Abstract:
Sri Lankan university sector is changing rapidly as a result of educational
reforms and the government's emphasis on a knowledge economy. As a
consequence, the work environments of the university librarians are also
changing. Although this environment can serve as a factor for increased
work-related stress of the Librarians there is no evidence of any empirical
studies related to stress of Sri Lankan University Librarians. This study
was carried out with the objective of understanding the trend of stress
among the University Librarians and to fill a void in the literature. This
study was limited only to the University Librarians who are the Heads of
the Libraries but not the other librarians below the rank of University
Librarians. To suit the Sri Lankan needs a 95 item instrument which
measured the stress level under employment, professional,
administrative and health was designed based upon CAUT Survey (Catano
2011). Total Stress levels vary from Librarian to Librarian but five could be
grouped into Medium Stress category with two in the High Stress
category. Of the four domain surveyed, Physical Domain proved to be the
least stressful domain while the Administrative Domain proved to be the
highest stressful. Based on the previous studies researchers have
discovered that performance improved with increased stress to an
optimal point. Studies have proved resilient people found a stressful
event intriguing and challenging. Considering these findings it was
recommended that no initiative should be taken to reduce the current
stress levels of the Sri Lankan University Librarians so that their stress
factors are considered as a challenge and transformed into positive
outcomes.
