Perceptions of employers in South Africa on library and information science graduates? skills, knowledge and competencies on digital scholarship

The Library and Information Science (LIS) profession is ever evolving partly as a result of the effects of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. For instance, new job requirements on digital scholarship have been noted across the LIS profession, especially in the academic and special research council libraries. Based on these changes, employers of LIS graduates expect that LIS graduates from LIS schools possess digital scholarship knowledge and skills as part of their exit attributes. This paper explores the perceptions of employers of LIS graduates on digital scholarship education. A construct from the Gap Service Quality Model was used as the conceptual framework of the study. The paper followed the interpretive philosophical perspective, through employing a qualitative approach to achieve the aim of the study. A multiple case study design using semistructured interviews was conducted with directors of both academic and special research council libraries. Five directors were selected purposively as their libraries seemed to be on the forefront of digital scholarship initiatives. It was revealed that employers expected LIS qualifications to have content on digital scholarship. The study discovered that employers of digital scholarship librarians expected them to possess knowledge, skills, and competencies on digital scholarship-related activities. The other expectation was that graduates were supposed to be able to navigate digital scholarship activities at a basic level. Employers of digital scholarship librarians also expected graduates to be familiar with research data management and the ecosystem of digital publications. The survey also highlighted certain difficulties LIS employers had when hiring a LIS graduate. The study recommended that LIS schools should recurriculate to include content on digital scholarship. It was also recommended that LIS schools should have short courses on digital scholarship to cater for practising librarians. Librarians must be involved in lifelong learning in order to understand digital scholarship.