¹ Seminelli (2016) is worried about the downgrading of library position requirements, in the US context. Also see Davis (2008); Drabinski (2016); Ferguson (2016); Sewell and Kingsley (2017). The discussion of changing skills needs for librarians, and what people without qualifications in library and information science can offer to research libraries as part of the workforce, has gained some traction in the UK. See Unlocking Research at https://unlockingresearch.blog.lib.cam.ac.uk/ . At LIBER 2017, in a session on Staff Education, there were discussions about the recruitment of ‘non-librarians’ into research libraries. It was suggested that there is a need for research librarians to be able to communicate core library skills, but that these skills might be easier to teach and learn ‘on the job,’ whereas other essential skills, such as communication, might be better found in people coming from sectors and educational backgrounds other than librarianship. See Warren (2017).

² Vitae is the national organisation that champions researcher development on behalf of the Research Councils in the UK.

³ Also see: Alpay and Walsh (2008); Bray and Boon (2011).

⁴ The report was based on data from year one of a planned three-year qualitative study, using personal interviews with 116 Early Career Researchers from seven countries: UK, US, China, France, Spain, Poland, and Malaysia (CIBER, 2016).

⁵ In August 2013, the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), the Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL), the Association of European Research Libraries (LIBER), and the Confederation of Open Access Repositories (COAR), launched the joint Task Force on Librarians’ Competencies in Support of E-Research and Scholarly Communication (Schmidt et al., 2016).

⁶ https://www.clir.org/fellowships/postdoc/ .

⁷ A term used by Jaguszewski and Williams (2013, p. 7).

⁸ Of these 70% are at postgraduate masters’ level, and 22% have a Diploma. One respondent has a postgraduate diploma, and another respondent is working towards an MLitt. No respondents indicated that they have a bachelors’ degree in LIS or Archives.

⁹ These postgraduate qualifications are almost exclusively in Arts and Humanities fields (in 11 out of 12 cases).

¹⁰ The respondent who had a PhD and a LIS/archive qualification answered the questions represented by Figures 2–4 only in relation to their LIS/Archive qualification, and did not also complete the same questions in relation to their PhD. Therefore, the number of respondents with PhDs represented by the data in Figures 2–4 is six. Of those respondents with PhDs, 29% completed their doctoral degrees less than five years ago, and 43% completed between six and ten years ago.

¹¹ Phrase used by Kingsley (2016b).

¹² For the purpose of limiting the overall length of the survey, in order to encourage survey completion by as many respondents as possible, only 27 out of the RDF’s 63 descriptors were listed. Selection was based upon those descriptors which have most overlap with and relevance to library work. Descriptors that are either very general e.g. equality and diversity, health and safety, and ethics, or are very specific to research e.g. research strategy, were not included in the survey list. Nevertheless, following the results of this survey, employing the full list of Researcher Development Framework descriptors in future evaluations of librarians’ skills is seen as potentially valuable.

¹³ See Steven (2011).