Take Care of Librarians to Take Care of Library Patrons: Factors Influencing Retention of Librarians in Public Libraries in South Africa

Abstract

Low retention rates and high turnover of skilled librarians in public libraries have been considered human capital risk to library leaders due to the loss of organizational knowledge. This study aims to examine the factors that influence the retention of public librarians. Quantitative data were collected from 191 librarians, while qualitative data were collected from 13 library managers in South Africa. The study revealed that 80 percent of librarians are not likely to remain in public libraries. The findings also found that factors including employee engagement, work–life balance, and competitive salaries are some of the predictors of the retention of librarians.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 1 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.