutions, including
provision of pre-professional courses which would emphasize
the practical and factual aspects of librarianship, and
increased opportunity for inter-disciplinary study and
problem-solving in the professional program.^
School Librarians
As an outgrowth of a need expressed at a conference
of state school library supervisors for a unit cost study
in school librarianship, Mary Evalyn Crookston, a 1940-41
Anna C. Hall, An Analysis of Certain Professional
Library Occupations in Relation to Formal Educational Objec
tives , ERIC Document 021-506 (Pittsburgh, Pa.: Carnegie
Library of Pittsburgh, 1968), pp. 2-3.
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40
American Library Association fellow assigned to the Library
Services Division of the United States Office of Education,
elected to examine the amount of time library staffs
invested in various work activities. Crookston compiled a
list of library tasks, and distributed copies of it, along
with time sheets to eleven high school library staffs
located across the nation.^
In the public service categories, the professional
librarians in the research sample indicated that they dis
pensed their time as follows: 19.9 per cent to circula
tion; 10.4 per cent to information and reference; 5.8 per
cent to other advisory activities; 3.8 per cent to public
relations; 3.1 per cent to teaching classes; and 1.9 per
cent to compiling lists and bibliographies.^ This meant
that nearly half of their working time was reported as
being spent engaged in public service aspects of librarian
ship.
Mary V. Gaver, then a library science professor at
Rutgers University, and Milbrey L. Jones, assigned as a
school library specialist with the United States Office of
U.S., Department of Health, Education, and Welfare,
Office of Education, Unit Costs in a Selected Group of High
School Libraries, by Mary Evalyn Crookston, Bulletin
No. 11 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1942),
pp. 5-11.
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41
Education, tried in 1966 to identify public service acti
vities performed by secondary school librarians and to
determine the essentiality of these tasks. From library
literature, a basic list of 110 public services cormnonly
offered in secondary school libraries was extracted. The
two investigators constructed from the list a questionnaire
inquiring as to whether or not these services were available
at a given school, and presented copies of it to the
library staffs of thirteen New Jersey secondary schools and
thirty-four secondary schools selected from across the
nation. Twenty-two experts in school librarianship also
received the questionnaire and were asked to indicate which
services they considered to be essential for the operation
of a secondary school library.^
Gaver and Jones concluded that the checklist of
services had merit as a device for rating a library's pro
gram of public services. From the responses to the check
list, it was determined that the national group, selected
because of its quality programs, did, in fact, provide more
services than the New Jersey sample. The experts and the
practitioners in school librarianship agreed on which
services were vital. Group services were favored and pro
vided more often than were services to individuals. The
Library Services: a Search for Essentials," Teachers College
Record, LXVIII (December, 1966), pp. 200-4.
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most frequently offered services were those involving rela
tively little expense, time, and effort. It was pointed out
that non-professional assistance freed professionals for
services to students and teachers.^
The National Education Association Research Division,
under contract to the School Library Manpower Project,
recently completed a national survey of tasks performed by
school library personnel. The survey instrument, consisting
of definitions, status profile, and task checklist, was com
pleted by 594 head librarians at library media centers
judged to be outstanding.^
The majority of elementary school library heads
reported responsibility for a wider variety of instructional
tasks than were performed by the secondary school library
heads. Over half of both groups offered students such
assistance as library orientation, reviews of library rules
and regulations, and individual, as well as group, refer
ence guidance, and instruction in library skills and the
use of library media.^
School Library Personnel Task Analysis Survey, pp. 7-11.
^Ibid. , pp. 30-31.
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43
The majority of elementary and secondary school
library chiefs claimed some responsibility for such special
services as: (1) special audiovisual services, (2) listing
and reviewing services, (3) reference and reader services,
(4) publicity and information services, (5) service for
special interests and activities, (6) library or book club
advisement, (7) direction of library media center visits,
(8) guidance and counseling services, and (9) special work
with faculty members. While the elementary school librari
ans provided reading services, such as reading guidance
lists, identification of students with reading difficul
ties, research on students' reading habits, and vacation
reading programs, the majority of secondary school librari
ans were not involved in those activities.^
Over half of the elementary and secondary school
head librarians revealed that they established circulation
procedures, scheduled media and equipment use, located
materials, and secured payment for overdue, damaged, or
lost materials.^ Instruction, special services to faculty
and students, and circulation tasks were considered to be
basically public service activities. They formed the focus
of the current study investigating the correlation of
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personality and public service attributes of certain secon
dary school librarians.
Educators' Views of the Public Service Role
Two studies dealing with how educators envision the
school librarians' public service role were reviewed.
During the 1962-1963 school year, Lowell Olson, who taught
in the library science program of the University of
Minnesota at the time, quizzed principals, teachers, and
librarians on their opinions of the librarian's role in
the secondary school. Completed copies of his questionnaire
were returned by 90 principals, 246 teachers, and 127
librarians from the Minneapolis-St. P?ul metropolis.^
These three groups ranked student-related objectives
to be served by the librarian in the following order:
1. Provide individual students with the appropriate
library materials and services.
2. Assist in teaching students basic library and
study skills.
3. Stimulate and guide students in many phases of
their reading.
4. Guide students in correlating listening and
viewing experiences with their reading.
5. Help students to develop desirable social
behavior and attitudes.^
Lowell Ellis Olson, "Teachers', Principals', and
Librarians' Perception of the School Librarian's Role"
(unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. University of Minnesota,
1966), pp. 18-20.
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Teacher-community related objectives were classed as
follows:
1. Plan library services to promote the achievement
of the school's general objectives.
2. Help teachers to use library resources in their
teaching.
3. Contribute to the professional and cultural growth
of the staff.
4. Encourage students to use public libraries to
continue their education. ^
5. Help to develop a community-wide library program.
Jerry Walker, who taught in the English education
program at the University of Illinois, surveyed the atti
tudes regarding the role of the school librarian held by
teachers and librarians at the Oak Park and River Forest
High School, Oak Park, Illinois, and at the Roosevelt High
School, Portland, Oregon. Both schools were demonstration
centers for the Knapp School Libraries Project. During the
1965-1966 school year each of the 133 teachers and librari
ans answered a twenty-five item questionnaire asking for
opinions on various library concerns.^
In terms of public services, the majority of the
teachers and librarians agreed with the following statements:
1. School librarians should be considered part of
the school's instructional staff.
Library and the Librarians," ALA Bulletin, LXI (September,
1967), p. 977.
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2. High school students should be given instruction
in library skills.
3. Librarians should help to direct students' leisure
reading.
4. Librarians should keep teachers informed of new
materials available for their use.
5. Instruction in effective use of the library
should be given as part of a teacher's in-service
training.
6. Librarians should help students locate information
required by teachers.^
The majority of both groups disagreed with the state
ment that the librarian should help students with the read
ing and writing assignments they do in the library. Con
siderable disagreement existed between librarians and
teachers on two issues. Nearly all librarians considered
it proper that they help students select research topics
and that they visit classes and give book talks. Less than
two-thirds of the teachers felt that librarians should
assume these responsibilities.^
Library Education and Public Services
During 1968, Lucille Wert, as Research Associate at
the University of Illinois Graduate School of Library
Science, chose to explore how the amount of library educa
tion possessed by secondary school librarians related to
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47
the programs of reader services produced by these librari
ans. Wert utilized a very small sample composed of four
librarians with the master's degree in library science and
four librarians having sixteen semester hours in library
science or less.^
Wert collected her data by means of questionnaires,
observations, and interviews. She discovered that librari
ans with the graduate degree in library science developed
more extensive programs of reader services than those with
only basic training. Additionally, Wert noted that the
graduate librarians spent more time engaged in reader
services, and that their services had a greater use
Summary
The librarians described in the research reports
seemed to share screral basic personality characteristics.
They appeared to be sensitive, orderly, introverted indi
viduals, somewhat deficient in aggressiveness. Economic
and political factors ranked low on their table of values,
while religious, social, aesthetic, and theoretical
Lucille Wert, Library Education and High School
Library Service, ERIC Document 037-223 (Urbana, 111.: Uni
versity of Illinois, 1969), pp. ii-iii.
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48
aspects of life played more important roles. Public ser
vice activities for school librarians fell into three major
categories: (1) instruction, (2) special services, and
(3) circulation. The librarians claimed that a consider
able portion of their time was spent in these work areas.
Provision of assistance to groups seemed to be the most
efficient mode of operation.
Once reasonable portraits of the personality compo
sition of librarians and their job assignments were con
structed, an attempt to examine possible correlations
between personality and tasks was deemed appropriate. If
relationships were noted between these two elements, then,
those personality traits associated with provision of
public services could be encouraged by recruiting librari
ans who possessed those personality characteristics which
supported a good public service program.
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CHAPTER III
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Once the goals of this project were established and
clarified, a research plan was devised. The initial acti
vity consisted of selecting subjects and appropriate
investigatory instruments. The next phase of the program
involved establishing procedures for obtaining necessary
data from the participants about themselves and their work
environments. Finally, suitable means of statistical
analysis had to be chosen in order to examine potentially
significant developments among the variables.
Selection of the Research Sample
Numerous observations of a random sampling of school
librarians assigned to libraries in widely dispersed loca
tions lacked feasibility. Therefore, the selection of the
research sample was confined to purposive or judgmental
sampling. In this type of sampling, subjects are chosen
because they are believed to be representative or typical
of the population under study. Russell L. Ackoff, who
directed the Operations Research Group at Case Institute of
Technology, argued that this method could be used under
49
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50
conditions where "practical considerations seem to preclude
the use of probability sampling.However, he cautioned
that data obtained from judgmental sampling "at best suggest
or indicate conclusions.
Several specific limitations were placed on the
selection of the librarians for this study. The librarians
were required to: (1) total twenty-four in number, (2) work
in the Southern California counties of Los Angeles, Orange,
or San Diego, (3) be female, (4) hold the master's degree
in library science from a library school accredited by the
American Library Association or the California State Depart
ment of Education, (5) be employed in secondary schools,
(6) serve as the sole librarian at their individual schools,
and (7) have a clerk assigned to assist them full-time at
their particular schools.
These restrictions on the sample were justifiable
for the following reasons :
1. Twenty-four subjects — This sample size con
veniently accommodated a schedule based on one school
semester of data-gathering activities. The ninety days in
a semester allowed a reasonable amount of time for inter
viewing and testing two subjects per day for twelve days.
^Russell L. Ackoff, The Design of Social Research
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953), p. 118.
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51
and observing two subjects per day for seventy-two days.
The remaining six days were set aside for unforeseen inter
ruptions in the research schedule.
2. Southern California work assignment — Most
areas of the Southern California megalopolis formed by the
counties of Los Angeles, Orange, and San Diego were within
convenient driving distances for the investigator.
3. Female — Females dominated the school library
profession. In fact, data gathered by Henry T. Drennan,
who was Coordinator of Public Library Services for the
United States Office of Education, and Richard L. Darling,
who served as Director of Educational Media and Technology,
Montgomery County Public Schools, revealed that 94 per cent
of the school librarians in 1962 were female.^
4. Master's degree in library science — Similarity
in educational background reduced the possibility of educa
tional differences among the librarians exerting influence
on their behavior. University of Illinois research assis
tant Lucille Wert had already gathered evidence from a very
small sample suggesting that librarians with the master's
Office of Education, Bureau of Adult and Vocational Educa
tion, Library Manpower; Occupational Characteristics of
Public and School Libraries, by Henry T. Drennan and
Richard L. Darling (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing
Office, 1966), p. 15.
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degree in library science tended to offer better programs
of reader's services than did librarians without the
5. Secondary school employment — Elementary school
libraries were not prevalent in California. According to
Marvin Howell,, who coordinated school library research for
the California State Department of Education, only 7
per cent of the California elementary schools were served
by school librarians during the 1963-1964 school year,^
while 65.8 per cent of the secondary schools had librarians
6. Sole librarian at their individual schools — A
single librarian would be responsible for all professional
library service at her school, while two or more librarians
assigned to the same library might share their work
schedules in a manner that might affect their opportunities
to perform public services. An example of this would be a
situation in which one librarian managed technical services,
^Wert, Library Education and High School Library
Services, pp. iv-v.
Document 032-095 (Sacramento, Calif.: California State
Department of Education, 1968), p. 15.
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53
such as cataloging, while the co-worker concentrated her
efforts in providing public services.
7. Full-time library assistance — Howell reported
that customarily California secondary school librarians
were aided by not more than one clerk.^ To insure that the
quantity of available clerical assistance did not intrude
as a factor in the research, librarians were sought who had
access to identical amounts of clerical assistance.
School districts in Los Angeles, Orange, and San
Diego counties were queried as to whether or not they would
care to participate in a doctoral research study. The
letter of inquiry appears in Appendix A. Additionally, the
districts were asked to reveal the number of their female
secondary school librarians who held the master's degree in
library science and worked as part of a single librarian
and clerk team assigned to their respective schools.
Responses indicated that nine school districts would
be willing to participate and could supply several candi
dates as subjects. These districts, listed in Appendix B
with their addresses, were the Orange, San Diego City,
Santa Ana, Santa Monica, and Torrance Unified School Dis
tricts, along with the Anaheim, Centinela Valley, South Bay,
and Sweetwater Union High School Districts.
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54
Noteworthy comparative data on the nine school dis
tricts included the sizes of the districts and the number
of participants that they furnished. Also available were
figures giving insight into the districts' commitments to
library services, such as the per pupil allotments for the
purchase of supplementary books and library books, the
average number of books per pupil, and the average number
of students per librarian.
Table 1 shows that the school districts ranged in
size from San Diego's urban student community of 132,602
TABLE 1
DISTRICT SIZE AND NUMBER OF RESEARCH PARTICIPANTS
School Districts Number of Pupils^
Number of Research
Participants
Anaheim 35,827 5
Centinela Valley 7,654 2
Orange 27,158 4
San Diego 132,602 4
Santa Ana 28,233 2
Santa Monica 13,028 2
South Bay 7,515 2
Sweetwater 21,591 2
Torrance 36,053 1
California Teachers Association, Research Depart
ment, California School District Financial Analyses, 1969-
1970, Research Bulletin No. 253 (Burlingame, Calif.:
California Teachers Association, 1970), pp. 2-24, 96-107.
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55
elementary and secondary public school pupils to South Bay's
suburban enrollment of 7,515 secondary school students.
The median student population served was that of Orange with
27,158 elementary and secondary pupils. The number of
participants from each district ranged from five offered by
Anaheim Union High School District to one provided by the
Torrance Unified District. The modal contribution was two
librarians, which was the number contributed by the Centi
nela Valley, Santa Ana, Santa Monica, South Bay, and
Sweetwater districts. These figures are presented in
Table 1 also.
The amount of per pupil expenditures for supplemen
tary books and library books claimed by the districts
varied from $4.35 spent by the South Bay district to $1.36
expended by the Anaheim district. The Santa Monica district
invested a median amount of $2.80 in this segment of its
budget. Table 2 illustrates these amounts along with the
percentage of each district's budget spent per pupil for
supplementary books and library books.
The highest average number of library books per
student, 11.7 books, was held by the Santa Monica Unified
School District, while the lowest average, 4.7 books was
retained by the Anaheim Union High School District, which
also spent the least amount for supplementary books and
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TABLE 2
DISTRICT PER PUPIL EXPENDITURES
School Districts
Supplementary Books
and Library Books^
Amount Percentage
Deviation from the
State Average
Amount
Anaheim
Centinela Valley
Orange
San Diego
Santa Ana
Santa Monica
South Bay
Sweetwater
Torrance
$1.36
2.91
1.59
2.67
1.65
2.80
4.35
3.47
2.87
.18
.30
.24
.36
.24
.30
.46
.49
.42
-$1.16
+ .39
- .93
+ .15
- .87
+ .28
+ 1.83
+ .95
+ .35
-.13
-.01
-.07
+.05
-.07
-.01
+.15
+.18
+.11
Participant Average
State Average^
2.63
2.52
.33
.31
California Teachers Association, Research Depart
ment, California School District Financial Analyses, 1969-
1970, Research Bulletin No. 253 (Burlingame, Calif.;
California Teachers Association, 1970), pp. 2-24, 96-107.
^California, Department of Education, California
Public Schools Selected Statistics, 1969-70 (Sacramento,
Calif.: California State Department of Education, 1971),
p. 80.
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57
library books.^ Librarians in the Torrance Unified School
District served an average of 3,691 students, the highest
average among the school districts. Santa Monica Unified
School District averaged only 713 pupils, the low figure in
this category. No data were available for Sant^ Ana on the
average number of books or pupils. It should be noted that
in some of the unified school districts, averages were
affected by elementary school enrollments where library
service was not provided. Table 3 shows these average
numbers.
TABLE 3
DISTRICT LIBRARY BOOK AND PUPIL AVERAGES^
School Districts
Average Number of
Books Per Pupil
Average Number of
Pupils Per Librarian
Anaheim 4.7 1,475
Centinela Valley 5.0 1,678
Orange 5.1 2,800
San Diego 6.6 3,490
Santa Ana
Santa Monica 11.7 713
South Bay 7.3 1,668
Sweetwater 6.1 1,235
Torrance 11.6 3,691
^Howell, School Libraries in California, pp. 165-69.
^California Teachers Association, California School
District Financial Analyses, 1969-1970, p. 97.
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58
The school librarians and the schools at which they
serve are described in more detail in Chapter IV which
analyzes the information given by the librarians and their
administrators in response to the School Librarian's Ques
tionnaire and the School Principal's Questionnaire.
Selection of the Research Instruments
The Personality Tests
Personality Tests and Reviews, edited by Oscar K.
Buros, Director of the Institute of Mental Measurements, was
searched for descriptions and reviews of tests measuring
personality factors potentially related to the public ser
vice performances of secondary school librarians.^ From the
291 non-projective personality tests listed as "in print,"
the Gordon Personal Inventory and the Gordon Personal Pro
file, both shown in Appendix D, were selected for this
research project. The two tests fulfilled a number of
criteria considered to be desirable by industrial
psychologists Lewis Albright, J. R. Glennon, and
Oscar K. Buros, ed., Personality Tests and Reviews:
Including an Index to the Mental Measurement Yearbooks
(Highland Park, N.J.: Gryphon Press, 1970), pp. 1-154.
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objective, and standardized. The test manuals for the two
tests adequately covered the details of construction,
administration, and scoring, as well as the methods used
for determining reliability and validity.
The Gordon Personal Inventory
The Gordon Personal Inventory claimed to measure
four personality traits. These four factors were cautious
ness, original thinking, personal relations, and vigor.
Leonard V. Gordon, at one time Chief of the Behavioral
Evaluation Research Laboratory, United States Army Personnel
Research Office, and developer of the Gordon Personal
Inventory, recommended that the character trait scales
covered by the test be interpreted as follows ;^
Cautiousness; Individuals who are highly cautious,
who consider matters very carefully before making
decisions, and do not like to take chances or run
risks, score high on this Scale. Those who are
impulsive, act on the spur of the moment, make
hurried or snap decisions, enjoy taking chances,
seek excitement, score low on this Scale.
Original Thinking: High scoring individuals like
to work on difficult problems, are intellectually
curious, enjoy thought-provoking questions and dis
cussions, and like to think about new ideas. Low
Smith, The Use of Psychological Tests in Industry (Cleveland:
Howard Allen, Inc., 1963), pp. 41-47.
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scoring individuals dislike working on difficult or
complicated problems, do not care about acquiring
knowledge, and are not interested in thought-
provoking questions or discussions.
Personal Relations; High scores are made by those
individuals who have great faith and trust in people,
and are tolerant, patient, and understanding. Low
scores reflect a lack of trust or confidence in
people, and a tendency to be critical of others and
to become annoyed or irritated by what others do.
Vigor; High scores on this Scale characterize
individuals who are vigorous and energetic, who
like to work and move rapidly, and who are able to
accomplish more than the average person. Low scores
are associated with low vitality or energy level,
a preference for setting a slow pace, and a tendency
to tire easily and be below average in terms of
sheer output or productivity.
Much of the library literature dealing with the rela
tionship between the librarian's personality components and
the librarian's job performance reported subjective esti
mates of which traits were associated most frequently with
successful library service. Objective evaluation of the
relationship of frequently mentioned personality factors to
library practice was warranted. The use of the Gordon
Personal Inventory in such research was justified, since it
measured three traits cited often in the library literature
surveyed by Janis L. Coker, while she was a student in
Emory University's Division of Librarianship. In 1958,
Coker examined the library literature published from 1927
to 1958 for characteristics linked with successful
librarianship. Imagination, broad and sympathetic outlook.
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61
as well as energy, appeared a notable number of times.^
These three traits were comparable to the original thinking,
personal relations, and vigor factors of the Gordon test.
Brevity was another feature of the Gordon Personal
Inventory. The Inventory required approximately ten
minutes to complete.^ Since the school districts providing
the population desired that the amount of each librarian's
work schedule invested in the research project be kept at
a minimum, the Gordon test was selected in preference to
longer tests, such as the Edwards Personal Preference
Schedule and the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inven
tory.
The Inventory, a self-administering test, consisted
of twenty sets of four descriptive phrases. In the tetrads,
two items were considered to be complimentary and two fell
into the uncomplimentary category. The respondent selected
from the group of four a phrase that he felt was most
descriptive of himself, and another phrase that he thought
was most unlike himself. The Inventory could be hand-scored
easily by means of a scoring key. For score comparisons,
the manual provided reports on how college students, high
Janis L. Coker, Rating the Personality of Library
School Students (Rochester, N.Y.: University of Rochester
Press for the Association of College and Research
Libraries, 1962), p. 17.
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school students, and various business and industrial per
sonnel fared on the questionnaire.^
Reviews of the Gordon Personal Inventory were both
favorable and unfavorable. Disagreement centered on
whether or not the Inventory had achieved an acceptable
level of validity. Charles F. Dicken, at the time a
psychology professor at San Diego State College, commended
Gordon for a conscientiously prepared manual and a satis
factorily reliable test, but expressed concern over the
external validity of the Inventory.^ Alfred B. Heilbrun,
who was a psychology professor at the State University of
Iowa, also approved of the comparative data presented in
the manual and the reliability reports, but would have
liked more careful scrutiny of how the Inventory related
to performance criteria.^
Despite the debate on the validity of the Gordon
Personal Inventory, Dicken offered the following statement
of support; "The Inventory seems generally as satisfactory
a measure of traits of this type as other self-report
Personality Tests and Reviews, ed. by Oscar K. Buros
(Highland Park, N.J.; Gryphon Press, 1970), pp. 1032-33.
Personality Tests and Reviews, ed. by Oscar K. Buros
(Highland Park, N.J.: Gryphon Press, 1970), pp. 1033-34.
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devices which are available, although the external validi
ties reported are frequently quite modest.
, , 1
The Gordon Personal Profile
The companion test to the Gordon Personal Inventory,
the Gordon Personal Profile, also yielded scores on four
personality characteristics. These consisted of ascendancy,
responsibility, emotional stability, and sociability.
Gordon attached the following meanings to the four scales
on this test:^
Ascendancy: Those individuals who are verbally
ascendant, who adopt an active role in the group,
who are self-assured and assertive in relationships
with others, and who tend to make independent deci
sions, score high on this Scale. Those who play a
passive role in the group, who listen rather than
talk, who lack self-confidence, who let others take
the lead, and who tend to be overly dependent on
others for advice, normally make low scores.
Responsibility : Individuals who are able to stick
to any ]ob assigned them, who are persevering and
determined, and who can be relied on, score high on
this Scale. Individuals who are unable to stick to
tasks that do not interest them, and who tend to be
flighty or irresponsible, usually make low scores.
Emotional Stability; High scores on this Scale are
generally made by individuals who are well-balanced,
emotionally stable, and relatively free from anxie
ties and nervous tension. Low scores are associated
with excessive anxiety, hypersensitivity, nervousness,
and low frustration tolerance. Generally, a very low
score reflects poor emotional balance.
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Sociability; High scores are made by individuals who
like to be with and work with people, and who are
gregarious and sociable. Low scores reflect a lack
of gregariousness, a general restriction in social
contacts, and in the extreme, an actual avoidance of
social relationships.
All four of the Profile factors were included in
Coker's list of the twenty most frequently mentioned per
sonality traits thought to be related to quality library
service. The emotional stability factor was listed as such
in the Coker report. However, ascendancy was considered
under the labels "leadership" and "initiative;" reponsi-
bility appeared as "dependability; " ’.lile sociability
involved Coker's "friendliness" and /pproachability for
the library public" categories.^ As . the case of the
Inventory, frequent mention of the Profile traits in the
literature reviewed by Coker was an encouragement to examine
objectively the linkages between these factors and actual
job performance.
Like the Inventory, the Gordon Personal Profile has
brevity as an outstanding feature. The Profile required as
few as seven minutes to complete.^ Less than twenty
minutes were needed to select responses to both tests,
while tests, such as the Edwards Personal Preference
Schedule and the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory
^Coker, Rating the Personality of Library School
Students, p. 17.
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generally utilized more than one half hour of the respon
dent' s time.^ The school district personnel involved in the
research project favored the two Gordon tests for their
minimal interruption of the librarian's work schedule.
The Profile was also a self-administering test,
composed of eighteen sets of four descriptive phrases. The
procedures for completing and scoring the Profile were
identical to those of the Inventory. As with the Inventory,
norms were presented for college and high school students,
and business and industrial groups.^
The Gordon Personal Profile fared slightly better
than the Gordon Personal Inventory on its reviews. While
the external validity of both tests concerned Dicken, of
the Profile he stated that the "level of validity is proba
bly typical of the better inventories of normal personality
traits, with the criteria available.His review of the
Inventory indicated that he found its validity to be "some-
displayed the same satisfaction with the manual of the
Profile and the reliability levels established for the
^Buros, Personality Tests and Reviews, pp. 29, 76.
^Gordon, Gordon Personal Profile Manual, pp. 3-11.
^Charles F. Dicken, "Gordon Personal Profile," in
Personality Tests and Reviews, ed. by Oscar K. Buros
(Highland Park, N.J.; Gryphon Press, 1970), p. 1035.
^Dicken, "Gordon Personal Inventory," p. 1033.
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66
Profile that he expressed for the Inventory.^ Heilbrun
repeated his concern for the external validity of the
Profile that he revealed in his review of the Inventory.
Heilbrun stated: "The one feature of the validity findings
which leaves the reviewer uneasy is that any significant
relationship between a scale and a performance rating is
Despite his anxiety over the validity of the Profile,
Heilbrun concluded :^
In summary, if there is interest in a short, con
venient measure of a limited number of salient
personality traits, the GPP is about as good as you
can do. It is carefully conceived, reliable, ade
quately normed, and has received at least suggestive
validation.
Although the manual for the Gordon Personal Inventory
contained no reports of studies attempting to correlate the
factors on the Inventory with those of the personality tests
employed in the library science research reviewed in Chap
ter II of this dissertation, the manual for the Gordon
Personal Profile did include such information. The Profile
ascendancy scores related positively to scores earned by
college women in "dominance" as measured by the Edwards
^Alfred B. Heilbrun, "Gordon Personal Profile," in
Personality Tests and Reviews, ed. by Oscar K. Buros
(Highland Park, N.J.: Gryphon Press, 1970), p. 1036.
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67
Personal Preference Schedule and to scores achieved by
college women in the "poise, ascendancy, and self-assurance"
cluster of the California Psychological Inventory. Among
the college women, the responsibility factor of the Profile
was discovered to be linked to the order and endurance
factors of the Edwards test and to the self-control and
"achievement via conformance" elements of the California
Psychological Inventory. The CPI flexibility scale was
associated negatively with the responsibility scores on the
Gordon test. There appeared to be a connection between
Profile scores in sociability and scores earned in affilia
tion and dominance on the Edwards Personal Preference
Schedule, as well as the scores in the "poise, ascendancy
and self-assurance" cluster of the California Psychological
Inventory.^
The Questionnaires
Background data on the librarians and the schools to
which they were assigned were derived by means of two ques
tionnaires, the School Librarian's Questionnaire and the
School Principal's Questionnaire, both located in Appendix
E. These two data-gathering instruments incorporated
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suggestions on how to construct a good questionnnaire made
by John W. Best, a professor of education at Butler
University.^ The questionnaires dealt with factors that
might have significant bearing on a librarian's public
service function. The two easily tabulated inquiry sheets
were also neat, brief, efficient, and objective. Because
of the ease and the minimal interruption of the respondents'
work schedule afforded by the closed form requesting "yes"
or "no," short, or checked responses, it was used in pref
erence to the open form or unrestricted type of
The School Librarian's Questionnaire
The school Librarian's Questionnaire consisted of
six items. First, the respondent was asked to supply her
present age in years. A concise description of her higher
educational experiences was requested in the second portion
of the questionnaire. Item three sought to establish the
number of graduate library science credits possessed by
each respondent. The fourth question was concerned with
the year in which the final course in library science was
Englewood Cliffs, N.J.; Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1970),
pp. 161-73.
^Ibid., pp. 144-45.
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69
completed by each librarian. The last two questions dealt
with the length of the librarian's tenure as a professional
school librarianf and, in particular, at the school to
which she was assigned.
Some library staffing issues that might be resolved
by comparing the responses to the School Librarian's Ques
tionnaire and the public service performances of the
librarians included:
1. Is a librarian's time investment in public ser
vices tied in with her age?
2. Does recency of course work in library science
have any connection with the amount of time dedicated to
public services by the librarian?
3. Does length of experience affect a librarian's
time allotment to public services?
4. Does familiarity with the school setting in
which the librarian works have any impact on her public
service schedule?
The School Principal's Questionnaire
The School Principal's Questionnaire contained three
items. The first item aimed at classifying the participat
ing schools into junior high schools (grades seven through
nine), high schools (grades nine through twelve), or senior
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70
high schools (grades ten through twelve). The second item
on the questionnaire was an inquiry into the size of the
student population served by each school. The final item
established the professional staff allotments. It was hoped
that comparative analysis of the responses to the School
Principal's Questionnaire and the job performance of the
librarians would yield information on such issues as
follows ;
1. Does the level of educational maturity attained
by the school population affect the demand for public
services?
2. Does the size of the student body have any
bearing on the librarian's output in public services? '
3. Is there a correlation between school staff size
and the amount of time spent by the librarians in public
services?
The Public Service Observation Record
The Public Service Observation Record was a time
sheet tabulation of the librarian's activities during the
twelve hours of observation in which she participated as a
subject. The main features that the investigator sought to
incorporate into the observation record were clarity and
simplicity. A single copy of the time sheet displayed in
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71
Appendix F served as a record of a half hour of the librar
ian's work schedule. An identification code appeared at the
top of each work sheet. Three columns constituted the
remainder of the page. The first column recorded the dura
tion of each activity from minute to minute. The second
column encoded the activity category into which the observed
action fitted. An activity could be "A"— instruction;
"B"— special services, "C"— circulation; or "0"— other. The
third column briefly described the incident.
It should be noted that incident duration was
favored over incident frequency as the critical variable.
Counting the number of times that events occurred would
have been a misleading criterion. One librarian might
engage in a single task, such as conducting a class visit,
that was of lengthy duration, while another individual
might answer ready reference questions for ten patrons
during the same period. The result would be a very low
tally for the first person compared with a relatively high
count for the second subject during the same time span.
Obviously, the type of activity affected the number of
tasks a librarian could perform within a limited span of
time. However, if time was employed as the prime variable,
regardless of the specific performance involved, subjects
would receive comparable measures of credit.
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Data-gathering Procedures
In districts demonstrating interest in the research
proposal, a district-level administrator, usually the direc
tor of personnel or the director of research and develop
ment, served as a liaison officer between the research
investigator and the school personnel. The liaison officer
received an explanation of the project, an indication of
the potential benefits of the study, and an assurance that
a report of the findings would be delivered at the conclu
sion of the investigation.
The district official contacted the principal at
each school in his district that might become involved in
the research activity and revealed his endorsement of the
program. If the principal, after consulting with the
librarian assigned to his staff, was favorably impressed
with the project, permission was granted to proceed with
the data-gathering which included interviewing, testing,
and observing.
The spring semester of the 1970-1971 school year was
allotted for the data-gathering segment of the research. A
calendar of ninety days permitted twenty-four subjects to
be interviewed, tested, and observed. Twelve days were set
aside for interviewing and testing, while seventy-two days
were focused on observing the subjects at work. The
remaining six days were utilized as substitutions for days
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73
on which research could not occur because of librarian
absenteeism or because of deviations in the normal library
program.
Interviewing
A cover letter requesting an appointment to discuss
the research plan was sent to each school principal and
school librarian that agreed to participate. These cover
letters appear in Appendix C. A typical meeting with a
principal lasted approximately fifteen to twenty minutes.
During this unstructured interview, the principal could
satisfy his curiosity about the purpose and methodology of
the research. A primary concern of each principal was how
the execution of the study would affect the operation of
his school. A commitment was made to keep interference
with the educational program at a minimum. After the com
pletion of the interviewing and testing sessions, no
research-related contact occurred between the school per
sonnel and the investigator, apart from unobtrusive observa
tion of the librarians. At no time were students involved
directly in the project.
The principal usually introduced the researcher to
the librarian-participant at his school, and stated his
support of the research endeavor. The interview with the
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74
librarian required approximately fifteen to twenty minutes.
Once convinced of the value of the research, the librari
an's chief interests were in conserving the amount of work
time she had to invest in the project and in insuring that
no incrimination could be directed toward herself or her
school. Apart from the minutes utilized to complete the
interview, the questionnaires, and the personality tests,
no demands were exerted on the librarian's work schedule.
Anonymity eliminated the possibility of any adverse reflec
tion on the librarian or her school developing because of
the data findings.
Testing
Testing activities included the presentation of the
School Librarian's Questionnaire, as well as the two Gordon
personality tests, to each of the librarians, and the
School Principal's Questionnaire to the chief administrator
of each school. At the close of the interview explaining
the research project to the school principal, he was given
a copy of the School Principal's Questionnaire and asked to
provide the necessary information concerning the school.
The questionnaire was picked up from the school administra
tive offices at the time of the next visit, allowing ample
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75
opportunity for the principal to secure and validate his
statements.
When the orientation interview with a librarian con
cluded, she was furnished a copy of the School Librarian’s
Questionnaire. The response sheet covering personal, educa
tional, and experiential factors in the librarian's back
ground was retrieved at the following visit. The time
lapse offered a chance for the librarian to certify the
accuracy of her answers by reviewing her transcripts and
employment records.
The two personality tests, the Gordon Personal
Inventory and the Gordon Personal Profile also were com
pleted, following the simple printed directions, by each
subject at the finish of the introductory session. A pre
ferred technique would have been to present the two tests
at the end of the research activities since they included
observation. This would have eliminated the possibility of
the observer being biased in her observations because of
prior knowledge of the personality variables.^ Unfor
tunately, time limitations made it imperative that only
assured participants be included in the study. No time
could be invested in observing a participant who might
renege later on taking the personality tests. The potential
^Walter R. Borg, Educational Research; an Introduc
tion (New York; David McKay Company, Inc., 1963), pp. 246-47.
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76
bias that might have been introduced by offering the tests
before the observation period was combatted by delaying the
scoring until after all observation was over.
Observing
The observation portion of the research incorporated
techniques recommended by Carter V. Good, then Director of
Graduate Studies, Teachers College, University of
Cincinnati, and Douglas E. Scates, who was a professor of
education at the University of Florida. They described
suitable observation as being: (1) directed toward speci
fically defined activities, (2) conducted on a systematic
basis, (3) expressed quantitatively, (4) recorded immedi
ately, (5) performed by an investigator especially trained
for such work, and (6) verifiable.^
The specific activities to be observed have been
identified as forty-five tasks in the instructional,
special services, and circulation categories of the School
Library Personnel Task Analysis Survey. The observations
took place over a seventy-two workday period, with each of
the twenty-four participants receiving six visits lasting
two hours each. Half of each subject's visits were morning
Research: Educational, Psychological, Sociological (New
York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc., 1954), pp. 648-49.
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77
visits, while the other half occurred in the afternoon. In
all, a subject received twelve hours of observation. The
time allotted by the individuals to the specifically defined
tasks was quantified in terms of minutes on a work sheet
simultaneously with their performance. Two hours of pre
liminary observation were spent with each person after the
initial interview. During this period, proficiency in
observing and recording the activities of the librarian in
her special environment was developed. It was assumed that
the results obtained from the research would compare satis
factorily with similarly conducted investigations.
The study incorporated several other features that
promoted proper maintenance of the observation record. In
order to discourage "role selection,each librarian was
informed that her overall performance as a librarian was
under consideration. No mention was made that public ser
vices constituted the primary concern of the research pro
ject. The trial period of observation was expected to
reduce the "guinea pig effectby accustoming the librar
ian and her patrons to the observer's presence.
Additionally, certain time restrictions were placed
on the twelve hours of observation scheduled for each
Reactive Research in the Social Sciences (Chicago : Rand
McNally & Company, 1966), p. 16
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librarian. The observations were conducted on six randomly
chosen dates for periods consisting of two work-hours. The
random selection of dates aimed at diminishing the likeli
hood of events being "staged," and the work-hour stipula
tion permitted participation in non-work activities such as
coffee breaks and lunch breaks at appropriate times. For
the purpose of standardization, morning visits began at
9:00 A.M., and afternoon observations commenced with the
first work activity initiated after 12:00 Noon.
Analysis of Data
Sidney Siegel, who was assigned as a research pro
fessor of psychology at the Pennsylvania State University,
has written several authoritative reports on the relative
merits of employing non-parametric statistics to analyze
behavioral science data. Siegel cited four major advan
tages of the non-parametric techniques. They were:
(1) distribution-free, (2) simple to compute, (3) useful
with small samples, and (4) efficient with ranked data.^
They were considered more suitable tools than the parametric
instruments for many of the analyses in the current research
Sidney Siegel, Nonparametric Statistics for the
Behavioral Sciences (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company,
1956), p. vii.
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which involved a small, purposive sample and much ranked
information.
Measures of Central Tendency
Siegel stated that the median or middle score was
the most appropriate statistic for describing the central
tendency of scores on an ordinal scale. He pointed out that
many personality inventories produced scores of an ordinal
nature.^ Since the Gordon tests fitted this description,
medians were utilized to indicate the central tendencies of
the librarians' achievements on the Gordon Personal Inven
tory and the Gordon Personal Profile. Siegel felt that the
mean or average score produced an acceptable statistic for
demonstrating the central tendency of data gathered by
means of interval or ratio scales.^ Therefore, means were
computed for the responses to items on the School Librar
ian's Questionnaire, the School Principal's Questionnaire,
and the Public Service Observation Record that met the
requirements of interval or ratio measurement.
^Ibid., pp. 28-29.
^Ibid., pp. 24-25.
2.
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Measures of Dispersion
In his chart of the "Four Levels of Measurement and
the Statistics Appropriate to Each Level,Siegel indi
cated that percentiles could be used properly to display
the dispersion of data obtained from ordinal scales. Per
centile ranks were provided for the librarians' scores on
the Gordon Personal Inventory and the Gordon Personal
Profile to show the position of a given score or group of
scores in relationship to the entire sample of scores. For
data reaching interval or ratio levels, the standard devia
tion was computed to reveal the dispersion of scores.
Measures of Correlation
A major aim of this research effort was to examine
the possible relationships between the personality charac
teristics and the public service performances of the
selected school librarians. For this, the Spearman's rank-
order correlation method was applied. Siegel pointed out
that this statistical instrument was one of the earliest
and best known of the rank statistics.^ The rank-order
correlation coefficient or p, as it is called, could be
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estimated in the following manner;
P.1-#
N(N"= - 1)
where p = rank-order correlation coefficient
d = difference between a pair of scores
N = number of pairs of ranks
The Spearman technique was utilized additionally to deter
mine the links between non-personality variables and public
services. These non-personality factors included the age,
educational, and experiential backgrounds of the partici
pants, and the sizes of the student bodies and faculties
that they served. For all of the Spearman analyses a coef
ficient reaching the .05 level of significance was con
sidered adequate for rejecting an hypothesis of no signifi
cant relationship between factors.
In one instance, the sample population was divided
into dichotomous sub-groups to test relationships between
types of schools and the personality characteristics and
public service performances of the librarians assigned to
them. The two categories into which the responses concern
ing school types were fitted consisted of junior high
schools educating grades seven through nine, and high
schools organized to serve grades nine through twelve or
grades ten through twelve. The Spearman rank-order correla
tion coefficient was an inappropriate measuring device for
dealing with the two sub-samples. Siegel recommended the
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Mann-Whitney ü test for this type of situation, noting that
the U test was one of the most powerful of the nonpara-
ing method:
U, = N,N» + N. (Nt + 1) - R,
where = the statistic U for group one
= the number of measures in group one
Ng = the number of measures in group two
= the sum of the ranks assigned to group one
Again, the .05 level of significance was required to
reject the statistical hypothesis of no significant dif
ference between variables.
Summary
Five research instruments were used to explore rela
tionships between personality factors and public services
performed by the librarians. The instruments consisted of
the Gordon Personal Inventory, the Gordon Personal Profile,
the School Librarian's Questionnaire, the School Principal's
Questionnaire, and the Public Service Observation Record.
Twenty-four female secondary school librarians possessing
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83
the master's degree in library science and working as the
sole professional librarian in their respective schools con
stituted the research population. The librarians and their
principals provided background data in their responses to
the School Librarian's Questionnaire and the School Princi
pal's Questionnaire. Clues to the personalities of the
librarians were revealed by the two Gordon tests. After
the librarians completed the questionnaire and tests, the
investigator observed each of them for twelve hours and
recorded their behavior on time sheets. All data were
analyzed statistically, with the chief tool being the
Spearman rank-order correlation statistic.
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CHAPTER IV
ANALYSIS OF DATA
This chapter offers a detailed analysis of the data
collected in the research project. The librarians' ratings
on the Gordon Personal Inventory and the Gordon Personal
Profile are examined and compared with ratings earned by
other vocational groups. The responses to the School
Librarian's Questionnaire and the School Principal's Ques
tionnaire are reviewed. Similarities and contrasts are
noted between the backgrounds of the school librarians in
the sample and the backgrounds of school librarians in a
larger national sample. The observations recorded of the
librarians at work are tallied in the various public ser-
V*ice categories, and where possible, compared with the
findings from other research efforts.
The Personality Tests
The Gordon Personal Inventory
Each librarian's response booklet for the Gordon
Personal Inventory was scored to derive ratings in cautious
ness, original thinking, personal relations, and vigor.
The maximum possible score that could be attained in a
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RANGES AND MEDIANS OF LIBRARIANS' SCORES
ON THE GORDON PERSONAL INVENTORY
Inventory Ranges
Medians
Factor High LOW
Cautiousness 37 13 27.5
Original Thinking 37 10 28
Personal Relations 35 19 29
Vigor 36 11 26.5
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factor was forty points. A score of thirty-seven was
highest in both cautiousness and original thinking, with
the low score for the former being thirteen points and for
the latter being only ten points. In vigor, the scores
varied from thirty-six points to eleven points. The small
est range of scores occurred in the personal relations
characteristic, with the high figure at thirty-five points
and the low figure at nineteen. The median scores for the
respondents listed at 29 for personal relations, 28 for
original thinking, 27.5 for cautiousness, and 26.5 for
vigor. No medians were provided for the female groups
reported in the Gordon Personal Inventory Manual; however,
the means showed the same closeness among the factors as the
medians for the librarians.^ Table 4 offers the ranges and
medians of the variables measured by the Inventory in this
project.
Table 5 indicates the percentile ranks of the
librarians' scores on the Gordon Personal Inventory so that
the position of each score in the distribution may be
known.
Percentile ranks were available for several other
female groups that had completed the Gordon Personal
Inventory, and comparisons were made between the rankings
of these women and the rankings of the group of librarians.
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TABLE 5
LIBRARIANS' PERCENTILE RANKS ON THE INVENTORY
Scores
Percentile Ranks
Cautiousness
Original
Thinking
Personal
Relations
Vigor
37 100 100
36 96 100
35 96 100
34 92 88 96
33
92
32 83 83 88 88
31 79 79
30 79 63 67 83
29 71 58 63 75
28 67 54 63
27 50 38 42 58
26 33 50
25 29 25 38 42
24
38
23 25 21 21 33
22 17 17 29
21 13 25
20 13 8 13 17
19 8
18 8 13
17
16
15
14
8
13 4
12
11 4
10 4
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One fact that should be noted is that the number of librar
ians studied was only twenty-four, while the other groups
of women whose records were reviewed numbered considerably
more. Percentile ranks were provided for 375 first level
managers, 871 college women, and 965 high school students.^
Table 6 gives a comparison of the percentile rank
ings of the various groups in the cautiousness factors
PERCENTILE RANKS IN CAUTIOUSNESS FOR
VARIOUS FEMALE GROUPS
Scores
Percentile Ranks
Librarians Managers
College
Women
High School
Girls
37 100 99
36 96 98 99
34 92 94 97 98
32 83 81 94 96
30 79 67 87 91
29 71 60 82 87
28 67 53 77 83
27 50 46 72 79
25 29 33 61 69
23 25 22 49 57
22 17 18 43 51
20 13 11 32 40
18 8 7 24 30
13 4 2 9 11
Gordon, Gordon Personal Inventory Manual, pp. 5-7.
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89
It appeared that the librarians most closely resembled the
group of first level managers in degree of cautiousness.
The college women and high school girls rated themselves as
less cautious, on a whole, than the librarians. The librar
ians and the managers as a select group of mature working
women might be expected to demonstrate less impulsiveness
than the more heterogeneous and younger student groups.
As Table 7 indicates, the librarians tended to score
higher in original thinking than did the managerial and
student groups. The librarians, as holders of graduate
PERCENTILE RANKS IN ORIGINAL THINKING FOR
VARIOUS FEMALE GROUPS
Percentile Ranks
Librarians Managers
College
Women
High School
Girls
37 100 99 99
35 96 97 97 99
34 88 96 96 98
32 83 91 92 96
31 79 87 89 94
30 63 83 86 92
29 58 79 82 89
28 54 74 77 86
27 38 68 71 82
26 33 62 65 77
25 25 55 58 71
23 21 39 44 57
22 17 32 37 50
21 13 26 31 43
20 8 20 25 36
10 4 2 2
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90
degrees, possessed higher educational accomplishments than
did most members of these groups. In this case, educa
tional achievement and intellectual stimulation might be
interrelated.
The comparison of rankings in personal relations
also suggested that the librarians and the first level
managers had more similar make-ups in this area than had
the librarians and the student groups. As with cautious
ness, maturity might have been a factor in the acquisition
of a more accommodating approach to others. Table 8
reveals the contrasts.
PERCENTILE RANKS IN PERSONAL RELATIONS FOR
VARIOUS FEMALE GROUPS
Scores
Percentile Ranks
Librarians Managers
College
Women
High School
Girls
35 100 92 96 98
34 96 88 95 97
32 88 75 91 94
31 79 68 89 91
30 67 62 86 88
29 63 56 82 84
27 42 43 72 73
25 38 31 59 61
23 21 21 45 47
20 13 9 27 28
19 8 7 22 23
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91
Percentile rankings in vigor also pointed toward
closer links between the librarians and the first level
managers, than between the librarians and the student
groups. The rankings of the librarians and the managers
tended to be higher than those of the students. Gordon
reported in the Gordon Personal Inventory Manual that
"generally, the occupational (employed) groups tend to
score higher than the student groups on all traits.
Table 9 exhibits the percentile rankings in vigor.
The Gordon Personal Profile
The librarians' scores were computed in the ascen
dancy, responsibility, emotional stability, and sociability
characteristics. The maximum score one could achieve on
each of the four scales of the Gordon Personal Profile was
thirty-six. In responsibility, one individual scored the
maximum, with the low score in that element falling at nine
teen points. The scores in emotional stability peaked at
thirty-five and dropped to a low of seventeen points.
Scores in sociability varied from a high of thirty-three to
a low of eight points. Similarly, a wide range was found
in the ascendancy scores with the highest score being
thirty-two points and the lowest score being seven points.
^Gordon, Gordon Personal Inventory Manual, p. 8.
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PERCENTILE RANKS IN VIGOR FOR VARIOUS
FEMALE GROUPS
Percentile Ranks
Librarians
College High School
Women Girls
36
33
32
30
29
28
27
26
25
24
23
22
21
20
18
14
11
100
92
88
83
75
63
58
50
42
38
33
29
25
17
13
99
95
92
83
77
70
63
55
46
37
30
24
19
15
9
3
1
97
95
89
85
80
75
69
62
56
50
44
38
32
22
10
4
96
94
89
86
82
77
71
65
59
52
45
38
32
22
The median scores obtained by the librarians consisted of
28 for responsibility, 26.5 for emotional stability, 22.5
for ascendancy, and 21 for sociability. Table 10 denotes
the ranges and medians established by the librarians on the
Profile.
Again, although no medians for female groups were
given in the manual, the mean scores provided for six
groups of women showed the high means to be in responsi-
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RANGES AND MEDIANS OF LIBRARIANS' SCORES
ON THE GORDON PERSONAL PROFILE
Factors
Ranges
Medians
High LOW
Ascendancy 32 7 22.5
Responsibility 36 19 28
Emotional Stability 35 17 26.5
Sociability 33 8 21
bility and emotional stability as was the case of the
medians with the librarians. Like the medians of the
librarians, the lower means of the other groups of women
were earned in ascendancy and sociability. Only the stu
dent groups differed, with their higher averages in respon
sibility and sociability, and their lower averages in
ascendancy and emotional stability.
To clarify further the distribution of scores on
the Gordon Personal Profile, each librarian's percentile
rank is presented in Tàble 11.
Percentile rankings had been established for several
female groups, including 1106 college students, 3096 high
school pupils, 474 first level managers, and 167 clerk-
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TABLE 11
LIBRARIANS' PERCENTILE RANKS ON THE PROFILE
scores
Percentile Ranks
Ascendancy Responsibility
Emotional
Stability
Sociability
36 100
35 96 100
34 92 96
33 88 100
32 100 79 92
31 96 75 83
30 71 79
29 92 67 71 92
28 88 58 67
27 75 46 58 88
26 71 42 50 83
25 29 38
24 67 29
23 54
22 50 17 25 75
21 21 67
20 46 13 13 42
19 8 8
18 38 38
17 4 33
16 29
15 17 21
14 13
13 17
12 8
11
10
9
8 4
7 4
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stenographers.^ As with the Gordon Personal Inventory,
their rankings were contrasted with those of the librarians
in the four Gordon Personal Profile factors. Again, it
should be borne in mind that the sample of librarians was
limited to twenty-four.
The percentile rankings in the ascendancy factor
appear in Table 12.
’ TABLE 12
PERCENTILE RANKS IN ASCENDANCY FOR
VARIOUS FEMALE GROUPS
scores
Percentile Ranks
Librarians Managers
College
Women
Clerks
High Schoo]
Girls
32 100 98
31 96 99 97 99 99
29 92 97 92 96 97
28 88 96 88 93 95
27 75 94 83 89 92
26 71 91 77 85 88
24 67 84 65 73 77
23 54 79 59 66 71
22 50 73 52 59 64
20 46 56 37 44 49
18 38 41 27 31 36
15 17 25 15 16 20
14 13 20 12 13 16
7 4 3 2 1 2
Gordon, Gordon Personal Profile Manual, pp. 5-7.
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96
The librarians' scores in ascendancy were most like those
of the college women. These two groups earned somewhat
higher scores than did the managers, clerks, and high school
students.
The comparison of the responsibility scores of the
various groups revealed that the employed women generally
rated themselves as more responsible than did the two
student populations. This difference in the responsibility
ratings of working women and students has been previously
observed by Gordon.^ Table 13 presents the percentile
rankings.
TABLE 13
PERCENTILE RANKS IN RESPONSIBILITY FOR
VARIOUS FEMALE GROUPS
scores
Percentile Ranks
Librarians Managers
College
Women
Clerks
High School
Girls
36 100 99 99
35 96 98 95
34 92 96 99 90
33 88 92 98 85
32 79 87 96 80 99
31 75 81 94 74 98
30 71 72 91 68 97
29 67 63 86 59 95
28 58 53 81 50 92
27 46 44 75 40 88
26 42 35 69 32 84
25 29 28 62 26 79
22 17 12 40 11 57
20 13 6 27 6 42
19 8 4 22 4 34
Gordon, Gordon Personal Profile Manual,
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97
The percentile rankings in emotional stability, like
those in responsibility, suggested that the group of
employed women scored higher than the college and high
school students. Level of maturity and selectivity of the
population membership may have been a factor in the results
in both these factors. The percentile rankings can be
examined in Table 14.
PERCENTILE RANKS IN EMOTIONAL STABILITY
FOR VARIOUS FEMALE GROUPS
scores
Percentile Ranks
Librarians Managers
College
Women
Clerks
High School
Girls
35 100 99 99
34 96 98 99 98
32 92 93 96 93 99
31 83 88 94 90 98
30 79 81 91 86 96
29 71 74 87 80 94
28 67 67 83 73 91
27 58 60 78 65 86
26 50 54 72 57 81
25 38 48 66 49 75
24 29 42 59 42 69
22 25 30 45 30 55
21 21 25 38 25 49
20 13 20 32 20 42
19 8 16 27 16 36
17 4 9 19 10 25
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98
The librarians' percentile ranks indicated that the
group's scores in sociability were lower than those of the
other women. Previous research reported that librarians
tended to be less sociable than certain other groups, so
this finding fit the pattern. Table 15 shows the percen
tile rankings.
TABLE 15
PERCENTILE RANKS IN SOCIABILITY FOR
VARIOUS FEMALE GROUPS
Scores
Percentile Ranks
Librarians Managers
College
Women
Clerks
High School
Girls
33 100 98 96 95 96
29 92 91 81 84 80
27 88 84 70 74 68
26 83 79 64 66 61
22 75 54 39 35 36
21 67 48 33 30 31
20 42 41 28 25 26
18 38 29 20 16 18
17 33 24 17 13 15
16 29 19 14 10 12
15 21 15 11 8 10
13 17 10 7 5 7
12 8 8 5 4 5
8 4 2 1 1 2
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The School Librarian's Questionnaire
The librarians' responses to the six-question inquiry
into their personal, educational, and experiential back
ground were tallied. In several instances, it was possible
to compare characteristics of this group of librarians with
a sample population from another research effort.
The ages of the librarians ranged from twenty-seven
years to sixty-three years. The median age of the librar
ians in the study was 46.5 years, somewhat less than the
median age of 50.2 years determined by Drennan and Darling
in their survey.^ Percentages in various age ranges are
shown in Table 16.
TABLE 16
COMPARISON OF SCHOOL LIBRARIANS BY AGE RANGE
Age Ranges
Percentages
Adams Study Dr ennan/D ar1ing Study
25-34 years 12.5 10.0
35-44 years 33.3 19.7
45-54 years 37.5 42.4
55-64 years 16.7 25.0
65 years or more 0 2.3
Drennan and Darling, Library Manpower, p. 15.
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The current investigation had a younger population with
45.8 per cent of the librarians under 45 years of age. Only
29.7 per cent of Drennan and Darling's national group indi
cated that they were less than 45 years old. Although the
Adams sample was not randomly selected, it was not surpris
ing that the sample of California librarians was compara
tively younger than the national sample. The California
population residing in the Los Angeles-Orange-San Diego
areas tended to be younger than the national population.^
The second segment of the School Librarian's Ques
tionnaire requested information related to the educational
experiences of the research participants. Nearly half of
the librarians claimed the University of Southern California
as the source of their professional degree in library
science. Other library schools graduating subjects
included: Case-Western Reserve University, Immaculate Heart
College, George Peabody College for Teachers, San Jose State
College, Simmons College, the University of California at
Berkeley, the University of California at Los Angeles, the
University of Denver, the University of Minnesota, the
University of Oklahoma, and the University of Washington.
The master's degree programs of all of the library schools
U.S., Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census,
United States Census of Population: 1970, General Popula
tion Characteristics, United States Summary, 1-261,
1-314-16.
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101
with the exception of Immaculate Heart College were
accredited by the American Library Association. The library
science program of Immaculate Heart College was accredited
by the California State Board of Education. In addition to
the master's degree in library science, two of the librar
ians possessed master's degrees in the field of education.
The Drennan and Darling report on school librarians did not
isolate the degree programs into subject majors, so that
the findings were not comparable to the results found in
this study.
The quantity of graduate course work in library
science completed by the research subjects varied only
slightly among the librarians. Those who pursued master's
degree programs distributing semester hours of credit
generally completed thirty to thirty-six graduate semester
hours, while individuals enrolled in quarter hour programs
finished forty-five graduate quarter hours of course work.
Forty-five quarter hours would be equivalent to thirty
semester hours.
The group averaged 1963 as the year in which their
last library science course was completed. One exceptional
librarian stated that she had attended her last library
science course over twenty years ago. Since her date might
affect the mean, the median is given. The median date of
the last course was between 1964 and 1965, with 75 per cent
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102
of the participants having enrolled in library science
studies during the 1960's and the 1970's.
The final portion of the School Librarian's Question
naire dealt with the experiential backgrounds of the librar
ians. The participants had spent an average of 10.4 years
in school librarianship. Several individuals had served as
school librarians for over twenty years, while one indi
vidual was just beginning her career as a school librarian.
The median number of years that the sample population had
worked in school library assignments was determined to be
9 years, somewhat less than the 14.4 years stated as the
median for female school librarians in the Drennan and
g project.^
The research subjects had served an average of 6.1
years in their current assignments. One librarian revealed
that she had been in her present position for twenty-one
years. As a group, the librarians in the study had been
employed in their present jobs for a briefer span of time
than the Drennan and Darling sample.^ The twenty-four
librarians worked a median of 5 years in their current situ
ations, while the Drennan and Darling subjects claimed a
median of 11.1 years with their organizations. Table 17
shows the longevity records of the two sets of librarians.
^Drennan and Darling, Library Manpower, p. 19.
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COMPARISON OF SCHOOL LIBRARIANS BY
DURATION OF ASSIGNMENT
Duration of
Assignments
Percentages
Adams Study Drennan/Darling Study
Less than 5 years
5 to 9 years
10 to 14 years
15 to 19 years
20 to 24 years
25 to 29 years
30 or more years
45.8
33.3
12.5
4.2
4.2
0
0
19.3
27.3
16.1
11.5
7.3
9.0
9.5
The greater job mobility evidenced by the Adams
sample might be attributed to the fact that Californians
are "movers." The United States Bureau of the Census
defined movers as persons who were not living in the same
house in 1970 as in 1965. The United States averaged a
moving population of 47 per cent, while California classed
56.5 per cent of its population in this category.^
U.S., Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census,
United States Census of Population; 1970, General Social
and Economic Characteristics, United States Summary,
1-345.
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104
The School Principal's Questionnaire
Responses to the School Principal's Questionnaire
were analyzed to determine the grade levels served by the
librarians involved in the study, the size of the student
population at the schools to which the librarians were
assigned, and the number of professional co-workers with
whom the librarians worked.
Slightly more than half of the librarians, thirteen,
serviced the library needs of pupils in the junior high
school grades of seven through nine. Senior high school
students in grades ten through twelve were provided library
services by three librarians, or one-eighth of the popula
tion under examination. Students in four-year high schools
featuring grades nine through twelve received attention frcm
eight librarians or one-third of the sample. The organiza
tional pattern of the unified school districts included
junior and senior high schools, as well as elementary
schools, while the union high school districts offered the
four-year high school programs.
The pupil enrollments ranged from 600 to 280 0 in
this study. The average school enrolled 1,584 students.
It might be noted that for each of these schools, the
assignment of a single librarian or media specialist failed
to meet the standards for school media programs established
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105
by the American Association of School Librarians and the
Department of Audiovisual Instruction of the National Educa
tion Association. These standards recommended that one full
time media specialist be assigned to work with every 250
pupils.^ However, California standards for a minimum media
program in a secondary school called for the hiring of 1
media specialist per 1,000 students.^ The presence of a
single librarian to serve a large student body was not
exceptional in that state. Research based on Elementary
and Secondary Education Act applications reported that in
the County of Los Angeles, of the 75 school districts par
ticipating in ESEA Title II programs, the number of students
per full-time equivalency librarian was 2,657. In Orange
County, with 27 districts joining in the ESEA Title II pro
gram, the number climbed to 2,765. The number of pupils
per full-time equivalency librarian in the 34 San Diego
County school districts totalled 2,500.^ It should be
emphasized that some of the schools in the districts
American Association of School Librarians and
National Education Association, Department of Audiovisual
Instruction, Standards for School Media Programs (Chicago:
American Library Association and Washington, D.C.: National
Education Association, 1969), p. 12.
^California Association of School Librarians and
Audio-Visual Education Association of California, Standards
for the Development of School Media Programs in California"
(Burlingame, Calif.: CASL Publications, 1970), p. 7.
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106
participating in ESEA Title II programs had no librarians
or only part-time librarians. This partially accounted for
the unbalanced ratio of librarians to pupils.
Obviously, a relationship existed between the number
of pupils on a campus and the number of professional employ
ees assigned to assist them. The rankings altered slightly
because several schools had augmented staffs providing
special services to pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds.
The number of professional staff members in the administra
tive, instructional, and guidance categories varied from 35
persons to 143 individuals. On the average, seventy-five
staff members were assigned to each school.
The Public Service Observation Record
Following twelve hours of observation, each librar
ian's time commitment to instruction, special services, and
circulation was totalled. The amount of time each librar
ian devoted to these activities varied. One librarian
performed no instructional tasks. Another librarian dedi
cated 162 minutes to instruction. The mean in this category
of activity was 50.5 minutes, with a standard deviation of
46.7 minutes, the largest standard deviation among the
three areas of public services.
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107
The schedules devoted to special services ranged
from a low of 17 minutes to a high of 197 minutes. The
mean amount of time spent in special services, 100.2
minutes, indicated that it was the public service activity
in which librarians most frequently engaged. The standard
deviation was 41.5 minutes for special services, less than
the deviation in the instructional time record.
Librarians participated in circulation tasks to a
lesser degree than the other two categories. Although the
minimum contribution was ten minutes, the maximum quota
consisted of only ninety-eight minutes. The librarians
averaged 36.8 minutes in circulation. The standard devia
tion was only 23.1 minutes.
Of the twelve hour observation period, one librarian
offered only ninety-seven minutes to performance of public
services. The maximum amount of time directed to public
services by a librarian reached 364 minutes, or half of the
observation time schedule. The average amount of time
spent in public service tasks was 197.5 minutes, with a
standard deviation of 60.7 minutes. Table 18 depicts the
means and standard deviations of the public service
commitments.
The 50.5 minutes spent in instructional chores con
stituted 8.4 per cent of the total time of observation.
The librarians in Crookston's study of unit costs for
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MEANS AND STANDARD DEVIATIONS OF TIME
ALLOTMENTS TO PUBLIC SERVICES
Public Service
Activity
Mean Time
Allotment
Standard
Deviation
Instruction
Special Services
Circulation
Total
60.5 minutes
100.2 minutes
36.8 minutes
197.5 minutes
46.7 minutes
41.5 minutes
23.1 minutes
60.7 minutes
services in libraries invested 3.1 per cent of their time
in teaching classes and 5.8 per cent of their time in other
advisory roles.^ The figures from the two samples were in
general agreement.
In the present study of librarians, an average of
13.9 per cent of the labor time went to special services
which included creating bibliographies, providing reference
assistance, and promoting the library through publicity
activities. Crookston's librarians allotted 1.9 per cent
of their time to compiling lists and bibliographies, 10.4
per cent to lending reference assistance, and 3.8 per cent
to encouraging good public relations.^ They offered
^Crookston, Unit Costs in a Selected Group of High-
School Libraries, p. 19.
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109
2 per cent more of their time to special services than the
research sample of this dissertation.
The average quota for circulation, only 36.8
minutes, converted to 5.1 per cent of the total time. This
low percentage contrasted notably with the 19.9 per cent of
their total time that the Crookston librcirians afforded to
circulation.^ Since the exact nature of the circulation
activities performed by the Crookston librarians nearly
thirty years ago was undefined, it was possible that the
Crookston librarians were executing numerous clerical tasks.
Today those clerical activities would be the province of
non-professional staff members according to the School
Library Personnel Task Analysis Survey, and would not have
been tallied in the Adams librarians' circulation contribu
tions. Table 19 indicates the distinctions.
TABLE 19
COMPARISON OF AVERAGE PERCENTAGES OF TIME
DEVOTED TO PUBLIC SERVICES
Public Service
Activities
Percentages
Adams Sample Crookston Sample
Instruction 8.4 8.9
Special Services 13.9 16.1
Circulation 5.1 19.9
Total 27.4 44.9
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Summary
Responses to all data-gathering instruments were
tabulated. Statistical operations revealed the central
tendencies and dispersions of the subjects' answers to the
various items on the questionnaires and their performances
as recorded on the observation sheet.
On the personality tests, the librarians fared
poorest in the ascendancy and sociability categories, with
median scores in the six other factors not differing very
much. As graduate level professionals, the librarians
generally scored higher than the other women in original
thinking. The librarians and the college women scored
similarly in ascendancy. In cautiousness, personal rela
tions, vigor, responsibility, and emotional stability, the
librarians resembled the employed women who had been
tested. However, the librarians' percentile rankings were
lower than the other women's groups in sociability.
Nearly half of the research participants were under
forty-five years of age. Many of them had graduated from
the University of Southern California School of Library
Science. With the exception of the Immaculate Heart College
library science program, the master's degree programs in
library science graduating the research subjects were
accredited by the American Library Association. Immaculate
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I l l
Heart's program was accredited by the California State
Board of Education. The librarians pursued a standard
number of library science courses, with 75 per cent of the
group having enrolled in library science studies during the
1960's and the 1970's. On the experiential level, the par
ticipants had worked as school librarians an average of
10.4 years with a mean of 6.1 years in their current
assignments.
Librarians from junior high schools, senior high
schools, and four-year high schools participated in the
research project. The enrollments at the schools averaged
1,584 pupils. Professional personnel working with these
pupils averaged seventy-five per school. Although the
assignment of one librarian and one clerk to aid pupils and
personnel at each of the schools failed to meet national
standard staff requirements, the single librarian and clerk
team was not atypical for Southern California schools.
On the average, approximately one-fourth of the
librarians' time was spent providing public services. The
most attention was given to special services. Instruction
claimed the intermediate portion of the public service
schedule, while the least time was invested in circulation
activities. These quotas, excepting the circulation seg
ment, did not vary much from the figures established in the
Crookston survey.
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CHAPTER V
CORRELATION ANALYSIS
This chapter presents the results of statistical
tests to determine the correlations between various factors
and the amount of time allotted by the librarians to public
service activities. Of prime concern were the potential
links between the librarians' personality characteristics
and their service records. Additionally, certain elements
of the librarians' personal, educational, and experiential
backgrounds, as well as their work environments, were
examined statistically for their relationships to the ser
vice performances of the librarians.
The Personality Tests
The Gordon Personal Inventory
Results of the Spearman rank-order correlation pro
cedure revealed that no significant relationships existed
between three of the Gordon Personal Inventory factors and
the four public service categories. Cautiousness, original
thinking, and vigor were not found to be connected
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113
significantly to instruction, special services, circulation,
or total public services.
Although the remaining Inventory factor, personal
relations, did not appear to be associated with instruction
or special services, significant correlations were estab
lished between that factor and both circulation and total
public services. The personal relations factor correlated
negatively with circulation at the .01 level of signifi
cance. This same factor achieved a negative relationship
with total public services that was significant at the .05
level. The lower a librarian scored in personal relations,
the more time she devoted to circulation and total public
services.
Table 20 shows the Spearman rank-order correlation
statistics for the Gordon Personal Inventory and the public
service activities.
The significance findings at the .01 level supported
a firm connection in a negative direction between personal
relations and circulation. In the case of the correlation
between personal relations and total public services,
however, it was suspected that the amount of time allotted
to circulation influenced the negative link. To test this
theory, circulation services were withdrawn from the public
service totals, and a second test was conducted to discover
the relationship between personal relations and the combined
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RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN INVENTORY FACTORS
AND PUBLIC SERVICE ACTIVITIES
Inventory
Public Service Activities
Factors
Instruction Special Circulation Total
Cautiousness -.057 -.056 -.115 -.108
Original
Thinking
-.253 .153 .150 -.031
Personal
Relations
-.005 -.086 -.540^ -.44^
Vigor -.307 .357 -.220 -.195
Significant at the .01 level
^Significant at the .05 level
totals of the two remaining püblic service elements—
instruction and special services. In this instance, a cor
relation figure was derived that failed to meet the estab
lished requirements of a .05 or better level of
significance.
The negative link between personal relations and
circulation implied that the lower a librarian rated herself
on the personal relations scale, the more she involved
herself in circulation activities. It should be recalled
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that low personal relations scores reflected a lack of trust
or confidence in people, and a tendency to be critical of
others and to become annoyed or irritated by what they did.^
Before drawing any conclusion that librarians scor
ing low in personal relations were ideally suited for school
library positions, a number of facts required consideration.
The range of scores in personal relations was sixteen
points, the smallest range among the personality factors
under scrutiny. The median score in personal relations was
twenty-nine points, highest median among the eight factors
of the two Gordon tests. From the evidence presented by
the twenty-four libarians, one could suppose that a mild
degree of distrust in the capabilities of others might
serve as an incentive to the librarians to dedicate more
time to circulation tasks. However, since none of the
librarians earned exceptionally low scores in the personal
relations category, it would be impossible to know whether
or not the trend toward increased circulation would have
been sustained as the scores went into the critically low
A close examination of the specific circulation
assignments completed by the librarians revealed additional
information concerning the association between personal
relations scores and public service behavior. Two types of
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116
circulation activities claimed the major portion of the
librarians' time. They were: (1) computing, collecting,
and recording payments for overdue, damaged, or lost
materials, and (2) locating requested materials and inform
ing users of their availability.
Both lack of trust and a tendency to be critical were
expressed frequently in the fines collecting role of the
librarians. Several felt that all financial matters,
including fines, were best left under the librarians' con
trol as the most responsible persons on the library staff.
Occasionally, some of the school librarians displayed their
displeasure with patrons accruing fines by scolding them
mildly. That fines collecting does not have to come under
the librarians' total control is evidenced by the fact that
nearly half of the head librarians in the School Library
Personnel Task Analysis Survey did not compile, collect,
and record payments for overdue, damaged, or lost materials.
According to the Survey, clerks attended to these chores in
many instances.^
The influence of ratings in personal relations on
locating requested materials was more subtle. In certain
instances, when patrons could have been directed to secure
their own materials, librarians retrieved the requested
School Library Personnel Task Analysis Survey, p. 61.
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117
materials themselves, hinting that they harbored doubts as
to whether or not the patrons could find the materials on
their own.
In summary, correlations were found between one
factor on the Gordon Personal Inventory and two public ser
vice elements. Scores in personal relations linked nega
tively with circulation activities and total public ser
vices, the latter relationship being influenced by the
amount of attention devoted to circulation tasks. The nega
tive connection between personal relations and circulation
was especially evident in fines collecting and materials
locating. However, since scores did not delve into the low
ranges, it was impossible to determine whether or not
extremely low scores in personal relations would have con
tinued the trend toward productivity in circulation ser
vices. No relationships were discovered between cautious
ness, original thinking, and vigor, and any of the public
services.
The Gordon Personal Profile
The Spearman rank-order correlation method failed to
produce any significant statistical relationships between
Gordon Personal Profile scores and the public service outlay
of the twenty-four librarians. Ascendancy, responsibility,
emotional stability, and sociability were not found to be
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118
connected in any significant manner to the librarians'
performances of instructional services, special services,
circulation services, or total public services.
Table 21 displays the Spearman statistics for the
Profile-public services analysis.
RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN PROFILE FACTORS
AND PUBLIC SERVICE ACTIVITIES
Public Service Activities
Profile factors
Instruction Special Circulation Total
Ascendancy -.174 .041 -.008 -.160
Responsibility -.085 -.055 -.157 -.096
Emotional
Stability
-.185 -.008 -.211 -.160
Sociability -.216 -.134 -.055 -.335
The School Librarian's Questionnaire
The responses to four of the questions on the School
Librarian's Questionnaire were suited for correlation
analysis with public service performance. The first ques
tion dealt with the ages of the librarians. The Spearman
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119
test results indicated that age was not linked to instruc
tional, special, or circulation services performed by the
librarians. However, the relationship between age and total
time spent in public services reached the .05 level of
significance. The older a librarian was, the more time she
contributed to total public services.
Table 22 presents the correlations discovered between
the librarians' ages and their public service efforts.
RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN AGE AND
PUBLIC SERVICE ACTIVITIES
Public Service Activities Spearman p Statistics
Instruction .315
Special Services -.030
Circulation .169
Total Public Services .415^
^Significant at the .05
The next set of correlations considered was that of
course recency and public services. The Spearman analyses
revealed no links between course recency and any of the
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120
public service elements: instruction, special services,
circulation, or total public services.
Table 23 describes the results of the tests to deter
mine connections between course recency and service.
RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN COURSE RECENCY
AND PUBLIC SERVICE ACTIVITIES
Public Service Activities Spearman p Statistics
Instruction -.199
Special Services -.003
Circulation -.125
Total Public Services -.240
The number of years of professional experience the
librarians had was checked statistically for ties to the
librarians' public service performances. No significant
connections were discovered between career longevity and
instruction, special services, circulation, and total
public services.
Table 24 shows the Spearman rank-order correlation
statistics produced from the experience-public services
analyses.
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RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN YEARS OF EXPERIENCE
AND PUBLIC SERVICE ACTIVITIES
Public Service Activities Spearman p Statistics
Instruction
Special Services
Circulation
Total Public Services
.249
.293
-.088
.389
The final item of information disclosed in the
School Librarian's Questionnaire was the number of years
that the librarians had spent in their present assignments.
According to the Spearman test results, the durations of
the current job assignments of the librarians failed to
relate to the amount of time that they allotted to instruc
tion, special services, and circulation. However, a rela
tionship reaching the .02 level of significance developed
between the length of the librarians' terms in their present
duty posts and the total amount of time that they spent in
public services.
The correlation figures analyzing length of current
assignment and services are exhibited in Table 25.
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TABLE
RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN
ASSIGNMENT AND PUBLIC
122
25
DURATION OF PRESENT
SERVICE ACTIVITIES
Public Service Activities Spearman p Statistics
Instruction .241
Special Services .165
Circulation .262
Total Public Services .528^
significant at the .02 level
Both age and duration of present assignment showed
significant associations with the total amount of time
invested in public services. It was suspected that age was
connected with length of tenure in the current library
position — that older librarians were likely to have served
in their posts for longer periods than younger librarians.
The Spearman rank-order correlation test verified that such
a link existed at the .01 level of significance with a
statistic of .765. Since the significance level achieved
from the statistic produced by correlating length of job
assignment and total public services was greater than the
one derived from the relationship between age and total
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1 2 3
public services, job duration was considered to be the more
influential of the two factors.
One reason for the effect exerted by length of
assignment on the public service behavior of the librarians
may be explained by Anthony C. Schulzetenberge's findings
in his research for his doctorate. Schulzetenberge aimed
to identify interests and background variables characteriz
ing secondary school librarians who worked with teachers in
curriculum development and improvement of instruction. A
secondary goal was to discover the degree to which these
interests and background variables could be utilized to
predict success in the working relationships of the librar
ians and teachers.^
Schulzetenberge's research, conducted during the
1969-1970 school year, involved 114 head librarians of
accredited Minnesota public high schools. He employed as
data-gathering instruments a Principal's Questionnaire, a
Librarian's Questionnaire, and the Strong Vocational
Interest Blank. The Principal's Questionnaire sought infor
mation about the librarians' work activities. The Librar
ian's Questionnaire explored the backgrounds of the librar-
Variables Characterizing Secondary School Librarians Who Work
with Teachers in Curriculum Development and Improvement of
Instruction" (unpublished Ed.D. dissertation. University
of North Dakota, 1970), p. x.
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124
ians and the schools at which they served. The Strong
Vocational Interest Blank identified the interest patterns
of the librarians.^
Schulzetenberge analyzed the librarians' ratings in
29 of 300 tasks appearing on the Task Analysis Survey
Instrument upon which the School Library Personnel Task
Analysis Survey was based. This same survey also provided
the critical services for the Adams study. Among the cate
gories of services in which Schulzetenberge expressed
interest were: service for special interests and activities,
library media center visits, and special work with faculty
members
From the information gathered from the Librarian's
Questionnaire, Schulzetenberge determined that several per
sonal background variables characterized the school librar
ians who worked with teachers in curriculum development and
improvement of instruction. Among these were: a higher
level of training, a greater number of curriculum courses,
no preference in working with either students or teachers,
and a larger number of years of library experience within
the present school district.^ The discovery of a relation
ship between experience in the same district and the time
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125
investment in public services supports the findings in the
Adams study, with the exception that the latter study nar
rowed the focus of experience to service within the same
school.
Schulzetenberge concluded that a relationship between
teacher and librarian should be developed.^ It would seem
reasonable to expect that familiarity with the school's
program, its staff and its student body would be an asset
to the school librarian in determining how best to satisfy
the needs and interests of her public. Stability in library
assignment might also indicate that the school librarian
felt comfortable in her position and responded with favor
able service, or that a sense of esprit de corps encouraged
cooperation among librarian, staff, and student body.
The correlation analysis of responses to the School
Librarian's Questionnaire and the tabulations of the ser
vices contributed by the librarians yielded the following
results; (1) age, course recency, years of experience, and
duration of present assignment were unrelated to performance
of instruction, special services, and circulation activi
ties, (2) course recency and years of experience were not
connected with the total amount of attention given to public
services, (3) age related to total public services at the
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126
.05 level, (4) duration of present assignment correlated
with the total dedication to public services at the .02
level.
Age and duration of present assignment were linked
factors. The older a librarian was, the more tenure she
was likely to have in her current position. The stronger
association with total public services developed from the
longevity of professional assignment. It was felt that
this relationship between job stability and service could
be traced to familiarity with patrons' needs and interests,
contentment with one's work and an accompanying desire to
perform at a high level of proficiency, and a well-developed
esprit de corps among library staff, faculty, and student
body.
The School Principal's Questionnaire
Each of the three questions on the School Principal's
Questionnaire yielded data that could be tested for statis
tical correlations with public services. Type of school,
pupil enrollment, and size of professional staff were each
analyzed to determine their association with instruction,
special services, circulation, and total public service
performance.
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127
First, schools were grouped into three types— junior
high schools, senior high schools, and four-year high
schools. Since there were small numbers of both senior
high schools and four-year high schools, and there were
similarities in the program offerings of these two types of
schools, their data were combined and treated as one. This
produced a dichotomous situation, with high schools, con
sisting of grades ten through twelve and nine through
twelve, contrasted with junior high schools, composed of
grades seven through nine. The Mann-Whitney U test
replaced the Spearman rank-order correlation method as the
more suitable statistical procedure for testing the correla
tion of dichotomies.
Statistical findings indicated that type of school
was not significantly related to instruction, circulation,
or total public services as performed by the school librar
ians. Type of school did influence, however, the amount of
time the librarians allotted to special services at the .05
level of significance. Librarians in high schools spent
more time engaged in special services than did librarians
in junior high schools.
Table 26 shows the results of the Mann-Whitney U
test analyzing the relationships between type of school and
public services.
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RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN TYPE OF SCHOOL
AND PUBLIC SERVICE ACTIVITIES
Public Service Activities Mann-Whitney U Statistics
Instruction 65.5
Special Services 37^
Circulation 53
Total Public Services 85
Significant at the .05 level
Pupil enrollment figures presented in the second
response on the School Principal's Questionnaire were
examined in connection with their effect on public service
production. Using the Spearman rank-order method, the
analyses revealed no significant links between enrollment
and the public service categories of instruction, circula
tion, and total public services. However, like type of
school, pupil enrollment affected the amount of time dedi
cated to special services at the .05 level of significance.
The larger the pupil enrollment was at a school, the greater
the amount of time the libre-c’an devoted to special
services.
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129
The results of the Spearman tests of the effects of
enrollment on public service activities are presented in
Table 27.
RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN ENROLLMENT AND
PUBLIC SERVICE ACTIVITIES
Public Service Activities Spearman p Statistics
Instruction -.009
Special Services .458^
Circulation -.033
Total Public Services .211
^Significant at the .05
The Spearman test also was utilized to test the con
nection between the number of professional personnel
assigned to the schools according to responses to the third
question on the School Principal's Questionnaire and the
public service output of the librarians. Again, the size
of the staff did not appear to be associated with the
amount of time allotted to instruction, circulation, or
total public services. The size of the professional staff
influenced the special services schedule at the .02 level
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130
of significance, a more notable figure than those produced
by type of school and pupil enrollment. As the size of the
school staff increased, the librarian tended to invest more
time in special services.
Table 28 details the statistical analyses of the
association between staff size and public services.
RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN PROFESSIONAL STAFF SIZE
AND PUBLIC SERVICE ACTIVITIES
Public Service Activities Spearman p Statistics
Instruction .028
Special Services .501^
Circulation -.040
Total Public Services .314
^Significant at the .02 : level
The three environmental factors— type of school,
size of student body, and size of professional staff, all
related to special services. Moreover, it was discovered
that a high degree of interrelatedness existed among the
three environmental components. This research study
included eleven high schools and thirteen junior high
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131
schools. Of the eleven high schools, ten served the top
enrollments among the twenty-four schools in the population
sample. These ten high schools, along with two junior high
schools with federally sponsored enrichment programs,
employed the largest professional staffs among the members
of the research sample.
Schulzetenberge, cited earlier for his attempt to
identify interests and background variables characterizing
secondary school librarians who worked with teachers in
curriculum development and improvement of instruction, made
discoveries that supported the statistical results obtained
from the Adams study. Schulzetenberge found that among the
school background variables that characterized the school
librarians who worked well with teachers were: an integrated
or coordinated materials program, a greater number of
clerical and professional assistants, a type of school
organization consisting of senior high only, and slightly
larger teaching staffs and schools.^ It should be noted
that Schulzetenberge covered professional library activi
ties that encompassed more than the special services cate
gory in his research.
One explanation for the high schools, schools with
larger enrollments, and schools with sizeable staffs
receiving more time in special services from the librarians
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132
might be found in a theory expounded by Edward Barth, a
Montgomery County, Maryland high school librarian, in a
1970 survey. Barth sensed that the variety of teaching
structures available at a school affected the amount of
services offered by the librarians.
Barth defined teaching structures as "the variety of
teaching organizations, structures, patterns, and adminis
trative arrangements found in public schools.Among the
teaching structures he considered were; individualized
study, language labs, large/small group instruction, inter
discipline subject planning teams, flexible scheduling,
teacher aides, pass-fail courses, and courses available
regardless of grade level.^ These teaching structures often
promoted independent investigations by students using
library resources interpreted by the school librarians.
These structures also encouraged more teamwork by educators,
with librarians holding vital posts as coordinators of
resources.
Based on the special services covered in the School
Library Personnel Task Analysis Survey, the special ser-
Selected Teaching Structures and the Activities of Media
Centers in Public Senior High Schools in the State of
Maryland" (unpublished D.Ed. dissertation, George Washington
University, 1971), p. 10.
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133
vices interesting Barth could be categorized as follows:
provision of listing and review services; publicity and
information services ; services for special interests and
activities; guidance and counseling services; and special
work with faculty members.^
Barth concluded from the data obtained from the 104
participating high schools that "the variety of services
that a media center offers and performs within its school
appears not to be affected by the number, frequency, or
types of teaching structures employed in that school.
This conclusion was not supported by the Adams research
findings. In the Adams study, the greater variety of
teaching structures existed in the senior high schools and
high schools, which generally had larger enrollments and
staffs than the junior high schools, and in the two junior
high schools with federal enrichment programs augmenting
their staffs. The range of teaching structures available
at the schools was evidenced in the school handbooks
describing the structure of the school curricula and the
range of course offerings, and by the personal observation
completed by the researcher. Those institutions offering
National Education Association, Research Division,
School Library Personnel Task Analysis Survey, p. 34.
^Barth, "The Relationship Between Selected Teaching
Structures and the Activities of Media Centers," p. 17 0.
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134
numerous teaching structures tended to receive more special
services from their librarians than did schools with a
limited assortment of teaching structures.
Sample heterogeneity may have accounted for Barth's
inability to uncover distinctions among members of his popu
lation sample in terms of their reception of public ser
vices. Some of the librarians in Barth's samples held only
bachelor's degrees, others possessed master's degrees, and
a few had earned sixth year certificates. There were
librarians in Barth's sample who worked without assistance
of any kind, while others had clerical and technical aid,
and, in some instances, the professional support of a
second or third librarian. Approximately half of the
librarians in Barth's sample had centralized processing
available to them.
Apart from the fact that both junior high school
librarians and high school librarians participated in the
research project, the Adams sample was more homogeneous.
All of the librarians had merited master's degrees in
library science, worked as the sole librarian in their
respective schools, had the services of one clerk, and were
responsible for their own materials processing.
Another factor that might account for Barth's
results was the employment of subjective criteria for deter
mining the availability of the services of the librarians.
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135
The service record was established by coding a number of
statements regarding the library program as follows: no use;
little use; moderate use; considerable use; and extensive
use. The respondents may have had varying definitions of
what each of these descriptors meant in terms of the ser
vice behavior of the librarians. The Adams study accounted
for the service interests of the librarians in a more
objective fashion, using the observation of specific tasks
on several occasions to chronicle the librarians' commit
ments to public services.
Discernment of associations between teaching struc
ture and service performance in the Barth study would have
been improved if his sample population had been sorted not
only by the number of teaching structures available, but
also by the librarians' educational background, the work
force available in the library, and the services provided
by the school districts to relieve the local staffs, and if
a more objective method of determining the provision of
library services had been utilized.
Results of the statistical tests correlating
responses to the School Principal's Questionnaire and the
public service contributions of the twenty-four librarians
in the sample can be summarized as follows: (1) type of
school, size of enrollment, and size of professional staff
were unconnected with instruction, circulation, or total
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136
public services, (2) type of school and size of enrollment
related to special services at the ,05 level, (3) size of
professional staff correlated with special services at the
.02 level.
There seemed to be an interconnection among the
three environmental factors of school type, student popula
tion, and staff size. Librarians at the schools having
larger enrollments and professional staffs, which happened
in many cases to be high schools, generally performed more
special services than librarians at schools with smaller
enrollments and professional staffs, which often were
junior high schools. One possible reason for this differ
ence could be the existence of more teaching structures at
the larger and better staffed schools. These teaching
structures often demanded that librarians participate more
actively in meeting the information needs of individual
students and groups of students and that librarians work
more closely with teachers as members of the instructional
Summary
The librarians' replies to the two Gordon personality
tests and the School Librarian's Questionnaire and the
principals' answers to the School Principal's Questionnaire
were reported in Chapter IV. Chapter V analyzed the
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137
relationships between several of the responses and the
librarians' records of public services. Correlation testing
of the rankings in the eight personality factors and the
rankings in the four public service factors produced only
two significant findings. Scores in personal relations were
linked negatively with time spent in circulation and total
public services. The personal relations factor cast its
chief influence on circulation. Librarians expressed their
negative personal relations by trusting only themselves to
collect fines, by mildly reprimanding patrons who returned
materials late, and by doubting patrons' abilities to
locate their own materials. Since there were no critically
low scores in personal relations, the research only con
firmed that a mild degree of distrust and a mild tendency to
be critical might be accompanied by increased circulation
activity from the librarians with these traits.
The School Librarian's Questionnaire dealt chiefly
with the librarians' personal, educational, and experiential
backgrounds. The Spearman rank-order correlation test was
successful in exposing only two relationships. Age and
duration of present assignment were discovered to be linked
with total public service output. In turn, age and duration
of present assignment affected each other, with older
librarians generally posted in their positions for a longer
period of time than younger librarians. Length of service
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138
at the current school affected total public services to a
greater degree than age. Opportunity to develop a good
working relationship among the library staff, faculty, and
student body might account for the influence of job dura
tion on public services.
The responses to the School Principal's Questionnaire
were examined in connection with their effect on public
service performance. Type of school, size of enrollment,
and size of professional staff exhibited relationships only
with special services. An interrelationship was observed
among the three factors of school type, student population,
and staff size. Senior high schools and high schools, in
most instances the schools with the larger enrollments and
the larger staffs, received more special services from
their librarians. It was felt that because schools with
these characteristics had a greater variety of teaching
structures, the librarians had greater demands placed on
them by faculty and students to provide special services.
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CHAPTER V I
SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Selection of the most suitable candidate to fill a
job vacancy is vital to the welfare of any organization.
A variety of selection aids designed to yield information
about an individual's capacity to fit a job slot are in use
by industry at this time. Library employers, however, have
tended to rely chiefly on credential evaluation and the per
sonal interview for making decisions on whether or not to
hire an applicant for a position. The personality test,
although utilized by many industrial employers, has not been
favored by library personnel officers. One reason cited for
the neglect of the screening instrument is the belief that
it is not useful in predicting success.
This research project explored the relationships
between scores earned by selected school librarians on cer
tain personality tests and their fulfillment of one success
criterion — the quantity of work performed in library public
services. The personality measurement devices consisted of
the Gordon Personal Inventory and the Gordon Personal
Profile. The job assignments quantified included instruc
tional services, special services, circulation services, and
total activity in those three public service categories.
139
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140
Twenty-four Southern California secondary school librarians
with master's degrees in library science and working singly
in their schools composed the research population. In addi
tion to the two personality tests, the librarians were asked
to complete a School Librarian's Questionnaire. The School
Principal's Questionnaire was submitted to the head adminis
trator at each librarian's school. Finally, each librarian
was observed at her work for twelve hours.
A survey of the pertinent library literature revealed
that inquiries into personality-public service relationships
in library science had been sparse. Personality studies in
librarianship concentrated chiefly on the personality
make-up of librarians, while public service research in the
field was directed mainly toward determining the librarians'
program of public services. Data in these two areas of
library science, personality characteristics and public
service schedules, provided a portion of the historical
foundations for this project.
Summary of Research Findings
Achievements on the Gordon Personal Inventory, the
Gordon Personal Profile, the School Librarian's Question
naire, the School Principal's Questionnaire, and the Public
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Service Observation Record were tabulated. The results were
as follows:
1. With a maximum possible score of 40 points
obtainable in each factor of the Gordon Personal Inventory,
the librarians merited median scores of 29 points in per
sonal relations, 28 points in original thinking, 27.5 points
in cautiousness, and 26.5 points in vigor. Percentile rank
ings of librarians were compared with those earned by women
in other fields. The librarians' scores in original think
ing tended to be higher than those of the women in the
managerial and student populations for which percentile
ranks were given. The ratings of the librarians in the
three remaining Inventory factors— cautiousness, personal
relations, and vigor, resembled most closely the rankings of
the female first level managers.
2. The maximum score that could be earned on each of
the four Gordon Personal Profile scales was thirty-six
points. The medians obtained by the librarians on the
Profile consisted of 28 points in responsibility, 26.5
points in emotional stability, 22.5 points in ascendancy,
and 21 points in sociability. In the ascendancy trait, the
librarians' percentile rankings were most like those of the
college women. However, percentile ranks in responsibility
and emotional stability showed the librarians and the groups
of working women to have more in common. As a group, the
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1 42
librarians rated themselves lower in sociability than the
other women tested.
3. The median age of the school librarians partici
pating in the research was 46.5 years. Nearly half of the
group received the professional degree in library science
from the University of Southern California, a library school
with a master's program that is accredited by the American
Library Association. The only school reported as a source
of the master's degree in librarianship not accredited by
the American Library Association was Immaculate Heart
College. The School of Library Science of Immaculate Heart
College received its accreditation from the California
State Board of Education. Generally, the librarians had
completed thirty to thirty-six graduate semester hours in a
library science program, or an equivalent forty-five gradu
ate quarter hours in such a program. The group reported
1963 as the average date of the last library science course.
The sample population had been employed an average of 10.4
years in the profession of school librarianship, with 6.1
years the mean duration of the current assignment,
4. The responses of the administrators to the
School Principal's Questionnaire indicated that about half
of the librarians in the study were classified as junior
high school personnel, while the remaining members of the
sample worked at the high school and senior high school
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143
levels. The average school served by the research partici
pants enrolled 1,584 pupils. The librarians provided media
services to an average of seventy-five staff members in the
administrative, instructional, and guidance categories at
each school.
5. From the Public Service Observation Record it was
learned that 100.2 minutes constituted the average amount of
time dedicated to special services during the 12 hour
observation period conducted for each librarian. The stan
dard deviation was 41.5 minutes. The mean amount of time
devoted to instruction was 50.5 minutes, with a standard
deviation of 46.7 minutes. Circulation tasks consumed, on
the average, only 36.8 minutes of the librarians' time, with
the standard deviation in the circulation category being
23.1 minutes. The amount of time absorbed by the total of
the three types of public service activities averaged 197.5
minutes, with a standard deviation reaching 60.7 minutes.
The percentages of the work schedule allotted to each cate
gory were as follows; special services received 13.9 per
cent; instruction obtained 8.4 per cent; circulation merited
5.1 per cent; and the total public service schedule earned
27.4 per cent.
6. Of the four factors measured by the Gordon Per
sonal Inventory, only personal relations showed any link to
public service activities. The personal relations trait was
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144
related negatively to circulation at the .01 level and to
the total public service schedule at the .05 level. Cau
tiousness, original thinking, and vigor demonstrated no
connection with instruction, special services, circulation,
or the public service total. The Gordon Personal Profile
scores also were uncorrelated with the public service per
formance of the librarians. Ratings in ascendancy, respon
sibility, emotional stability, and sociability did not
relate to time spent in instruction, special services, cir
culation, or total public services.
7. Correlations were attempted between four of the
responses to the School Librarian's Questionnaire and the
Public Service Observation Record. The ages of the librar
ians were not associated with the amounts of time they
devoted to instruction, special services, or circulation.
However, age did have a significant bearing on the total
amount of time channeled into public services; in this
instance, the .05 level of significance was reached. The
older librarians tended to spend more time engaged in
library public services.
The recency of coursework pursued by the librarians
and the number of years of experience claimed by the librar
ians were unconnected to their public service production.
Like age, though, the duration of the current assignment
held by the librarians related significantly to the amount
of time invested in public services by the librarians. The
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145
level of significance reached was the .02 level. Those
librarians with longer tenure in their present assignments
devoted more time to total public services. No links were
found between duration of current library post and instruc
tion, special services, or circulation as individual cate
gories of service.
8. The results of the Mann-Whitney U tests conducted
on the responses to the first question on the School Prin
cipal's Questionnaire and the record of the observed behav
ior of the librarians produced no significant links between
type of school and instruction, circulation, or total public
services. Type of school was discovered to be associated
with the amount of time allotted for special services, with
the significance level at .05. Librarians at high schools
and senior high schools devoted more time to special ser
vices than did junior high school librarians.
A significant connection between size of pupil enroll
ment and special services also was evidenced at the .05
level. Librarians employed at the schools with the larger
enrollments, which tended to be the high schools and senior
high schools, spent more time engaged in special services
than did the librarians at the schools with the smaller
enrollments, which generally were the junior high schools.
Enrollment was unassociated with the allocation of time for
instruction, circulation, and total public services.
The third element from the School Principal's Ques
tionnaire, professional staff size, like type of school and
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146
size of enrollment, showed a significant linkage at the .02
level with the special services schedule. The larger the
size of the professional staff, the more time the librarians
invested in special services. No connection was found
between professional staff size and the performance of
instruction, circulation, or total public services.
Conclusions
A number of conclusions were reached after all of
the findings were examined. It was determined that:
1. Ratings earned by the school librarians on the
Gordon Personal Inventory and the Gordon Personal Profile
indicated that ascendancy and sociability were the sample
population's weakest traits. This revelation would appear
to coincide with information gathered from earlier research
efforts: (1) Douglass reported that female library school
students described themselves as more antisocial, submis
sive, and apathetic than the female norm,^ (2) Rainwater
found that the female library school students in her study
ranked below the normative population in affiliation and
study rated themselves below average in leadership.^
Library School Students," pp. 16-21.
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147
Subjects completing the Gordon Personal Profile tended
to show somewhat different results from other personality
measures used by previous researchers. Although the librar
ians received lower scores in ascendancy than in six of the
other factors tested, an examination of their percentile ranks
showed them to be similar to the rankings of college women in
the ascendancy trait as measured by the Gordon Personal Profile.
One might conclude that although the ascendancy ratings of
the twenty-four librarians were low, they were not atypical
of women from similar educational backgrounds.
The sociability scores of the librarians and the per
centile rankings of the librarians supported their research
reputations for possessing somewhat antisocial tendencies.
The lowest median score earned by the sample was in socia
bility; moreover, the percentile rankings of the librarians,
compared with those of other female groups providing data,
placed them lower than managers, college women, clerks, and
high school girls.
High scores in ascendancy and sociability would seem
to be assets for school librarians, but the correlation
analysis did not demonstrate any link between these two
traits and the public services success criteria. Before
concluding that these two items were unrelated to public
services, other tests measuring ascendancy and sociability
traits, such as the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality
Inventory and the Edwards Personal Preference Schedule
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should be tested against the performance of the librarians.
2. One positive characteristic of the school librar
ians evidenced by their scores on the Gordon Personal Inven
tory was their rating in original thinking. The librarians
achieved their second highest median in this trait. When
compared to three other female groups, the percentile rank
ings of the school librarians were generally better than
those of managers, college women, and high school girls. In
his research, Baillie also determined that librarians who
were successful in library schools (graduation being one
criterion) rated high in intellectual efficiency and psycho-
logical-mindedness.^ Since librarians with professional
degrees in library science have developed the skills for
study at the graduate level and are employed in a field that
has information as its basic ware, one would expect original
thinking to be a prominent characteristic among the members
of this group of women.
3. According to responses to the School Librarian's
Questionnaire, the twenty-four participants were more
typical of a California population than the nation. Com
pared to the national sample used in Drennan and Darling's
study, the group was younger, its members had been librar
ians for a shorter period of time, and had served in their
present posts for a briefer duration.^ Census figures
^Baillie, "Objective Admission Variables as They
Relate to Academic and Job Success," pp. 124-26.
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149
affirmed that California had a younger, more mobile population.
Adding an additional local character to the research popula
tion was the fact that most of the librarians had earned their
library science degree at California library schools. The
chapter on research methodology pointed out that the librar
ians chosen for this study were a purposive sample. The
research conclusions would have to be interpreted in terms
of the composition of this select group, and not librarians
in general.
4. A discouraging conclusion derived from the
responses to the School Principal's Questionnaire was that
the California librarians in this sample served under less
than ideal circumstances. National standards suggested 1
media specialist per 250 pupilswhile California recom
mendations for a minimally supported library program were 1
media specialist per 1,000 students.^ Working in junior
high schools, high schools, and senior high schools, the
librarians in this research project provided media services
to student bodies ranging in size from 600 to 2800 students,
with the average number of pupils served being 1,584.
Although a number of the librarians made valiant efforts,
several of them seemed to be hard pressed to offer an ade-
for School Media Programs,
2o
California Association of School Librarians, Stan
dards for the Development of School Media Programs in
California, p. 7.
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150
quate media program to all the members of the school popu
lation. According to suggestions in Standards for School
Media Programs, the librarian would be expected to perform
such activities as: serve as instructional resource consul
tant; make materials accessible; assist in the production
of materials; aid in curriculum planning and instructional
design; teach the use of media; help pupils to develop study
skills; provide media guidance; serve on teaching teams; and
maintain a professional collection.^
5. Despite the thirty year time span between the
Crookston study and this research, and the increasing empha
sis on the service role of the librarian, there was little
difference in the percentages of time devoted to instruction
and to special services. Crookston's librarians spent 8.9
per cent of their time providing instruction and 16.1 per
cent of their time offering special services, while the
librarians in the current project spent 8.4 per cent of
their time in instruction and 13.9 per cent in special ser
vices. ^ None of the twenty-four librarians in this recent
sample had centralized processing of materials available to
them, so that they were responsible for processing their
own materials, as were the librarians of past decades.
Indeed, the quantity of materials and the nature of these
for School Media Programs, pp. 8-9.
School Libraries, p. 19.
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151
materials (audio-visual as well as print) have increased,
giving today's librarian a larger assignment in this area.
Technical services probably usurps a fair amount of time
that could be spent by the librarian in direct services to
students and staff. Indeed, in Olson's study of the per
ception of the librarian's role by principals, teachers, and
librarians, all three groups agreed that in existing pro
grams of library services, technical processing received the
greatest attention of the school librarian.^ A follow-up
study utilizing librarians in school districts providing
centralized services might reveal information as to whether
or not provision of centralized .processing services would
divert more of the librarians' efforts into public services.
6. In circulation activities, the Crookston librar
ians differed from the sample of twenty-four librarians.
Crookston ' s librarians scheduled 19.9 per cent of their time to
circulation activities, while the Southern California librar
ians invested only 5.1 per cent of their time in this area. This
discrepancy in circulation performance also affected the total
public service program, with Crookston's group utilizing 44.9
per cent of its schedule in providing public services, while the
librarians in the recent research engaged in public services
Olson, "Teachers', Principals', and Librarians'
Perception of the School Librarian's Role," p. 140.
School Librarians, p. 19.
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152
sketchily defined in the Crookston report, so it is likely that
the large percentage of time spent in circulation activities
reported by the Crookston sample included periods when the
librarians were performing some circulation chores that today
are, or should be, taken care of by clerical assistants.
7. Spearman rank-order correlation tests seeking to
uncover relationships between the Gordon personality fac
tors and public service activities met with limited success.
Cautiousness, original thinking, vigor, ascendancy, respon
sibility, emotional stability, and sociability were not
found to be linked with public service behavior. Only per
sonal relations scores had any effect on public services,
and then, only in a negative direction on circulation and
total public services. The lower an individual scored in the
personal relations factor, the more time she spent in circu
lation and total public services. Low scores in personal rela
tions reflected a lack of trust or confidence in people, and
a tendency to be critical of others and to become annoyed
or irritated by what they did.^ An examination of the circu
lation activities that seemed to be connected with the low
personal relations scores showed that two types of activi
ties were prevalent; (1) computing, collecting, and record
ing payments for overdue, damaged, or lost materials, and
(2) locating requested materials and informing users of
their availability. The relationship between personal rela-
^Gordon, Gordon Personal Inventory Manual, p. 3.
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153
tions and total public services was discovered by statisti
cal test to be heavily influenced by the circulation activ
ities, so for this reason interest was concentrated on the
personal relations-circulation relationship.
The failure of patrons to return materials would
upset and stimulate to action a librarian who lacked trust
in people more than it would an individual who had great
faith in people (a high scorer in the personal relations
factor). Similarly, a librarian who lacked confidence in
her patrons’ ability to locate materials might be more
inclined to "find it herself" than one who trusted in her
patrons' capabilities (again, a high scorer in the personal
relations factor).
One crucial question that should be answered was
whether or not the extra attention to these particular
public services was desirable. According to the School
Library Personnel Task Analysis Survey, 72.3 per cent of the
secondary school clerks handled the fines system in librar
ies, while only 51.0 per cent of the heads of library media
centers executed this activity; 73.4 per cent of the media
center heads located requested materials, while 56.0 percent
of the clerks performed this assignment.^ It appeared that
a librarian's investment of a considerable portion of her
time in fines collecting routines was not vital, since
School Library Personnel Task Analysis Survey, p. 61.
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154
clerks were capable of accomplishing much of this activity.
Locating requested materials and informing the user of its
availability seemed to fall more within the librarian's
realm of duty, perhaps because of the good public relations
effect that might result from quick and efficient service
from the media center head.
Consideration must be given also to the fact that the
librarians earned their highest median score in personal
relations, a score of twenty-nine points. Scores achieved
by the librarians in this factor ranged from a high of
thirty-five points to a low of nineteen points. Almost all
scores were in the upper half of the personal relations
scale. Therefore, although a tendency towards a negative
association between personal relations and circulation was
indicated, there were insufficient scores in the negative
portion of the scale to give any insight into whether or not
the trend was continuous throughout the scale.
With the evidence obtained from the statistical cor
relations of Gordon test factors and public services, the
feasibility of using the two Gordon tests in predicting
which librarians would provide more public services was
questionable. Before abandoning the tests, however, addi
tional samples should be studied to increase the data base
on which the decision for test use or rejection should be
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155
8. Correlation tests isolated significant relation
ships between two responses to the School Librarian's Ques
tionnaire, age and duration of present assignment, and total
public services. The older a librarian was and the longer
her length of service in her present situation, the more
time she offered to total public services. An additional
test verified that the older a librarian was, the more years
she was likely to have spent in her current assignment.
Since the stronger relationship, one that was significant at
the .02 level, developed between duration of current assign
ment and total time spent in public services, it was con
sidered the crucial factor, rather than the librarian's age.
The association between length of current assignment
and the amount of time a librarian devoted to public ser
vice might be traced to the librarian's familiarity with a
school's program, student body, and staff, and her ability to
anticipate the demands to be made on library services. A librar
ian with short tenure might be still in the exploratory stage
of finding out what her patrons desire. Additionally, staff
and students working with a librarian who has been in her
position for a considerable length of time may feel close
enough to her to have no hesitancy in suggesting improve
ments for the library program and requesting the services
that are already available. Where the librarian is a less
familiar figure, patrons may hesitate to demand library
service or be diffident in their requests because they are
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156
uncertain as to how she will react. Reinforcing these con
cepts was Schulzetenberge's finding that a larger number of
years of library experience within the school district was
associated with school librarians who worked with teachers
in curriculum development and improvement of instruction.^
Librarians should be urged to become integrated
thoroughly into the school community. The librarian should
communicate with staff and students as frequently as pos
sible, gathering their thoughts on the services they expect
of her. This may mean that a good portion of the librar
ian's time is spent in classrooms, in faculty curriculum
meetings, in guidance sessions, and in individual confer
ences. Therefore, adequate staffing of libraries should be
mandatory, so that the library's internal and external
public relations programs can thrive.
9. In relating responses to the School Principal's
Questionnaire to public services, it was discovered that
type of school, pupil enrollment, and size of professional
staff affected the amount of time that the subjects invested
in special services. The three school factors were inter
connected. The high schools and senior high schools, which
tended to be the schools with the larger pupil enrollments
and larger staffs, received the greatest allotment of
special services from their librarians.
^Schulzetenberge, "Interests and Background Variables
Characterizing Secondary School Librarians," p. 80.
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157
An explanation of why the librarians at these schools
engaged themselves in special services more than other
librarians in the study was traced to Barth's theory that
the variety of teaching structures available at a school
affected the amount of services offered by the librarians.
The teaching structures considered by Barth included indi
vidualized study, language laboratories, large/small group
instruction, inter-discipline subject planning teems, flex
ible scheduling, teacher aides, pass-fail courses, and
upgraded courses.^ Some of the teaching structures were
tied in directly with special services taken from the School
Library Task Analysis Survey. For an example, among the
special services performed by a half or more of the media
center heads were listed: monitors use of electronic teach
ing equipment; suggests related materials, ideas, and
research people for classroom units; develops with teachers
a plan for students to follow in completing assignments; and
identifies exceptional students and provides worthwhile
experiences and materials for them.^
The teaching structures at the high schools and
senior high schools, from observation conducted in the
schools and examination of school handbooks, appeared to be
Structures and the Activities of Media Centers," p. 200.
^National Education Association,Research Division,
School Library Personnel Task Analysis Survey, pp. 39-41.
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158
more varied and more demanding of the librarians in terms of
special services than the programs at many of the junior
high schools. According to Ruth Ann Davies, a library
science professor at the University of Pittsburgh and a
school library administrator, varied teaching structures
were characteristic of an innovative program.^ One conclu
sion that might be drawn from the evidence of teaching
structure influence on special service performance might be
that schools at all levels should strive to make their pro
grams innovative, recognizing that pupils learn in ways
other than the traditional dependence on teacher and text
book. Encouragement and guidance should be provided so that
librarians, teachers, and students can increase the coopera
tive nature of the educational program.
Recommendations for Future Research
The following recommendations issued from this
project:
1. Further investigation should be made of the
potential value of personality tests in the screening of
library personnel. Although only one of the factors on the
Gordon tests demonstrated any significant connection with
^Ruth Ann Davies, The School Library; a Force for
Educational Excellence (New York: R. R. Bowker Company,
1969), p. 15.
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159
public services, research on the use of the Gordon tests
should not be dropped. With results from a larger sample of
the school librarian population, the tests might be more
definitive. Other tests should be employed in addition to
the Gordon tests. Especially recommended are those that
have been utili ?ed in previous studies attempting to estab
lish the nature of the librarian's personality, such as the
Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, the Edwards
Personal Preference Schedule, and the California Psychologi
cal Inventory. Because these tests require more time to
complete than the Gordon Personal Inventory and the Gordon
Personal Profile, school district officials may hesitate to
permit their administration to the librarians during school
hours. One means of overcoming this difficulty would be to
seek participants from school districts that already have
their employees' personality test scores recorded and would
permit their use in a research project. Another obstacle to
be overcome would be that of securing uniformity in the
maintenance of the Public Service Observation Record. To
insure that the public services performed by the school
librarians were recorded in an unbiased fashion, a recording
pattern would have to be established that certified that:
(1) each observer keeps to a minimum his influence on the
behavior of the research subjects, (2) each observer under
stands the definition of the behavior to be noted, and (3)
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160
each observer scrupulously maintains the record of his
subject's performance while it is being observed.
2. Further research is needed in determining how the
variety of teaching structures available at a school affects
the library program, particularly the program of public
services. It has been suggested that educational innova
tion would increase the demands for library services, and in
some cases, alter these demands. For example, it is
expected that the need for guidance in the selection and use
of non-print media will increase and that more team teaching
participation by the librarian will be expected. In execut
ing such research, extraneous variables that might affect
the librarian's performance should be kept to a minimum.
The school librarians involved as subjects should have
similar educational backgrounds, and they should have
access to comparable amounts of professional and clerical
assistance. The availability of centralized processing
services should be considered, since such an aid would free
the librarian of many of the cataloging and classification
tasks, allowing more tim^ to invest in other library
services.
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a p p e n d ix a
LETTER OF INQUIRY TO SCHOOL DISTRICTS
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LETTER OF IN Q U IR Y TO SCHOOL D IS TR IC TS
Dear Colleague,
I am a doctoral student in the School of Library
Science at the University of Southern California.
My dissertation study focuses on the relationships
between various personality factors and the work
performances of school librarians. You no doubt
recognize the great need for scientific research
in this area. Findings from such research could
result in improved recruitment and assignment of
school librarians.
Your school district may be able to provide vital
assistance to this research effort. Secondary
school librarians are needed to serve as members
of the research population. Specifically being
sought are female librarians possessing the
master's degree in library science who work as
the sole professional librarian at their respec
tive schools and who are assisted by a single
full-time clerical helper. If such individuals
are employed in your school district, and you feel
that participation in this research activity would
be considered by the school district, please let
me know. A conference can be arranged so that we
can discuss further the details of the research
project. Thank you for your cooperation.
Sincerely,
Elaine P. Adams
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APPENDIX B
PARTICIPATING SCHOOL DISTRICTS
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P A R T IC IP A T IN G SCHOOL D IS T R IC T S
Los Angeles County
Centinela Valley Union High School District
12227 S. Hawthorne Way
Hawthorne, Calif. 90250
Santa Monica Unified School District
1723 Fourth St.
Santa Monica, Calif. 90401
South Bay Union High School District
200 Pier Ave.
Hermosa Beach, Calif. 90254
Torrance Unified School District
2335 Plaza Del Amo
Torrance, Calif. 90509
Orange County
Anaheim Union High School District
2360 W. La Palma Ave.
Anaheim, Calif. 92803
Orange Unified School District
370 N. Glassell St.
Orange, Calif. 92666
Santa Ana Unified School District
1405 French St.
Santa Ana, Calif. 92701
San Diego County
San Diego City Unified School District
4100 Normal St.
San Diego, Calif. 92103
Sweetwater Union High School District
1130 Fifth Ave.
Chula Vista, Calif. 92011
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APPENDIX C
COVER LETTERS
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COVER LETTER TO SCHOOL P R IN C IP A LS
Dear Colleague,
I am a doctoral student in the School of Library
Science at the University of Southern California.
My dissertation study focuses on the relationship
between various personality factors and the job
performances of school librarians. You probably
recognize the great need for scientific research
in this area. Findings from such research could
result in improved recruitment and assignment of
school librarians.
My research project has been approved by your
school district. I would like your permission to
conduct research on your campus. To reduce any
anxiety that you might have, let me mention that
the research report will not reveal the identity
of your school or its librarian. Few demands will
be made of the librarian. She will be requested to
complete three brief questionnaires requiring
approximately twenty-five minutes of her time.
There will be additionally six visits lasting two
hours each during which I shall observe her per
forming her normal library duties.
I hope that you will allow your school to join this
project. If it is convenient, I would like to
visit you at your school on ________________________
so that we can discuss the research further. I
shall telephone you to confirm our appointment.
If the project meets your approval, you will be
asked to complete a short questionnaire identifying
certain characteristics of the school, such as
pupil enrollment and staff size.
Sincerely,
Elaine P. Adams
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COVER LETTER TO SCHOOL LIBR AR IAN S
Dear Colleague,
I am a doctoral student in the School of Library
Science at the University of Southern California.
My dissertation study focuses on the relationship
between various personality factors and the job
performances of school librarians. You probably
recognize the great need for scientific research
in this area. Findings from such research could
result in improved counseling services to library
school students and to practicing librarians.
My research project has been approved by your
school district, and permission to conduct research
on your campus is being sought from the principal
of your school. I also desire your voluntary
participation in the study. In order to reduce
any anxiety that you might have, let me mention
that neither your identity nor the name of the
school at which you work will be revealed in the
research report. This study will make few demands
of you. At my initial school visit you will be
requested to complete three brief questionnaires
requiring approximately twenty-five minutes of your
time. There will be six additional visits lasting
two hours each during which I shall observe you
performing your normal library duties.
I hope that you will agree to join the project. If
it is convenient, I would like to visit you at your
library on ___________________________ so that we
can discuss the research further. I shall telephone
you to confirm our appointment.
Sincerely,
Elaine P. Adams
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APPENDIX D
PERSONALITY INVENTORIES
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GORDON PERSONAL INVENTORY
This document is covered by U.S. copyright.
It is not reproduced herein. Readers who wish to
refer to it may consult;
Gordon, Leonard V. Gordon Personal Inventory.
New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc.,
1963.
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GORDON PERSONAL PR O FILE
This document is covered by U.S. copyright
It is not reproduced herein. Readers who wish to
refer to it may consult:
Gordon, Leonard V. Gordon Personal Profile.
New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc.,
1963.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
APPENDIX E
QUESTIONNAIRES
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SCHOOL P R IN C IP A L 'S QUESTIONNAIRE
Identification Code
Please supply the information requested:
1. Which grades are served by your school?
Grades 7-9
Grades 9-12
Grades 10-12
2. What was the enrollment of the school as of
January 1, 1971?
Pupils ^s
3. Indicate the number of full-time professional personnel
assigned to the school in each of the following
categories :
_____ Administrative personnel
Instructional personnel
Guidance personnel
Total in the preceding categories
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SCHOOL L IB R A R IA N 'S QUESTIONNAIRE
Identification Code
Please supply the information requested:
1. What is your present age?
2. Describe your higher educational experiences that
yielded degrees:
Institution Major Degree Year
3. How many graduate semester hours or quarter hours of
coursework in library science have you completed?
Graduate semester hours
Graduate quarter hours
4. In which year did you complete your last course in
library science?
5. How many years of experience do you have as a
professional school librarian?
Year (s) Less than one year
6. How long have you been assigned to your present
position?
Year (s) Less than one year
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APPENDIX F
PUBLIC SERVICE OBSERVATION RECORD
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PUBLIC SERVICE OBSERVATION RECORD
A— Instruction
B— Special Services
C— Circulation
0— Other
Identification Code
Time Activity Code Description of Activity
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SPECIFIED PUBLIC SERVICE TASKS
Instructional Tasks
Orients Students to Library
Reviews Library Rules and Procedures
Plans Sequential Program of Library Instruction
Gives Incidental Instruction in Library Skills
Gives Instruction in the Use of Materials
Gives Instruction in Basic Reference Techniques
Gives Instruction in Specialized Reference Books and Other
Materials before Class Research Project Is Begun
Assists with Independent Study
Guides Reference and Research Work of Small and Large Groups
Assists with Assignments Done in the Library
Special Services to Faculty and Students
I'lonitors Use of Electronic Teaching Equipment
Assists Teachers and Students in Locating and Selecting
Materials
Compiles Materials Lists
Answers Ready-Reference Questions
Performs General Reference Services
Prepares and Distributes Notices, Bulletins, and Other
Publicity Materials
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Plans, Prepares, and Arranges Bulletin Boards, Displays and
Exhibits
Initiates Projects and Activities Relating to the Library
and Its Resources
Introduces Materials of Special Interest to Class Groups
Suggests Related Materials, Ideas, and Resource People for
Classroom Units
Informs Teachers and Students of Radio Broadcasts and TV
Programs
Plans and Directs Special Observances of Book and Library
Weeks, Holidays, etc.
Assists in and Provides Materials for Extra-Curricular
Activities
Develops with Teachers a Plan for Students to Follow in
Completing Assignments
Establishes with Teachers Procedures for Mass Assignments
Involving the Use of the Library
Conducts Class Visits to the Library
Maintains Schedules of Class Activities in Library
Observes Students in Need of Counseling and Informs
Counselors
Identifies Exceptional Students (Slow Learners, Advanced
Learners, etc.) and Provides Worthwhile Experiences and
Materials for Them
Orients Faculty to Library Program, Materials, and Services
Informs Faculty of Innovations, Research, and Current
Developments in Education
Informs Teachers of New Library Services, Materials, and
Equipment
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Promotes Use of Professional Library
Reads and Reviews Professional Materials
Introduces Teachers to Bibliographic Tools in Subject
Disciplines
Assists Teachers in Locating Bibliographic Data
Tasks in Circulation of Materials and Equipment
Establishes Policies and Procedures for Circulation of
Materials
Computes, Collects, and Records Payments for Overdue,
Damaged, or Lost Materials
Reserves Materials and Equipment
Locates Requested Materials and Informs User of Availability
Informs Teachers and Students of Inability to Fill Requests
Calls in Materials on Loan When Required Elsewhere
Checks Lists and Bibliographies to Determine Whether
Materials Listed are Available in the Collection
Plans Systems of Scheduling and Delivery of Materials and
Equipment
Schedules Use of Materials and Equipment
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SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
SELECTED B IB L IO G R A P H Y
Ackoff, Russell L. The Design of Social Research.
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Albright, Lewis E.; Glennon, J. R.; and Smith, Wallace J.
The Use of Psychological Tests in Industry.
Cleveland: Howard Allen, Inc., 1963.
American Association of School Librarians and National
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Beach, Dale S. Personnel: the Management of People at
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Best, John W. Research in Education. 2nd ed. Englewood
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Borg, Walter R. Educational Research; an Introduction.
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Bryan, Alice I. The Public Librarian; a Report of the
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Buros, Oscar K., ed. Personality Tests and Reviews;
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California Teachers Association. Research Department.
California School District Financial Analyses;
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Coker, Janis L. Rating the Personality of Library School
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Davies, Ruth Ann. The School Library; a Force for Educa
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"Gordon Personal Profile." Personality Tests
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1963.
Gordon Personal Profile Manual. Rev. ed.
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Heilbrun, Alfred B. "Gordon Personal Inventory." Person
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Herbert, Clara W. Personnel Administration in Public
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Lyle, Guy R. The Administration of the College Library.
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McDiarraid, E. W. "A University Library Personnel Program."
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McMahon, Anne. The Personality of the Librarian; Prevalent
Social Values and Attitudes Towards the Profession.
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Mandell, Milton M. The Selection Process; Choosing the
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Ohmann, 0. A. "Some Observations on Executive Selection
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Siegel, Laurence. Industrial Psychol, gy. Rev. ed.
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Siegel, Sidney. Nonparametrie Statistics for the
Behavioral Sciences. New York: McGraw-Hill Book
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Stebbins, Kathleen B. Personnel Administration in Public
Libraries. 2nd ed. New York: Scarecrow Press,
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Stone, Elizabeth. Training for the Improvement of Library
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Webb, Eugene J.; Campbell, Donald T.; Schwartz, Richard D.;
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Wheeler, Joseph L., and Goldhor, Herbert. Practical
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Wheeler, Sara H. "Children's Librarians in the Northwest.
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Dissertations
Adair, Fred Lawrence. "The Development of a Scale to
Measure the Service Orientation of Librarians:
Preliminary Investigations." Unpublished Ph.D.
dissertation. University c-f North Carolina, 1967.
Baillie, Gordon Stuart. "An Investigation of Objective
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Job Success in One Graduate Library Education
Program." Unpublished Ed.D. dissertation,
Washington University, 1961.
Barth, Edward Walter. "The Relationship Between Selected
Teaching Structures and the Activities of Media
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of Maryland." Unpublished D.Ed. dissertation,
George Washington University, 1971.
Denis, Laurent-Germain. "Academic and Public Librarians
in Canada: a Study of the Factors Which Influence
Graduates of Canadian Library Schools in Making
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Douglass, Robert Raymond. "The Personality of the
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University of Chicago, 1957.
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Fortin, Clifford Charles. "The Relation of Certain
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School Librarians to Their Life Values and Work
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Goldhor, Herbert. "The Selection of Employees in Large
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Reeling, Patricia Ann. "Undergraduate Female Students as
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Schulzetenberge, Anthony C. "Interests and Background
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Who Work with Teachers in Curriculum Development
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dissertation. University of North Dakota, 1970.
Thomas, Bruce Wallace. "Selection of Professional Staff
in a Group of College Libraries." Unpublished Ph.D.
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Clayton, Howard. An Investigation of Personality Charac
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Hall, Anna C. An Analysis of Certain Professional Library
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Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, 1968.
Howell, Marvin. School Libraries in California. ERIC
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Henry T. Drennan and Richard L. Darling.
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Periodicals
Clayton, Howard. "Femininity and Job Satisfaction Among
Male Library Students at One Midwestern University."
College & Research Libraries, XXXI (November, 1970),
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Estabrook, Leigh. "Job Seekers in the Buyers' Market."
Library Journal, XCVIII (February 1, 1973),
pp. 385-87.
Frarey, Carlyle J., and Learmont, Carol L. "Placement and
Salaries, 1971: a Modest Employment Slowdown."
Library Journal, XCVII (June 15, 1972), pp. 2154-59.
Gaver, Mary V., and Jones, Milbrey L. "Secondary Library
Services: a Search for Essentials." Teachers
College Record, LXVIII (December, 1966), pp. 200-10.
Walker, Jerry L. "Changing Attitudes Towards the Library
and the Librarian." ALA Bulletin, LXI (September,
1967), pp. 977-81.
Projects
McKinley, Alice Roberts. "Personality and the Choice of
Librarianship as a Vocation." Unpublished Master’s
project. Western Reserve University, 1953.
Reports
National Education Association. Research Division.
Special Report. School Library Personnel Task Analysis
Survey. Chicago: American Library Association, 1969.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Rainwater, Nancy Jane. "A Study of Personality Traits of
Ninety-four Library School Students as Shown by the
Edwards Personal Preference Schedule." Unpublished
M.L.S. thesis. University of Texas, 1962.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

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University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

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Asset Metadata

Creator ADAMS, ELAINE PARKER (author)

Core Title AN ANALYSIS OF THE RELATIONSHIP OF CERTAIN PERSONALITY FACTORS TO THE AMOUNT OF TIME ALLOTTED TO SPECIFIED PUBLIC SERVICE TASKS BY SELECTED SCHOOL LIBRARIANS.

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag Library Science,OAI-PMH Harvest

Language English

Contributor Digitized by ProQuest (provenance)

Advisor Boaz, Martha (committee chair), [illegible] (committee member), Hess, Edward J. (committee member), Ward, Pearl J. (committee member)

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c17-234412

Unique identifier UC11349309

Identifier 7331625.pdf (filename),usctheses-c17-234412 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier 7331625.pdf

Dmrecord 234412

Document Type Dissertation

Rights ADAMS, ELAINE PARKER

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the au...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus, Los Angeles, California 90089, USA