The Use of Paraprofessionals in Electronic Resources Management: Results of a Survey

The authors surveyed 121 paraprofessionals employed in the management of electronic resources to gather information related to their institutions, education, and position descriptions. The authors sought not only to describe the kinds of work being performed by paraprofessionals in electronic resources, but also to explore correlations between institutional and educational variables and the kinds of duties being performed by electronic resources paraprofessionals. The authors discovered paraprofessionals performing a sizeable number of advanced duties and many holding advanced degrees but could find few predictive variables within our data correlating with the types of duties an electronic resources paraprofessional may be performing. In particular, holding an advanced degree seemed to yield little additional predictive power for ascertaining the level of an electronic resources paraprofessional's possible job duties.