THE CHANGING NATURE OF JOBS - A PARAPROFESSIONAL TIME-SERIES

This study attempts to determine if paraprofessional jobs have changed significantly as a result of automation during the period between 197 5 and 1990. Three raters reviewed job descriptions dated 1975, 1981, a nd 1990 from the technical services department of a small academic lib rary using the Position Analysis Questionnaire, a widely used structur ed job analysis tool. Analysis of the resulting data-standard z scores on thirteen overall job dimensions using ANOVA and omega-squared esti mates-indicates no statistically significant differences among the job s. Although these results show that the change in jobs over time is mo re idiosyncratic than expected, they may also illustrate the de-skilli ng effect of computers on library functions.