• Journal of the Korean BIBLIA Society for library and Information Science
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.259-280
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• 2013

There has been a dramatic increase in the proportion of temporary employees in LIS fields, due to current trends of restructuring, automation, complete personnel systems, and complete wage systems. This research, therefore, conducted a survey exploring the current status and working environment of the temporary posts in LIS fields, in order to understand and direct the employment prospects of potential librarians. Results show that the average working period of more than half of temporary librarians are between 1-3 years. The total working period as a temporary librarian, including former experiences in their career, were evenly distributed between 1-5 years. Among those, being temporary often persisted, as 32% of temporary librarians stayed in their temporary status for more than 5 years. Second, temporary librarians perceived themselves as working the same hours as regular librarians, having independent or assistant tasks to regular librarians, and having a neutral or larger amount of tasks than regular librarians. Third, temporary librarians are employed and contracted from the work place, generally having contracts of less than 2 years or an open contract, which shows a serious level of job instability. Therefore, we should consider the following: proper remuneration for work of equal value, professional contractors, the supplementation of the total wage system and the number of public employees in the system as well as changing temporary positions to permanent positions and so on.