Criteria for Effective Authentic Personal Branding for Academic Librarians in Universiti Sains Malaysia Libraries

This pilot study explores the current situation and inter-relationship between criteria for effective authentic personal branding and authentic personal branding strategies with weight on years of working experience among 45 academic librarians in Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM). It focuses on the academic librarians’ (a) reputation in a university, (b) responsibilities to library users and library services, and (c) their relationship with library users. The result of running the Kendalls Tau B Correlation Coefficients revealed nine findings. These include: (i) authenticity, authority and persistence are the dominant criteria for effective authentic personal branding; (ii) visibility is the dominant criteria for effective authentic personal branding; (iii) distinctiveness is the dominant criteria for effective authentic personal branding related to academic librarians’ relationship with library users; (iv) persistence is the only criteria for effective authentic personal branding related academic librarians’ reputation in USM that have moderate correlation with all authentic personal branding strategies; (v) performance is the only criteria for effective authentic personal branding related academic librarians’ responsibilities to library users and library services that have moderate correlation with all authentic personal branding strategies except personal brand strategy; (vi) goodwill, visibility and authority are the three criteria for effective authentic personal branding related to academic librarians’ relationship with library users that have moderate correlation with all authentic personal branding strategies, whereas the other criteria have weak correlation; (vii) personal mission and personal key roles are the two stages in authentic personal branding strategies; (viii) personal brand statement and personal brand identity are the two stages in authentic personal branding strategies; and finally (ix) personal brand identity have strong correlation with all authentic personal branding strategies. This study can help Malaysian librarians to create a new tune of modern day needs for the librarianship profession and upgrade their personal professionalism.