Librarians’ personality traits and communication competence in the delivery of reference and information service in academic libraries in Panay

Abstract

The study was conducted to determine the librarians’ personality traits and communication competence in the delivery of reference and information service in Panay. This research is a descriptive-correlational study that made use of the one-shot survey design. An adopted personality test, the Personality Style Inventory developed by Lounbury and Gibson was used to determine the librarians’ personality traits. While a validated researcher made-questionnaire for communication competence was used to measure the level of librarians’ communication competence. There were 86 academic librarians from HEIs and SUCs in Panay who participated in the study. Frequency distribution, mean and variations were used and relationships were tested using Cramers’ V. Results revealed that there are five distinct personality traits among academic librarians in Panay such as customer service orientation, image management, openness, assertive personality traits, and conscientiousness. There is a strong association between personality traits, educational attainment and length of experience; moderate association between personality trait and number of seminars/trainings attended; weak association between personality traits and age. Librarians were found very competent on their perceived communication competence in all three areas such as motivation, garnering the highest mean followed by knowledge and skills. Communication competence tends to increase with age, educational attainment, and highest length of experience.