ARL Annual Salary Survey 1998-99

Introduction




The ARL Annual Salary Survey 1998-99 reports salary data for all professional staff working in ARL libraries. The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) represents the interests of 122 libraries that serve major North American research institutions.1 The Association operates as a forum for the exchange of ideas and as an agent for collective action to influence forces affecting the ability of these libraries to meet the future needs of scholarship. The ARL Statistics and Measurement Program, which produces the survey, is organized around collecting, analyzing, and distributing quantifiable information describing the characteristics of research libraries. The ARL Annual Salary Survey is the most comprehensive and thorough guide to current salaries in large U.S. and Canadian academic and research libraries, and is a valuable management and research tool that describes salaries for librarians.

Data for 8,400 professional staff members were reported this year for the 110 ARL university libraries, including their law and medical libraries (781 staff members reported by 67 medical libraries and 640 staff members reported by 70 law libraries). For the 11 nonuniversity ARL members, data were reported for 3,819 professional staff members.

This year’s publication follows the general format of previous years. Most tables show Canadian salaries converted into U.S. dollar equivalents at the rate of 1.4177 Canadian dollars per U.S. dollar. Tables 25 through 28, however, pertain exclusively to staff in Canadian university libraries, and salary data in those tables are expressed in Canadian dollars.

In the tables that follow, the university population is generally treated in three distinct groups: staff in the "general" library system, staff in the university medical libraries, and staff in the university law libraries. All branch libraries for which data were received, other than law and medical, are included in the "general" category, whether or not those libraries are administratively independent. Footnotes for many institutions provide information on branch inclusion or exclusion.
 
 

RACE AND ETHNICITY

There were 854 minority professional staff reported in 97 U.S. university member libraries, including law and medical, six more than last year.  Note that the data for minority professionals comes only from the U.S. university member libraries following the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) definitions; Canadian law prohibits the identification of Canadians by ethnic category.

The Office of Management and Budget has revised the Standards for the Classification of Federal Data on Race and Ethnicity3 and according to the new standard there will be five minimum categories for data on race (American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, Black or African American, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, and White) and two categories for data on ethnicity ("Hispanic or Latino" and "Not Hispanic or Latino"). Respondents will be able to report more than one race by choosing multiple responses to the race question. The new standards will be used by the Bureau of the Census in the 2000 decennial census. Other Federal programs will adopt the standards as soon as possible, but not later than January 1, 2003, for use in household surveys, administrative forms and records, and other data collections.  In light of these developments, the ARL Annual Salary Survey will also be revising the way racial/ethnic information is collected in the future.

Currently, minority staff make up 11.1% of the professional staff in U.S. university libraries (including law and medical). Specifically, Asians/Pacific Islanders comprise 5.5%, Blacks comprise 3.7%, Hispanics 1.8%, and American Indian/Native Alaskan comprise .2%.  Recent racial and ethnic data from the American Library Association (ALA) on academic libraries show that the sample of academic libraries surveyed by ALA has a higher representation of Blacks, Asian/Pacific Islanders, and American Indian/Alaskan Native than ARL libraries. More specifically, ARL libraries have 2.17% less Blacks, .52% less Asian/Pacific Islanders, and .37% less American Indian/Alaskan Natives compared to the ALA sample.4

Minority professional staff continue to be disproportionately distributed across the U.S. In Figure 1 one can compare the number of minority staff with other staff, region by region. These patterns of distribution have been relatively stable for the entire history of the ARL data collection experience. Minorities are underrepresented in the East South Central, New England, West North Central, West South Central, Mountain, and East North Central regions. Proportionately to the other areas, there are more minorities in the Pacific, South Atlantic, and Middle Atlantic areas.

Figure 1
MINORITY PROFESSIONALS BY REGION (U.S.)
IN ARL UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES FY 1998-99

 
 
New
England
Middle
Atlantic
E North
Central
W North
Central
South
Atlantic
East S
Central
West S
Central
 

Mountain
 

Pacific

TOTAL
 

%
Category                      
   Black
17
48
51
22
85
14
13
8
23
281
32.90%
   Hispanic
12
17
18
6
24
 
19
20
22
138
16.16%
   Asian
40
78
67
15
56
7
23
16
118
420
49.18%
   AI/NA5
1
1
5
1
   
1
4
2
15
1.76%
Minority Total
70
144
141
44
165
21
56
48
165
854
100.00%
Minority Percent
8.20%
16.86%
16.51%
5.15%
19.32%
2.46%
6.56%
5.62%
19.32%
100.00%
11.1%
Non-Minority Total  

848 
 

1,091 
 

1,243 
 

486 
 

1,063 
 

299 
 

526 
 

424 
 

837 
 

6,817
 
Non-Minority Percent  

12.44% 
 

16.00% 
 

18.23% 
 

7.13% 
 

15.59% 
4.39%
 

7.72% 
 

6.22% 
 

12.28% 
 

100.00% 
 

88.9%
Percent of staff per geographic region
11.97% 
16.10% 
18.04% 
6.91% 
16.01% 
4.17% 
7.59% 
6.15% 
13.06% 
100.00% 
100.00% 
Proportional Minority
Representation
-34.11%
5.36%
-9.45%
-27.73%
23.90%
-43.94%
-15.02%
-9.63%
57.36%
   

ARL has recognized the difficulties that the profession has in attracting a diverse workforce and has been working actively in the development of workplace climates that embrace diversity. The ARL Diversity Program focuses on issues surrounding work relationships in libraries, while considering the impact of diversity on library services, interactions with library users, and the development of collections.6

Women comprise 72.95% of staff in the four racial/ethnic groups that comprise minority staff, as compared to 63.71% for Caucasian/Other women in all U.S. university member libraries. The overall gender balance in the 110 Canadian and U.S. university libraries (including law and medical) is 35.26% male and 64.74% female. See Figure 1, above, and Figure 3, below, for more detail on ethnic distribution.
 
 

Figure 2
RACE/ETHNICITY AND SEX DISTRIBUTION OF PROFESSIONAL STAFF
IN ARL UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES FY 1998-99

United States


 
 
Female
Percent
Male
Percent
Total
Main
4,012 
63.18% 
2,338 
36.82% 
6,350 
Medical
536 
75.28% 
176 
24.72% 
712 
Law
418 
68.64% 
191 
31.36% 
609 
Minority 7
623 
72.95% 
231 
27.05% 
854 
Non-minority
4,343 
63.71% 
2,474 
36.29% 
6,817 
All
4,966 
64.74% 
2,705 
35.26% 
7,671

 

Canada


 
 
Female
Percent
Male
Percent
Total
Main
415 
65.98% 
214 
34.02 %
629 
Medical
57 
82.61% 
12 
17.39% 
69 
Law
18 
58.06% 
13 
41.94% 
31 
All
490 
67.22% 
239 
32.78% 
729 

 

United States and Canada (Combined)


 
 
Female
Percent
Male
Percent
Total
Main
4,427 
63.43% 
2,552 
36.57% 
6,979 
Medical
593 
75.93% 
188 
24.07% 
781 
Law
436 
68.13% 
204 
31.88% 
640 
All
5,456 
64.95% 
2,944 
35.05% 
8,400

 

Gender data

Many readers of previous surveys have inquired about evidence of gender-based salary differentials. Data on salary comparisons for directors also are frequently requested. It is perhaps noteworthy that the average salary for female directors in university libraries is slightly higher than the average salary for male directors (see Table 15) for the third year in a row. Many new hires have taken place in the last few years contributing to the largest number of women at the top administrative library position (52 women directors out of 110 total directorships reported this year) and, consequently, higher salaries for them.

Looking at other job categories, though, as Table 15 demonstrates, average salaries for men in most cases still surpass those of women in the same job category. For only eight categories (of the 27 used in the tables) do average salaries of women exceed those of men. Moreover, the overall salary for women is still only 93.6% that of men. Table 17 provides average years of professional experience for many of the same staffing categories for which salary data are shown in Table 15. An inspection of data in Table 17 reveals that experience differentials between men and women cannot account fully for all of the salary differentials evident in Table 15. Table 19 further reveals that the average salary for men is consistently higher than the average salary for women in every one of the experience cohorts. This pattern is also repeated for minority librarians (see Table 20).

Looking into the salaries over a larger period of time and holding constant the number of libraries over an eighteen year period (Figure 3), we can see that gradually women are closing the earnings gap across different job categories, but the process is very slow. Women earned more than men in only two job categories (Head, Documents and Circulation) in 1980-81; the same was true in 1988-89 when women directors and heads of serials earned slightly more than men; most recently in 1988-99, women earned more than men in four job categories (Directors, Heads of Circulation and Computer Systems, and Catalogers). Overall, women earned 87% of men’s salaries in 1980-81, 89% in 1988-89, and 93% in 1998-99.
 
 

Figure 3

SALARY DIFFERENTIALS FOR MEN AND WOMEN FROM 1980-81 TO 1998-99
(reporting data for 98 ARL university libraries)


1980-81
1988-89
1998-99
Job Category
Women
Men
Women’s salaries as a percent of Men’s salaries
Women 
Men 
Women’s salaries as a percent of Men’s salaries
Women 
Men 
Women’s salaries as a percent of Men’s salaries
Mean
Mean
Mean 
Mean 
Mean 
Mean 
Director
$44,872 
$48,128 
93%
$83,966 
$82,161 
102%
$124,850 
$122,107 
102%
Associate Director
34,251
37,001
93%
53,472 
56,220 
95%
75,298 
77,608 
97%
Assistant Director
28,975
31,776
91%
48,263 
50,034 
96%
69,290 
71,641 
97%
Head, Medical
33,941
36,752
92%
58,642 
61,559 
95%
89,073 
98,775 
90%
Head, Law
36,839
40,248
92%
66,685 
78,230 
85%
105,181 
113,316 
93%
Head, Branch
22,671
24,946
91%
36,570
40,738 
90%
52,826 
58,219 
91%
Functional Specialist
20,218
22,212
91%
31,800 
32,914 
97%
44,278 
44,437 
100%
Subject Specialist
21,034
21,820
96%
32,740 
35,937 
91%
48,126 
50,562 
95%
Head, Acquisitions
N/A 
N/A 
N/A
34,881 
38,448 
91%
49,684 
51,052 
97%
Head, Reference
22,956
24,257
95%
37,073 
38,033 
97%
53,219 
54,364 
98%
Head, Cataloging
23,659
24,315
97%
36,361 
40,706 
89%
52,164 
54,295 
96%
Head, Serials
21,557
21,768
99%
36,805 
36,122 
102%
45,730 
55,220 
83%
Head, Documents
21,830
21,293
103%
35,378 
35,235 
100%
49,051 
49,368 
99%
Head, Circulation
20,942
20,731
101%
31,572 
34,386 
92%
48,598 
45,379 
107%
Head, Rare books
21,979
27,138
81%
34,925 
43,780 
80%
55,399 
63,338 
87%
Head, Computer Systems  

N/A 
 

N/A 
 

N/A
 

40,790 
 

44,796 
 

91%
 

59,409 
 

56,269 
 

106%
Head, Other
21,725
23,981
91%
35,872 
38,393 
93%
50,884 
54,435 
93%
Public services
18,004
18,950
95%
29,104 
31,581 
92%
40,228 
40,901 
98%
Technical services
18,163
18,668
97%
29,716 
30,764 
97%
43,604 
43,802 
100%
Administration
20,249
21,148
96%
33,345 
36,677 
91%
46,629 
51,779 
90%
Reference librarian
N/A 
N/A 
N/A
29,505 
30,348 
97%
41,523 
42,220 
98%
Cataloger
N/A 
N/A 
N/A
29,519 
30,008 
98%
43,004 
41,744 
103%
TOTAL
$20,329 
$23,492 
87%
$33,592 
$37,758 
89%
$48,821 
$52,368 
93%

            There is also a sense that the gender gap persists in academe in areas beyond the library and that a renewed commitment to resolve the problem is needed.8  A variety of reasons have been offered as to why these trends persist, most notably the perception that work is peripheral in a woman’s life and, consequently, female dominated professions are undervalued. Librarianship is predominantly and persistently a woman’s profession. The scarcity of men in the profession has been well documented in many studies — the largest percent of men employed in ARL libraries was 38.2% in 1980-81; since then men represent about 35% of the professional staff in ARL libraries.
 
 

Institutional Characteristics and Salaries


A. Public and Private Institutions

       Salaries in private U.S. university libraries continue to exceed those paid in publicly supported U.S. university libraries. In FY 1998-99, the differential has increased compared to last year to $2,542, or 5.2% more for the average position in a private institution. Only in a few cases — Heads of Acquisitions, Circulation, Government Documents/Maps, and Serials, and Reference Librarians with over 14 years of experience — do average salaries in the public sector exceed those paid for similar positions in the private university libraries (see Table 22).
 
B. Size of Library

       Size of the library, as measured by the number of professional staff, is also a significant determinant of salary. As a rule, the largest libraries pay the highest average salaries, not only overall, but for specific positions as well. There are a few exceptions, however. In three position categories the second largest group of libraries (those that report 75-115 professionals) pay the highest average salary. In one case the lowest average salary is paid by the second smallest libraries (50-74 professionals) rather than the smallest. These exceptions account for less than 4% of the cases where comparisons can be made. Average salaries for all staff in a size cohort increase by $1,682, $2,388, and $357, respectively, or a total of $4,427, as one proceeds from university libraries with the smallest number of staff to university libraries with the largest number of staff. These aggregated differentials account for an 9.4% disparity between the smallest and largest libraries (see Table 23).  

C. Geographic Area

        The highest salaries are found in the Pacific area (Table 24), followed by New England and Middle Atlantic. All three areas have overall average salaries higher than $50,000 with the Pacific area averaging as high as $57,086. Canadian salaries are the lowest; Canada’s currency has a declining purchasing power against the U.S. dollar since the early ’90s. Note that the Canadian dollar has hit new lows (1.4177 Canadian dollars to one U.S. dollar) in 1998-99. Within the U.S., salaries in the West South Central region are the lowest, followed by the East South Central and South Atlantic area.

D. Rank Structure

       Rank structure continues to provide a useful framework for examining professional salaries in ARL university libraries. The following table displays average salary and years of experience in the most commonly used rank structures. Readers should be alerted that not all individuals may have a rank that fits into the rank structure the library utilizes. Most commonly, directors may have no rank or a rank outside the structure, and it is common for non-librarians included in the survey (business officers, personnel staff, computer specialists, etc.) to be unranked, as well.

        The pattern of relationships between rank and salary seen in past years continues with the present report where higher rank is associated with a higher average years of experience and a higher salary. Over 65% (5,498 professionals) of the 8,400 librarians in ARL university member libraries occupy a rank within these three most commonly found ranking systems.
 
 

Figure 4

Average Salaries and Average Years of Experience of Library Professionals
in Libraries with Three, Four, and Five Step Rank Structures


 
Three-Step
Four-Step
Five-Step
 
Salary
Experience
Salary
Experience
Salary
Experience
Librarian 1 
$37,821 
10.57 
$35,421 
6.56 
$35,588 
5.98 
Librarian 2 
44,995 
17.15 
40,962 
12.35 
42,635 
11.14 
Librarian 3
59,497 
22.35 
48,942 
19.17 
49,057 
17.06 
Librarian 4    
60,758 
24.33 
60,887 
21.03 
Librarian 5        
67,728 
25.13 
No. of Staff
1,520
3,118
860

 

Inflation Effect

       Tables 3 and 12 reveal changes in beginning professional and median salaries, as well as changes in the U.S. Bureau of Labor’s Cost of Living Index (CPI-U) for nonuniversity and university libraries. Table 12 includes law and medical library staff in order to maintain continuity for the 13-year span of time which the tabular data cover. Table 3 reveals that the purchasing power of nonuniversity staff at the median has barely kept up with inflation this year, increasing only 1.7%. The median salary has simply sustained the 5.3% gain in purchasing power compared to 14 years ago. The typical beginning professional salary has faired slightly better by increasing 4% since last year, gaining 15% in purchasing power since 1984-85.

        Median salaries for professional staff in university libraries have generally made more progress than nonuniversity library salaries, partly because university median salaries are slightly lower than those of nonuniversity libraries salaries. The purchasing power of salaries at the median is 11.6% higher than inflation, and the median beginning professional salary continues to show a larger gain — 15.8% — when compared to FY 1985. These levels also indicate that there has been a minor increase of 1% in the purchasing power of the median professional salary and 3.6% in the purchasing power of the beginning professionals salary in ARL university libraries compared to last year.

        Readers are reminded that these data reflect only salaries, and that there are other compensation issues which may have influenced the pattern of salaries in various institutions. In addition, a highly standardized structure for capturing data has been used, and this may portray results in a way that cannot be fully representative of a local situation.
 
 

Martha Kyrillidou
Association of Research Libraries
December 28, 1998


1 George Washington University became ARL’s 122nd member in 1998 but its salary survey data are not included in this year’s publication due to the timing of this year’s survey.   Salary data on George Washington University will be reported next year.

2 This is the average monthly noon exchange rate published in the Bank of Canada Review for the period July 1997-June 1998.

3 <http://www.whitehouse.gov/WH/EOP/OMB/html/fedreg/Ombdir/5.html>

4 Mary Jo Lynch, “Librarians’ Salaries Smaller Increases This Year,”  American Libraries  (November 1998): 68.

5 American Indian/Native Alaskan

6 For more information on the ARL Diversity Program see <http://www.arl.org/diversity/index.html>.

7 Includes staff in medical and law libraries.

8 Yolanda Moses, “Salaries in Academe: The Gender Gap Persists,” Chronicle of Higher Education (December 12, 1997): A60.


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