A study of the job attitudes (job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and career commitment) and career adaptability of members of the library and information science profession

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between three job attitudes—job satisfaction (satisfaction with work on the present job, satisfaction with pay, satisfaction with opportunities for promotion, satisfaction with supervision, satisfaction with co-workers, and satisfaction with the job in general), organizational commitment, and career commitment—and a developmental concept, “career adaptability”, among employed members of the library and information science profession from Virginia and Maryland. The study employed a demographic survey, three standardized measures of job attitudes, and a standardized measure of career adaptability.; Career adaptability is operationalized in a measure of career “concerns” and tasks associated with each of the career stages in Donald Super's theoretical model of career development. Career change status, type of library work setting, and work schedule, were also examined in relationship to the job attitudes.; Fifteen statistically significant main effects and eight statistically significant interaction effects were observed. Three additional statistically significant effects also were observed as a result of controlling for specific covariate variables. Hypotheses one through five were partially confirmed.; Career adaptability was observed to have statistically significant relationships with satisfaction with pay; satisfaction with the job in general; and organizational commitment. Career change status was observed to have statistically significant relationships with five of eight job attitudes: satisfaction with work on the present job; satisfaction with supervision; satisfaction with the job in general; organizational commitment; and career commitment. The type of library work setting (public, school, postsecondary, special, and other/non-library) was observed to have significant relationships with satisfaction with supervision, organizational commitment, and career commitment.; Work schedule (weekend and evening hours) was expected to significantly affect job attitudes and was found to have almost no effect on librarians' attitudes towards their work. It is possible that the non-standard work hours of most librarians are accepted as a normal part of the profession and may even be seen as desirable by some librarians.; The number of dependent children or adults was the most significant covariate demographic variable. Adjusting for the number of dependent children or adults, career adaptability was observed to have significant relationships with three job attitudes: satisfaction with work on the present job; satisfaction with the job in general; and organizational commitment.