I followed a link from Peter Scott's Library Blog to check out a magazine called New Library World. Thanks to the free access to full-text, I was able to read, in the most recent issue, an interesting article entitled "Job satisfaction among library managers: a cross-cultural study of stress, freedom and job conditions" by Neils O. Pors. Of course, the title spoke to me, given my current position.

The article discusses a survey of British and Danish Library Managers and tries to draw conclusions about how nationality and cultural differences play into the concept of job satisfaction. I'm going to save you some time and pull some summary observations entirely out of their context.

"Age and job satisfaction appear to be independent of each other."

"Overall no difference in job satisfaction in relation to gender was found."

"A tendency to a higher degree of job satisfaction among managers in academic libraries is found."

And the stunning revelations: "Overall, there is a very strong correlation between the level of job satisfaction and the amount of stress."

"A low degree of stress goes together with much freedom in the job."

There are actually some interesting observations that deal with the differences in Danish and British culture, but those of you genuinely interested will seek out the article anyway. However, I had to share the conclusion: "The author feels it is extremely important to raise the job satisfaction of managers. It would be a significant part of the organisational culture with implications for staff satisfaction, recruitment for managerial positions and recruitment of new staff. Managers' job satisfaction is probably one thing that permeates the whole organisation and influences the psychological climate to a great extent."

To which I say, huzzah!