<strong>Ozean</strong> Journal of Social Sciences 2(3), 2009The assessed needs and aspirations are also dependent on individual objective, social and economic attributes if theexisting situations of the cataloguers’ environment are incongruence with (a reasonable portion of the referenceconditions, an effective state of satisfaction is manifested). There is also the possibility that, the current environmentalvariable when evaluated is discovered to have fallen short of the reference situation to a degree of deficiency. In otherword, there is a gap between the aspirations construct and what the environmental attributes offer (Afon 2004)If, and when this happens, two reactions are possible. On the first hand, Cataloguers may attempt to reconcileincongruence by adaptation. This implies that needs have to be defined and modified resulting in the generation to loworder aspiration. McShare Steven L. and Mary Ann von Glinow (2000) are of the opinion that job satisfactionrepresents a person’s evaluation of his or her job, work environment and context. It is an appraisal of the perceived jobcharacteristics and emotional experiences at work. Satisfied employees have a favorable evaluation of their job, basedon their observations and emotional experiences. Job satisfaction is really a collection of attitudes about specific facetsof the job elements that employees can be satisfied with, while simultaneously dissatisfied with others. Differenttypes of satisfaction will lead to different types of intentions and behavior. Overall job satisfaction is a combination ofthe persons feeling towards the different facets of their job. It is a fact that employees with higher level of jobsatisfaction, particularly satisfaction with work itself, are less likely to quit their jobs, absent from work and experiencemental or physical health problem. Joining a labour union and going on strike often result from dissatisfaction with payand condition of service. This is synonymous with a dictum “Happy workers are productive workers”. People haveunique values and experiences, so they react while looking for employment elsewhere. Moreover, task performancedepends on a person’s ability and resources not just work effort. Task performance for cataloguers is mandatory as dailystatistics is compulsory and required. Provision for self development and research is currently encouraged. Jobsatisfaction would have little short term effort in jobs where employers are responsible for automated processes such asa bottling plant or petrochemical process which is similar to the nature of cataloguing processes. Whereas, in academiclibrary that is service oriented, job satisfaction is a necessary factor for productivity, that is, library clientele are to enjoymaximum satisfaction in terms of accessibility to materials and personal services, more importantly, availability ofcurrent and relevant materials on various disciplines in the card catalogue and on the shelves which is the end result ofcataloguers’ work.Employee satisfaction in cataloguing environment is associated with users’ satisfaction for two reasons. First, jobsatisfaction affects a person’s general mood. Employees who are in a good mood are more likely to communicatefriendliness and positive feelings towards other staff, and library clientele. This will go a long way to enhancecataloguers work flow or process and also strengthens their academic research work. For this reasons, Gonipati (2003)opined that satisfaction of the personnel which is the key to good library administration is also a factor in efficientadministration. Therefore good job satisfaction will affect cataloguers’ morale and job performance. Secondly,satisfied employees are less likely to quit their jobs. This allows libraries to provide more consistent service. Therebybacklog in cataloguing is reduced to barest minimum. Job satisfaction is “sine qua non” for productivity and as suchevery effort should be made to make workers happy so that they perform very well in there job. Inversely ifmanagement of any institution fails to make workers comfortable on their jobs such organization may not experienceprogress and stability. This assertion is corroborated by Olusemore (2006) while commenting on the indicators ofcustomer dissatisfaction in banks in Nigeria. He posited that when customers begin to experience delays in attending tocustomers in the various departments such as corporate banking, international operation and funds transfer; this could bea source of dissatisfaction to customer. It is apt to state that such scenario can equally be experienced in an environmentthat is not conducive to the librarians. Delay in book processing could be as a result of uncondusive workingenvironment.Furthermore the humanistic school of administration which emerged in the 1950s and pioneered by such people as ChrisArgyris, Douglas McGregor, and Rensis Likert took a more humanitarian approach to the whole administrative problemby stipulating that people work best and utilize their abilities when meeting goal of the individual is acknowledged.They assert that this will only make the organization itself more productive (Berkley 1981). Cataloguing environmentshould reflect this so that productivity as a goal is achieved for the employee as well as library as an organization.Cataloguers are carrying out the main mission of a library as an organization in all the tertiary institutions in Nigeria andworld at large. The technical system environment in library maintains, supports, and keeps the organization functioningand helps it adjust to the new factors and forces.As the nature of the cataloguing environment is activity oriented that require immediate result; only a cataloguer whobelieves in what he is doing and feels highly committed will substantially perform and at the same time expect rewardfor his professional involvement and conduct scholastic research, leading to satisfaction and self actualization. Inapplying Abraham M. Maslow hierarchy of needs to cataloguing environment in Libraries, Berkley (1981) and Lewis(2006) explained that certain needs; such as physical needs, social and emotional needs, safety or security needs must be139
<strong>Ozean</strong> Journal of Social Sciences 2(3), 2009met before an employee performs well on the job. In this manner, satisfaction is achieved by an employee when he firstgratifies physical needs. Once that one is met, then safety or security needs followed and so on up the ladder. Fulfillingthese primary needs a cataloguer could then settle on the job and concentrate on research work. When the basics ofcataloguing and classification are mastered then the higher needs of research could be met. However, the observation isthat no amount of material processed without research work can earn a cataloguer promotion. While promotion forother colleagues in different environment outside cataloguing is rapid, because they are not encumbered withcataloguing routine. This study is concerned with the extent to which working environment of cataloguers in academiclibraries in South Western Nigeria motivates cataloguers’ performance, enhance their professional development andpromote scholastic publication.METHODOLOGYThe sample population for the study consists of 50 cataloguers who are professional librarians randomly selected fromsome university libraries in Southwestern Nigeria. A 38 item questionnaire titled “Cataloguers Working EnvironmentQuestionnaire (CWEQ)” on problems faced by Cataloguers in their working environment in academic library wasdistributed to selected librarians in eleven universities in Southwestern Nigeria for data collection. Different types ofinstitutions such as state university libraries, university of technology libraries, university of agriculture libraries andfederal university libraries were represented in the data collections. The 38 items on CWEQ consisted of two parts; thefirst part contained the respondent’s socio-demographic data while part two consisted of thirty three structuredquestions. These were rated by the respondents as often, occasionally, never, none, large extent, minimal, very lowextent, high, very high, satisfactory, not satisfactory and simple yes or no. They were personally administered at eachof the institutions and were collected back on the spots. Hence, a 100% of the questionnaire were duly completed andreturned for data analysis.Data collated were edited coded and transferred into computer readable format and the statistical package for SocialScience (SPSS) version 11.0 was used to edit the data and to run the analysis with descriptive statistics140
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