The selection of an entry-level music librarian: The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) as a new model

Abstract

This paper aims to present how to select the best entry-level music librarian by using the Analytic Hierarchy Process technique. The reason why we used this technique is due to the fact that it helps the decision makers easily calculate ‘the importance weights of professional criteria’ and ‘the extent to which the candidates meet the professional criteria’ to come to a final decision on each candidate. With this purpose, we firstly described 7 professional criteria (a1, a2, a3,…, a7) that must be met by 3 entry-level music librarian candidates. Secondly, we decided each candidate’s performance score representing the extent to which each candidate meets these criteria. For this, we used both a 9-point scale for pairwise comparisons and Saaty’s eigenvector method. Thirdly, we assigned the importance weights to the required criteria. Fourthly, we performed the consistency test to measure the consistencies of our calculations with the aid of the consistency ratio (CR). Fifthly, we obtained the final performance scores of each candidate as the candidate 1= 0,464, the candidate 2= 0, 296, and the candidate 3= 0, 240. Finally, we selected the candidate 1 who earned the highest score (0,464) in total as the best entry-level music libraria