The economic crisis and public libraries in Greece: investigating the threats and challenges via job description

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of Greece’s economic crisis on public librarians’ obligations.Design/methodology/approach In total, 43 public library managers completed a questionnaire regarding 116 librarian responsibilities. Managers evaluated these responsibilities considering their importance, difficulty, and frequency. Regarding difficulty, a two-way analysis of variance was applied to examine whether there exists a significant difference among duties’ categories and libraries’ classifications, considering their number of users and materials, and whether the perceived difficulties were connected with the economic crisis.Findings The results reveal that public librarians face many difficulties due to workload and increased responsibilities resulting from the lack of qualified personnel both in library and computer science. Difficulties also arise from the inability to meet some operational needs because of reduced funding.Practical implications Contrary to these unfavorable conditions, many new opportunities and challenges have emerged, including the implementation of new practices and actions (volunteerism, donations, cooperation with local actors) to effectively cope with the new threats.Originality/value This is the first time that job description has been recorded and used to outline the duties of Greece’s public librarians. This is particularly useful to develop libraries’ strategic planning and to assist all human resource practices to increase efficiency, especially during the period of financial crisis. Further specific duties were also proposed to enhance the librarians’ effectiveness under the new working environment, focusing on the required processes for their successful completion.