Academic and Public Librarian Salaries and Library Staffing Expenditures Trends, 2000-2009

Library salaries/wages and benefits expenditures consume as much as 70 percent of some library operating budgets. The impact of low or negative-growth budgets and the displacement of technology expenditures to other categories of library operating (e.g., collections, programming, and outreach) are significant for many libraries. Relying on national surveys of academic libraries from the National Center for Education Statistics, surveys of public libraries from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, and annual salary surveys from the American Library Association (ALA) and ALA-Allied Professional Association, this article will describe, for the period 2000-2009, the distribution of academic and public library expenditures, present librarian salary survey ranges by type of library and position held, and elucidate trends identified from comparison of the three data sources.published or submitted for publicatio

Impacts of Scholarship and Publication on Entry-level Hiring: Public Services Applicants in Academic Libraries in the United States

This study examines the impact of a single knowledge, skill, and ability (KSA), specifically research and publication experience, on the hiring decisions of selection committees for entry-level public services academic librarian positions in the United States. Current library and information science literature contains few studies focusing on a single KSA factor. For this study, respondents (n=141) from a selective sample of 382 institutions of higher education completed an online survey in January and February 2015. The results show that research and publication experience had a greater impact on hiring decisions at urban research universities with large full-time equivalent (FTE) student enrollments, and very large FTE library staff. Forty-five percent of respondents who hired an entry-level public services librarian in the previous 5-year period encouraged research and publication as a primary or secondary duty, and 21% felt its impact on hiring decisions had increased over the previous 10-year period. However, only 14% of respondents categorized research and publication experience as extremely or very important when making hiring decisions. A future investigation of the exact sub-skills associated with research and publication could illustrate how this KSA is currently utilized in the practice of academic librarianship