Attitude towards profession of participants of an online

discussion forum of Library and Information Science

Professionals
By Sukhdev Singh, Email: esukhdev at gmail dot com.

[This document and the associated data can be freely distributed and used according
to Creative Commons license - Attribution-No Derivative Works 2.5 India -
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.5/in/]

Introduction:

Online discussion forums are one of earliest form of online communication among
people with common interests. Many of these forums are meant for people associated
with a profession. LIS-Forum (LIS-Forum, 2008) is such an email based discussion
forum (list-serv) for Library and Information Science (LIS) Professionals. It has been
there since 1995 (Rajashekar, 2002) and now has more than 4100 subscribers. This
online forum is the most popular and oldest in India. It has wide spread subscription
base among Library and Information Professionals from India. It also has decent
subscribers from outside India. It would be matter of interest to know what these
subscribers think of LIS profession. Why did they enter into this profession? Was it a
pure chance, lack of alternatives or deliberate choice? What is their attitude towards
the core philosophy of the profession? A brief survey was done on the subscribers in
the month of April 2008 to get some insight on these issues. However, the basic
objective of this survey was to demonstrate a feature of Google Docs’ online
spreadsheet (Google Docs, 2008) that can be exploited to conduct online surveys.

Methodology:

An online questionnaire was created using Google Docs’ online spreadsheet (Singh,
Conduct Research and Surveys Online: Design, Send and Get Results Directly in
Spreadsheet Using Google Docs, 2008). Google Docs has a feature to create an online
form and link back it to a spreadsheet on its server. The data entered through forms
gets entered directly into this linked spreadsheet. The questionnaire can be sent
directly through email to target survey participants. Most email clients and web based
emails services can directly display the form in email of the recipients. The recipient
can fill in the values and click on submit button. In case the form is not displayed
properly, a link to the online form is always there for the recipient to visit and
respond.

A very simple survey questionnaire (Singh, LIS Motivation Survey, 2008) was
created. The objective was to collect only minimal but relevant information. No
personal details were collected. Only four questions were asked. Three were close-
ended questions where the respondents had to just click on options. The last question
was open-ended asking comments from respondents. These questions were asked:
 • Your Age Group?
• Your Occupation?
• Why you choose LIS Profession?
• Any comments?

The questionnaire was mailed to LIS-Forum. The LIS-Forum moderator approved the
email containing the survey on 21st April 2008. The responses started pouring in from
11:01 A.M. First day saw most of the responses. On third day, the responses tampered
to just three responses. However, responses kept pouring in even later. The last
response that was included in the study is the 57th response received on 3rd May 2008.

Analysis:

1. Age Groups:

The responses were grouped age-wise. Most responses (42%) were from respondents
in the age group of 25 -30 years. This was followed (30%) by those in the age group
of 31-35. Thus this relatively young age group of 25 to 35 years combined together
formed 72% of responses.

Age Groups Total

Above 60 1
Between 25 - 30 24
Between 31 - 35 17
Between 36 - 40 2
Between 41 - 45 4
Between 46 - 50 3
Between 51- 55 3
Between 56 - 60 1
Under 25 2
Grand Total 57
 2. Occupations:

Most respondents (65%) were employed in LIS domain. Apart from these 10% were
employed in LIS domain as well research students. While 7% more were doing
correspondence courses to improve their qualifications while in service. Thus 82% of
the respondents were employed in LIS domain. Only one (2%) respondent was
working in non-LIS domain.

Respondents’ Occupations Total

Employed but LIS Student of Distant / Correspondence Course 4
Employed in LIS Domain 37
Employed in non-LIS Domain 1
Research Only 2
Research Only, Employed but LIS Student of Distant / Correspondence Course 1
Research, but Employed 6
Research, but Employed, Employed in LIS Domain 2
Retired 1
Student – MLIS 1
Student - MLIS, Employed in LIS Domain 1
Student - MLIS, Research, but Employed 1
Grand Total 57
 3. Reason for Joining Library and Information Science (LIS) Profession:

Interestingly, almost half (46%) of the persons said they loved the philosophy of LIS
profession. Twenty percent of the people said that they joined the profession because
jobs were / are easily available. About same number (23%) of people said that they
did not care to know much it before joining.
 Reason for choosing LIS Profession Total
I had to do something, What is your problem? 2
I loved the philosophy of the profession 26
I was employed in another field, studied LIS during job and now I am well
off. 1
Jobs are / were easily available in LIS 11
Just joined it without caring what it is all about 13
Nothing better was available to me 1
Wanted to spend some more time at university 2
(blank)
Grand Total 56

Breaking down responses by two major age groups (25-30 and 31-35) revealed an
interesting fact. In 25-30 age group, 9 out of 24 (37.5%) respondents said that they did
not care what the profession was all about while joining it. However, in the age group
of 31-35, only 1 out of 16 (6.25%) said so. This gives an indication that people tend to
love core philosophy of the profession with passage of time.
 4. Respondents’ General Comments:

There was an open ended question asking comments of the respondents. Most of the
people wanted to know the results of this survey. Some were with very positive
comments towards the profession. At the same time, few were very critical about
joining the profession. One person even thought to the extent that juniors are being
exploited by their senior professionals.

Limitation of study:

The questionnaire had a very poor response. It would be risky to draw major
conclusions from this study. This study can only reflect the views of active LIS-
Forum subscribers who opted to respond.
Conclusion:

Though the response rate was poor, but still the study does tell about the attitude of
active participants of the LIS-Forum who decided to respond promptly. Majority of
the responses came within 48 hours. The methodology of the survey, that is using
Google Docs, hence has been tested. This methodology works and thus can be used
for online surveys. This study also showed that relatively young people from the age
group of 25 to 35 years are active on online forum for LIS professionals. This active
population either has positive attitude towards the philosophy of profession or
consider LIS as a career. Moreover, their commitment and love towards the
professional philosophy increases with time. Further studies on this issue are required.
The spreadsheet containing the survey responses is being shared as open data to help
future similar studies (LIS motivation survey: spreadsheet with survey responses,
2008). To maintain privacy, the comments field has been deleted from this
spreadsheet.

References

Google Docs. (2008). Retrieved June 3, 2008, from http://docs.google.com/

LIS motivation survey: spreadsheet with survey responses. (2008, June 3). Retrieved
June 3, 2008, from http://snipr.com/2bvu5

LIS-Forum. (2008). Retrieved June 3, 2008, from LIS-Forum: Discussion Forum for
Library and Information Professionals in India:
http://ncsi.iisc.ernet.in/mailman/listinfo/lis-forum

Rajashekar, T. (2002, Oct 1). LIS-Forum: A brief history. Retrieved June 1, 2008,
from http://snipr.com/lishistory

Singh, S. (2008, April 25). Conduct Research and Surveys Online: Design, Send and
Get Results Directly in Spreadsheet Using Google Docs. Retrieved June 1, 2008, from
http://snipr.com/gdsurvey

Singh, S. (2008, April 19). LIS Motivation Survey. Retrieved June 1, 2008, from
http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?key=p4GBbR26ZPytvtls2v-qhBw