ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries 141 East European Materials (Ad Hoc): Monday, June 29, 8:00-9:00 a.m. University Libraries Section Program: Tuesday, June 30, 2:00-5:00 p.m. Steering: Saturday, June 27, 11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.; Monday, June 29, 8:00-9:00 a.m. Western European Specialists Section Program: Sunday, June 28, 9:30-11:30 a.m. Membership: Tuesday, June 30, 11:30 a.m .- 12:30 p.m. Executive: Monday, June 29, 8:00-9:00 a.m.; Tuesday, June 30, 2:00-4:00 p.m. Conference Program Planning—Philadelphia, 1982: Tuesday, June 30, 9:00-11:00 a.m. Language and Literature Discussion Group: Monday, June 29, 2:00-4:00 p.m. Planning: Monday, June 29, 9:30-11:00 a.m. Research and Publications: Saturday, June 27, 2:00-4:00 p.m.; Monday, June 29, 9:30-11:00 a.m. Social Science Discussion Group: Sunday, June 28, 2:00-4:00 p.m. Subcommittee on Membership Survey: Tues­ day, June 30, 9:00-11:00 a.m. Population Characteristics of Academic Librarians Bob Carmack Dean o f Library Services University o f South Dakota and John N . Olsgaard Documents Librarian and Archivist I D. Weeks Library University o f South Dakota From time to time questions of the “population characteristics” of academic librarians arise which find no ready answer in the literature. With faculty, including librarians, of state-supported in­ stitutions of higher education in South Dakota now concluding their second year of a collective bargaining agreement, questions and discussions of our own experiences in South Dakota invari­ ably turned to queries about collective bargaining in academic libraries in general. Not satisfied with information in the literature, the authors be­ gan to compile data for an article on collective bargaining in academic libraries. In so doing, some interesting population characteristics of academic librarians emerged. These “social in­ dicators” may provide some interesting inferences about the composition of academic librarianship as a whole. Building on the assumption that the mem­ bership of the Association of College and Re­ search Libraries is representative of academic li­ brarianship in general, a statistically valid strat­ ified random sample survey of ACRL members was conducted in February-M arch, 1981. The survey conducted was to provide data on the cur­ rent status of collective bargaining in academic li­ braries. Using Jean Kennelly’s May, 1975, survey questionnaire on collective bargaining in academic libraries1 as a base, augmented with questions of our own, a survey instrument was prepared and administered to 700 members of ACRL. 60.4% were returned which, in and of it­ self, may be somewhat indicative of the interest of academic librarians in collective bargaining. Data was compiled on a general population basis but was also broken down into regional subsets. The distribution of states in each region was iden­ tical to that used in previous research.2 States in­ cluded in the regions were as follows: Northeast: Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont Southeast: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Ken­ tucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Ten­ nessee, Virginia, West Virginia Midwest: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, Wiscon­ sin Southwest: Arizona, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mis­ sissippi, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas 1Jean R. Kennelly, “The C urrent Status of Academic Librarians Involvement in Collective Bargaining: A Survey,” Collective Bargaining in Higher Education, ed. Millicent D. Abell. (Chi­ cago, American Library Association, 1976), pp. 89-90. 2See Russell E. Bidlack, “Faculty Salaries of 62 Library Schools, 1977-78,” Journal o f Education f o r L ib ra ria n sh ip 18:263 (Spring, 1978) and Olsgaard and Olsgaard, “Authorship in Five Li­ brary Periodicals,” College and Research Librar­ ies 41:49-53 (January, 1980). 142 West: Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, M ontana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington, Wyoming The data suggests that some 70% of ACRL members are employed as professional librarians in either a community college, four-year college, or university. (The remaining 30% included li­ brary school professors, students, public and spe­ cial librarians, retired librarians, and others.) 24% of these college and university librarians are in­ volved, or participate, in some form of collective bargaining. The h eaviest concen tratio n of academic librarians involved in collective bargain­ ing is in the Northeast (47%), while librarians in the Southeast and Southwest failed to report any significant level of involvement in collective bar­ gaining. The next lowest concentration was in the West, where 16% are involved in collective bar­ gaining. 22% are involved in the Midwest. Data relating to those in community colleges, four-year colleges, and universities, indicated that 53% had the Masters Degree in Library Science only, while 41% possessed the MLS plus at least an additional masters degree. These librarians have also been in the profession an average of 15.6 years, have held 3.1 professional positions, and have been in their present position 9.8 years. Some 80% of these librarians have either faculty status or faculty rank. The data indicates that more have faculty status (56%) than faculty rank (23%). The findings offer some interesting information on women in academic librarianship. The data in­ dicates that some 60% of academic librarians are women, which may not be new information. More interesting, however, is the regional dis­ tribution of women academ ic librarians. The largest concentrations of female academic librar­ ians are in the Southwest (88%) and the South­ east (76%). Only in the West region are there more men than women, with women comprising 45% of the population. The Midwest is close to the West with 52% female, while the Northeast, with 60%, is close to the norm. One particularly interesting datum was found in the area of super­ vision. It may come as no surprise to some, but in the supervision of other professional librarians, men supervise, on the whole, twice the number of professional librarians than women. The pre­ dominance is most noted in the West, where the ratio is some 6 to 1, and least noted in the South­ west and Southeast, where the ratio is about 1.5 to 1. The ratio in the Northeast and Midwest is closer to 2 to 1. These early findings provide some statistically reliable evidence on the composition of academic librarians as a population. Hopefully, this prelim­ inary data will provide information which may be helpful and of interest to academic librarians and administrators. More detailed data will be re­ ported elsewhere in the literature. SALARIES UP, BUT VARIANCE STILL HIGH The annual salary for directors of library ser­ vices in academic institutions has risen by 6.9% since 1979-80, according to an annual survey con­ ducted by the College and University Personnel Association. This compares with an 8.7% overall rise in academic administrative salaries. The data from the survey were summarized in the March 23 Chronicle o f H igher Education. The survey also compared median salaries for positions in public and private institutions, and in 2-year colleges, 4-year colleges, and universities. Library and learning resource center directors at public institutions earn salaries roughly $8,000- $9,000 higher than those at private institutions, based on the median, while library school deans also fare better at public institutions by as much as $5,500 annually. Salaries for directors of university libraries average $12,000-$13,000 more than college li­ brary directors, and a similar variance exists for library school deans. Library administrators at 4- year institutions clearly have the lowest median salaries of the three groups. The median salaries of non-minority library school deans was 50% higher than that of minor­ ity deans, and male deans were paid 48.2% more than women in corresponding positions. Male learning resource center directors earned salaries 24.5% higher than females, and male library directors were higher by 32.9%. Non-minority li­ brary directors w ere only over m inorities by 11.6%, and learning resource cen ter director salaries w ere equal for m inorities and n o n ­ minorities. A summary of 1975-76 CUPA salary compari­ sons was written by Kathleen Heim, University of Illinois Graduate School of Library Science, for C &R L N ew s, January 1981, p. 3. C opies of CUPA’s 1980-81 A d m in istr a tiv e Com pensation Survey Report detailing the current salary com­ parisons are available to CUPA members for $25 and to non-members for $75 each from the Col­ lege and University Personnel Association, 11 Dupont Circle, Washington, DC 20036. BI Feedback Wanted The Policy and P lanning C om m ittee of ACRL’s B ibliographic In stru ctio n Section would like to have your comments and evalua­ tion of its B ibliographic In stru c tio n H a n d ­ book. Copies of the handbook are available from the ACRL office at $5 for ACRL mem­ bers, $6 for non-members. Please send the evaluation sheet at the back of the handbook with your comments to: Beverly Renford, 414 Amesbury Road, Lancaster, PA 17601.