ACRL New England Chapter News Online

ISSN 1527-0106

Winter 2007, Number 110

In This Issue (Home):

President's Letter

2007 Annual Conference Date Set

Board Elections begin this month!

ACRL Legislative Advocates Needed

Interest Group Reports:

Chapter Member News:

Board Minutes, January 9, 2007
Calendar Listings

President's Letter: Librarian Salary Surveys

Christine Turner
University of Massachusetts Amherst

January 18, 2007

For many years ACRL New England Chapter sponsored a biennial survey of New England academic librarian salaries. This was a popular, albeit labor intensive endeavor performed for us by Dr. Herb Carson of the University of Rhode Island Graduate School of Library and Information Science. Dr. Carson’s last survey was conducted in 2004. Since then, the Board has re-considered the content and value of the survey, as well as our continued support for it.

Following our annual retreat last June, Beatrice Pulliam conducted a review of library salary surveys. In August the Board discussed the many job descriptions and varied skills currently employed by academic libraries, with a growing number of positions not requiring the master’s of library science degree. We recognized the importance of aggregated, regional salary information to college and university library directors, administrators, and librarians (aspiring, new and veteran). We also discussed the complexities of developing and conducting a survey that would adequately represent the range of jobs and skills in academic libraries today. It seemed a daunting task better performed by a bigger organization with dedicated research capabilities.

Still, the need for salary benchmarks in our profession remained. Fortunately, the American Library Association Office of Research and Statistics answers the call. It joined with the Allied Professional Association to research and publish the 2006 ALA-APA Salary Survey: A Survey of Public and Academic Library Positions Requiring an ALA-Accredited Master’s Degree.

A summary of the survey, with supplementary question responses, is available at http://www.ala.org/ala/ors/reports/reports.htm, and the entire report is available for purchase. All the survey data and discussions are well worth reviewing. Data for two year colleges through universities by region and state are provided for 6 categories of responsibility levels.

After reviewing it, the Board decided that the ALA-APA Salary Survey provided better and more detailed data than we could gather and process on a regular basis. We recommend it to you and will soon offer on our web site a summary of this and other salary surveys currently administered.