Management Issues for Female Librarians: A Case Study of University of the Punjab

Introduction In past, the social and cultural factors imposed restrictions on women to enter into job market. Changes in the society caused by increased economic pressures, expansion of educational facilities and extended access of female to the education, increased number of women in the job market at all level. Deyrup, in his study founded that in 2004 women finally occupied over 50 percent of directorships at large research universities (as cited in Bergman, 2005). Librarianship in world is considered a profession of females, as the number of females in this profession more than a male. In Pakistan this number is also increasing every year and trend to join this profession by females is also growing. It is general perception among society that there is a divergence in the attitude and approach towards women and men at the work place which interpret into noteworthy prejudice against women. In developing countries, and particularly in Pakistani social structure, working women are engaged with household tasks and performing official duties as well, gratifying these everyday jobs, working women frequently face stress due to the traditional gender inequalities as there is continuous social pressure for working women to take up her duties. It was observed that the devaluation of female oriented field's resulted from the fact that women are not valued by society and so neither at their work (Harris, 1992). Like in other developing countries, Pakistani women have always been considered neglected part of the society and this perception has been taken by the international community as well. Jaswal & Shiekh (2010) presented a paper and highlighted that women are facing lot of difficulties in performing their professional duties and jobs in offices and on work place. This paper is an attempt to find out the problems being faced by professional female librarians while interacting with super ordinates, subordinates, publishers/distributers, and library users. University of the Punjab has been selected for this case study. The study could easily be replicated in other public sector universities of Pakistan for results generalization. Aim of the study Aim of this study was to explore the problems being faced by female library managers at work place and satisfaction level while working with male colleagues. This study also tried to find out managerial issues of female librarians dealing with publishers and distributors. Objectives of study 1. To explore the level of problems which female librarian is facing in University of the Punjab 2. To find out the managerial issues of female librarians while dealing with male subordinates and seniors 3. To find out the managerial issues female librarians while dealing with distributers and publishers Significance of the study Although women are playing vital role in the society and the development of their country and family yet they receive less respect what they expect, especially in developing countries as these are considered male dominant societies. The social structure of Pakistan is changing and women are coming out from their houses and joining professional lives. Librarianship is considered a decent job for the female and numbers of females are increasing every year that are joining this profession. We need to understand whether a professional life of female librarian is comfortable. This study is being conducted in University of the Punjab. This study can be replicated in other Public sector universities of Pakistan to generalize the results. Review of Literature Jaswal & Shiekh (2010) started an interesting debate through their research paper "Building strategic vision for invisible librarians: A case study of Female Librarians". In the said study authors tried to explore the status of female librarians and to know whether those are invisible or not. …