Abstract

This study investigated librarians’ awareness of and demand for the librarian learning community in order to successfully introduce and operate the librarian learning community. For this purpose, an online survey was conducted targeting current librarians and a total of 474 responses were collected. The main analysis results are as follows. Firstly, librarians showed a very low awareness of the librarian learning community, while they highly evaluated the purpose and significance of such a community. Secondly, the motivations for librarians to participate in the librarian learning community were primarily focused on professional growth, solidarity with colleagues, and satisfaction of intellectual curiosity, in that order. Thirdly, the ultimate values of the librarian learning community were identified as improving library services, enhancing professionalism, fostering collaborative group exploration, sharing values and visions. Fourthly, the success factors of the librarian-learning community were ranked as follows: member voluntarism, a culture of collaboration among members, dedicated time (once a week), and a supportive environment (budget, space, etc.). On the other hand, the failure factors were identified as a lack of time due to heavy workloads, lack of member voluntarism, indifference from superiors, and insufficient support environment (budget, space, etc.). Finally, the willingness to participate is also very high. Furthermore, it was observed that there is a wide range of interests in various topics among librarians. The results of this study are expected to be useful as basic data for determining practical operation methods or selecting topics when operating a librarian learning community in the future.