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Where are they now? A survey of Charles Sturt University library and information management graduates.

Article Excerpt
Charles Sturt University School of Information Studies undertook a graduate destination survey of students who had completed library and information management courses, both undergraduate and postgraduate, in 2003-2004. One hundred and twenty-three responses (from a total of 256 sent out- 48 per cent) were received and from these it was found that 87 per cent of graduates were in either full-time work or part-time work by choice. Less than 5 per cent were unemployed and looking for work. Nearly 75 per cent of those working were in 'library' jobs with only a small percentage in other information-related work. Three quarters of graduates had prior library experience with 65 per cent working in libraries during their study. Eighty-two per cent of graduates reported that their course of study had been useful or very useful in providing skills relevant to their current position. While generally, the results of the survey were very positive both for the individuals and for the profession as a whole, there was anecdotal evidence that suggested that inexperienced and/or older graduates found difficulty in gaining suitable employment.

Manuscript received September 2006

This is a refereed article

THE PURPOSE OF THIS RESEARCH WAS TO OBTAIN INFORMATION ABOUT THE EMPLOYment status of library and information management (LIM) undergraduate and postgraduate students who completed their qualifications from Charles Sturt University (CSU) in 2003 and 2004. It is intended to be the first step in a longitudinal study of graduate employment from these courses. Although CSU'S LIM group has kept informal records about graduate employment in the past which have helped inform decisions about course marketing, it was felt to be important to undertake a more detailed and thorough survey in order to better evaluate the success or otherwise of course offerings. Thus another major objective of this study was to obtain data on students' perceptions of how enrolment in and completion of the CSU degree helped them find employment.

These students had all studied via distance education (DE); Charles Sturt University prides itself on being a leader in this field. The School of Information Studies (SIS) has been delivering librarianship and information management studies through this method for over 30 years. It comprises three distinct groups, library and information management (LIM), teacher-librarianship (T-L), and information technology. From 2007, following a faculty restructure, information technology will move into another school, leaving SIS as the only school dedicated solely to LIM and T-L studies in Australia.

According to Hallam (2006:5), who used data collected in the ALIA Annual Course Returns, in 2005 in Australia there were around 1550 students enrolled in LIM/T-L graduate programs and about 950 students enrolled in undergraduate programs. CSU Division of Planning and Audit figures indicate that in 2005, 570 undergraduate LIM students were enrolled (60 per cent of undergraduate LIM students in Australia), and 846 postgraduate students in LIM and T-L enrolled (54.6 per cent of postgraduate LIM/T-L students in Australia), making SIS very much the largest school in the country.

The total number of LIM/TL students graduating in Australia in the two years 2003-2004 (the years covered by this survey) was around 1000 for graduate courses and 470 for undergraduates (Hallam 2006:6-7), comparable with figures from a decade previously of 1048 and 303 respectively (Willard, Wilson and Pawley 2001). Of the total graduates for the 2003-2004 period, CSU'S Planning and Audit returns indicated the university graduated 441 LIM/TL postgraduates (44 per cent of the total Australia wide), and 200 undergraduates (42.5 per cent) of LIM undergraduates in Australia (CSU 2006).

The current survey included only LIM graduates (graduates of T-L were excluded), with students from every state and territory in Australia. While there were also students graduating from countries such as New Zealand, Hong Kong and Mauritius, and small numbers of students in places such as Singapore, Fiji, Canada, South Africa, UAE, and USA, they were not included in this survey in order to focus solely on the Australian situation.

The CSU survey was adapted from Genoni and Smith's (2005) study of Curtin University's library and records management graduate employment outcomes, using similar questions. This enabled a level of comparison over time between the surveys and also provided a basis on which to build the survey instrument. The survey was sent out to CSU LIM graduates in November 2005. Graduates surveyed were from the Bachelor of Arts (Library and Information Science), Graduate Diploma of Applied Science (Library and Information Management), and the Master of Applied Science (Library and Information Management) programs.

Employment

In addition to graduate destination surveys dealing with study and employment outcomes (most notably Genoni and Smith), other recent studies have tended to focus on the skills required by employers of graduates. Kennan, Willard...