Research: Group 1-Members: Sha Fagan, Rosemary Mesh, Margaret Myers, Kathleen de la Pena McCool
What do we know now and what do we need to know. Economic issues and facts that we need to know.
Kathleen: A basic fact sheet that states we are paid poorly when compared to 3 other fields…something that can attract other people’s attention. By your own jurisdiction, what tools can you use. Show that librarian salaries are gripeable to get people’s attention. Bottom line-All we need is a short, factual statement that librarians get paid less than IT professionals. Don’t need a lot of statistics. Hay Associates do comparable pay studies for governments. MJF to write to presidents of each state association to appoint somebody to be the state representative for this Committee on Research for Pay Equity. Feed the information out to the advocacy. Build a state network of people. Must do this on a national basis. Recommend to MJF that there needs to be a conversation with MaryJo about what is possible for finding out if MLS programs are filled to capacity. Goodness of the data isn’t as important as finding an economist outside of our field for analysis. 20 years ago, only a handful of women were ARL presidents or full status professors but because some of those more cosmetic changes were made, people stopped worrying on a level. Website about living wage (something you can do for support staff) Living wage ordinances that say you can’t pay less than living wage if you’re a city agency. These ordinances have to be done by governments.
Margaret: National salary surveys and regional and state surveys. Catch things such as teachers and IT professionals. Facts sheet for: Toolkit, PR. How to use data. Tackle the whole economic issues/discussion. Successful case-stories…had been tracked since early 90s, which are valuable in terms of knowing what works.
Case stories
- American Libraries Articles
- Case studies can show job evaluation studies, state standards, ones that have gone through legislative efforts, success stories
Rosemary: Move out of sphere of parks and recreation into education. Teachers salaries…based on census data. ‘Study revealed that ….1.9% of librarians earned over 50,000 as compared to 12% of teachers,’ “I think IT presents problems because there are fewer of them” Issues: Comparable pay, Pay Equity, Public libraries spend less of their money for staff. Do PLA break down how much money is allocated for MLS staff; for support staff? Norman Jacknis said how we can look at it from long range perspective and we do need to have a legacy beyond the short-range. In a toolkit, people need to have materials that they can use. Book “Statistics for Librarians” Populations of 100,000 or more, libraries should be open 60 hours a week or more, according to Board of Regents…so Margaret suggests maybe we should look into how we’re needed in terms of salaries. Rosemary says to look at that in terms of staffing. But Kathleen says can’t do it nationally because there are states with no standards.
MJF: Salary surveys of all libraries that have done salary surveys…try and build a library of this stuff up. Handed Hartford Public Library Salary Survey
Sha: How does the postal service give salaries based on region. Do they do it based on region? Are they allocated based on region? Male/Female
Wants to look at IT people in University…male dominated profession, pays more. What about male nurses and their salaries? On fact sheet, at the top, quick fact sheet of comparable job salaries. Surveys, like a national survey and then a regional survey. % of money spent on library staff (Rosemary says MLS staff particularly) Re-package and activate the data that already exists. Number of seats, books per population, which should provide number of jobs that should be available for librarians/support staff in that area. Continue as a working group going into midwinter.
More product tomorrow…but today minibrainstorming
Teachers, IT professionals, CPAs
MJF: Clearinghouse of salary surveys from all over the country. ALA collect them and distribute them. Identify data that is lacking (HRDR can do this) Paul Sabrowski’s commercial company, Bibliostat, has a software with a database that tabulates librarian salaries, library director salaries are in there as well. Nancy Bolt, strong state librarian. Margaret-to run down finding statistics on clearinghouse of salary surveys from all over the country. See no purpose served by a minimum salary state-wide (maybe in FL)
Rosemary: For state resources, salaries should be available on the internet. Has to go to state library web pages.