College and Research Libraries The Opportunity. Costs of Faculty Status for Academic Librarians Bruce R. Kingma and Gillian M. McCombs Faculty status for academic librarians is a topic which has consumed the attention of the profession for the last forty years. Very little of the discussion has focused on the costs this status imposes on the institution. This article attempts to point out and document the economic costs of this model, while at the same time encouraging campus and library managers generally to employ economic principles as a methodology by which to analyze their institutions. ccording to economists, an opportunity cost of a product or service is "the value of what must be given up in or- der to acquire the item or perform the service."1 These costs are called "oppor- tunity" costs because they represent the opportunities the individual or agency must forgo to achieve the desired output although they include the actual dollar outlay. For example, the opportunity cost of the library purchasing a book includes not only the purchase price but also the staff time spent processing, reshelving, and repairing the book over its shelf life. Faculty status for academic librarians is a topic which has consumed the atten- tion of the profession for the last forty years. 2 More has been written about this subject than about any other related topic in academic librarianship.3 How- ever, very little attention has been paid to the opportunity costs of faculty status as a component of the total cost of library services. No one has attempted to attach a dollar value to these opportunity costs in the way an economist would.4 This ar- ticle will show that there is a certain amount of value to be gained from this kind of analysis. Certainly it is important to understand that, whatever the benefits, faculty status is not cost-neutral. An economic modeling of faculty status cannot proceed without a defini- tion of terms. Over the years, faculty status for librarians has meant different things at different institutions. For pur- poses of simplicity and consistency, the authors have interpreted faculty status as defined in the 1992 Association of Col- lege and Research Libraries (ACRL) "Standards for Faculty Status for Col- lege and University Librarians."5 In or- der to provide consistent data sets, the study population has been confined to one subset of academic libraries-those that are members of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL). 6 The institution of faculty status im- poses real and opportunity costs on an academic library. The real costs of fac- ulty status include travel expenses for attending conferences, resources fqr Bruce R. Kingma is an assistant professor at the ScJwol of Information Science and Policy and the Department of Economics at the University at Albany, State University of New York (SUNY), Albany, New York 12222. Gillian M. McCombs is the Assistant Director for Technical Services, University Libraries, at the University of Albany, State University of New York (SUNY), Albany, New York 12222. We would like to thank Marion Burghart, George Chressanthis, Gloriana St. Clair, and two anonymous referees for helpful comments and assistance. All remaining errors belong to us. 258 The Opportunity Costs of Faculty Status 259 writing papers and sending surveys, and other research costs. Some portion of these costs are also incurred at institu- tions without faculty status. The oppor- tunity costs of faculty status include the value of the time that librarians use to pursue research interests in addition to the financial costs. The time costs in- clude sabbaticals and other forms of re- lease time, such as the hours allowed the librarian each week to write scholarly articles or give presentations outside the library. As with teaching faculty, addi- tional persons must be hired to do the work of the librarian pursuing tenure or promotion. Alternatively the tasks are ab- sorbed by other staff members. If the li- brarian's task/ function is not performed, the consequence for the patrons is a loss of service. This could include delays in im- plementing new services, the accumula- tion of cataloging backlogs, or the loss of collection development expertise and hours at the reference desk. There are also across-the-board overhead costs. The peer review process, used to monitor the pro- duction of research and perform quality 40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 control functions, involves time spent by all librarians to review files and meet collectively. For example, figure 1 shows the hours of work of four catalogers at a typical academic library with faculty status. Catalogers A, B, and C work full-time cataloging books. However, part of their 35-hour week includes time spent in pro- fessional development. At the same time, cataloger D is on sabbatical. The net cost of the professional development time by these four librarians is 51 (5+9+2+35) hours. If replacement cata- logers are paid $15 per hour (or $525 per week), then faculty status results in a real cost to the library of $765 per week. While each of these catalogers may spend additional hours engaged in re- search beyond the 35-hour week (re- search on teaching faculty shows that faculty spend 50+ hours a week at their jobs), the time spent during the 35-hour workweek has a real cost to the library. Another way to look at this is in terms of potential "overstaffing" costs. If a li- brary has set certain performance goals, DProf. Dev. D Cataloging •Inter. Gov. Cataloger A Cataloger 8 Cataloger C Cataloger D Catalogers FIGURE 1 Cataloger Hours 260 College & Research Libraries such as no book or order sits in any Technical Services Department longer than two days, staffing levels must ac- commodate both these goals and the need for professional development ac- tivities. Using the previous example, the library will then be paying for an addi- tional 51 hours a week, representing an added cost to library services. From a public services point of view, if a refer- ence desk must be staffed by a minimum of two librarians for 90 hours a week, and the available pool of librarian hours is reduced because of the need to spend time working to sustain faculty status, the pool of available hours will have to be increased across-the-board. A recent study on reference desk staffing ade- quacy also raised the concern that the quality of reference service is suffering because of inadequate staffing/ In either case, the time spent on research by li- brarians will cost the library additional resources. When 51 hours of catalogers' or reference librarians' time are spent writing rather than cataloging or serving on the reference desk, it takes longer for books and j oumals to be cataloged or for reference inquiries to be answered. It should be noted that these opportu- nity costs are not unique to library fac- ulty. Faculty status has the same potential costs for teaching faculty. If teaching faculty are on sabbatical, ad- junct or visiting faculty must be hired. The opportunity cost of a teaching fac- ulty member on sabbatical is the cost of employing an adjunct to replace him or her. Just as the cost of faculty status for library faculty should include the cost of hiring replacements, so should the cost of teaching faculty. In fact, in response to university financial pressures teaching faculty are increasingly being judged by the amount of external grants they gen- erate for the university. Teaching faculty "buy-outs" of classes and sabbaticals frequently come as the result of generat- May1995 ing external grants to pay for an adjunct. The resulting cost to the university of hiring adjuncts or additional staff for teaching faculty or librarians is the cost of these additional employees minus the amount of external funds generated. However, the dollar amount neces- sary to replace hours lost to professional development, $765 or 51 hours in our previous example, is a conservative esti- mate of the full cost of faculty status for university librarians. If replacement catalogers are not hired, the opportunity cost of faculty status is larger than this. It is the value of the productivity lost as a result of librarians spending these hours in professional development. When 51 hours of catalogers' or refer- ence librarians' time are spent writing rather than cataloging or serving on the reference desk, it takes longer for books and journals to be cataloged or for refer- ence inquiries to be answered. This time delay denies faculty and students access to information. The opportunity cost of faculty status equals the lost benefits of access to this information during the time delay (see Richard Meyer's article "Earnings Gains through the Institution- alized Standard of Faculty Status" for a more detailed data analysis). 8 To illustrate this concept further, as- sume that a librarian catalogs an average of four books an hour .. Then 51 hours of cataloger's time equate to 204 books a week that will not be cataloged until the following week. Each book that is not cataloged is not available to the univer- sity community for use during that week. Each use of a book by a patron has a benefit to that patron. The benefit of the use of a book is the perceived value of access by the patron. To receive this benefit, each patron is willing to spend his or her own time to acquire the book from the library and read it. The ex- pected value or expected benefit of the book to the patron can be assumed to be at least as much as the value of the time spent in acquiring and reading it. Assuming that patron benefits from the use of books can be quantified and ranked from highest to lowest, the lost opportunities or benefits from the use of The Opportunity Costs of Faculty Status 261 books that are not accessible to the pa- trons as a result of a one-week delay can be measured. Figure 2 shows the total benefit of new books to the university community per week. Each book made available each week provides a benefit to a library pa- tron. Since there are no quantitative studies of the value of a book in the library to a patron, the values in figure 2 are assumed in order to illustrate the opportunity cost. In figure 2, the initial 200 books cataloged in a week provide a benefit, by assumption, of $2,000 or, on average, $10 per book. The 200th through 400th books provide an addi- tional benefit of $1,800, or $9 per book, for a total benefit of $3,800. In the faculty status model, the cata- loging of 204 books is delayed by one week. If 1,204 books could be cataloged in a given week but only 1,000 books are cataloged, then, according to figure 2, the university community would lose $1,000 in potential benefits. Thus, the opportunity cost of faculty status is the benefit lost to the university community of $1,000 rather than simply the replace- ment cost or real cost of $765 for the four catalogers. The institution of faculty status is as- sumed to benefit the university commu- nity in the form of a more productive library that employs higher-quality li- brarians and enhances the work of re- searchers. Evidence of a more productive library might include more journal arti- cles published by the university commu- nity, more grants received, or, simply, more patrons visiting and using the li- brary. However, Richard Meyer con- cludes thatteaching faculty in universities with libraries that have faculty status are less productive, not more.9 Another as- sumed benefit of faculty status is that the time and effort spent on achieving fac- ulty status should "pay off" for the li- brary and the librarian, resulting in a higher salary. However, although Meyer showed that faculty and librar- ian salaries were on a par at one particu- lar institution, Clemson University, other research has shown the contrary-that either there is no statistically significant $1 01000 ---------------------- -------------- ----- --- ------------------ --------------------------------------------------------------- $9,000 $8,000 $7,000 $6,000 $5,000 $4,000 $3,000 $2,000 $1,000 $0 0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 Number of Books Catalogued per Week FIGURE2 The Total Benefit of New Book Use per Week 1400 1600 262 College & Research Libraries difference or that salaries are lower in institutions with faculty status. 10-12 The effect of faculty status on librarian salaries can be checked using data on ARL libraries' beginning and mean sala- ries and average years of experience, ARL index numbers, and whether or not librarians have faculty statusY-15 ARL index numbers are calculated from vol- umes added to collections, staff size, col- lection size, total serial holdings, and budget. These secondary data, arguably imperfect, can be considered reasonable proxies for library status, quality, and level of institutional support. When beginning and average salaries for university librar- ies at 101 ARLlibraries were regressed on faculty status, average years of experi- ence, and the ARL index number, the results shown in table 1 were obtained. The coefficients on the years of librar- ian experience ( + 1112, +248) indicate that libraries with higher average years of experience pay their librarians more.16 A library with an average of fifteen years of librarian experience has a mean sal- ary, on average, $248 higher and a begin- ning salary, on average, $1,112 higher than a library with an average of four- teen years of librarian experience. This shows a positive correlation between salary and years of experience. The coefficients on the ARL index numbers ( + 1150, +812) indicate that ARL libraries with a higher index have higher beginning and mean salaries. Beginning salaries at ARL libraries with a one point higher index number are $1,550 higher while mean salaries are $814 higher, all else constant. May1995 However, the coefficients and stand- ard errors for faculty status indicate that there is no statistically significant effect of faculty status on librarian salaries at ARL libraries. In addition, the coeffi- cients on faculty status (-1118, -46) are negative; i.e., faculty status results in lower salaries, not higher. While there may be other benefits to faculty status such as paid leaves, travel support, or other fringe benefits, there is no evi- dence of an increase in salary. As an additional check, the effect of faculty status on the ranking of an ARL library was examined. If faculty status provides a benefit of increased produc- tivity, it would be expected that more . productive university libraries would be more likely to have faculty status. How- ever, when the correlation between the ARL index number and faculty status is calculated, the correlation coefficient is -0.14. This indicates that the typical uni- versity library with faculty status has a mean ARL index number 0.14 less than the typical university library without faculty status. Charles Lowry's re- search shows that institutional status (private or public) and classification (from the Carnegie Classification of In- stitutions of Higher Education) are also important factors that explain why "the oldest and largest research in- stitutions are less likely to grant faculty status to librarians."17 It is important to recognize that the opportunity cost of faculty status exists for teaching faculty as well as librarians. Both groups may need to provide ample evidence of benefits to the university in TABLE 1 FACULTY STATUS IN RELATION TO SALARY, EXPERIENCE, AND ARL INDEX NUMBER Beginning= 24447 + 1112 (years of experience) + 1550 (ARL index number) -1118 (faculty status) (224) . (510) (971) Mean Salary= 22225 + 248 (years of experience)+ 814 (ARL index number)- 46 (faculty status) (118) (267) (510) Note: Standard errors are in parentheses. Faculty status is a dummy variable that takes on the value of 1 when the library has faculty status and 0 otherwise. The Opportunity Costs of Faculty Status 263 order to justify the short-term and long- term costs of giving employees lifelong contracts. Faculty status may or may not work to the institution's advantage. However, that decision can only be made when both the benefits and the costs of faculty status are considered. The philosophical debate as to the pros and cons of faculty status for aca- demic librarians will probably continue ad infinitum. In January 1992, ACRLspon- sored a think tank to focus on issues evolv- ing from faculty status for academic librarians. The subsequent report-"Fac- ulty Status: 2001"-outlined an agenda to strengthen . the concept of faculty status during this decade. 18 This agenda has met with some negative reaction.19 Beth Shapiro's rebuttal of ACRL' s position drew an immediate and lively response from the readership, ample proof that this topic is still being hotly debated.20 The high cost of doing business in the Information Age and the escalating cost of acquiring materials have contributed to an increased concern with the economics of library operations. At the same time, the workloads of individual librarians are increasing. Automation of library functions (both managerial and patron driven) has added new services, increased work- loads, heightened the need for retraining and additional computer skills, and con- tributed to both the burnout and stress levels attested to in the literature.21 Li- brarians are rethinking their modus op- erandi in response to the Digital Revolution and changing .models of in- formation delivery. 22 The move toward the Virtual/Digital/Electronic Library is bringing librarians closer to their col- leagues in the Computing Center who do not usually have faculty status (see Diane Cimbala' s discussion of the issue of faculty status in her model for a "scholarly information center").23 Will there be a trend toward combining all information jobs into one (or several) information fami- lies? Certainly if Anne Woodsworth and Theresa May lone's conclusions hold true, a move . from faculty lines to computing lines would have financial benefits that, according to Applegate, faculty status has not provided.24.25 Academic libraries are currently being compelled to look at the economics of library services. The high cost of doing business in the Information Age and the escalating cost of acquiring materials have contributed to an increased concern with the economics of library operations. It is unlikely that any administrator attuned to the sensitivity of the issue of faculty status among librarians would seriously consider changing the status quo unless there was a strong and reasoned demand for change on the part of the library faculty. However, since faculty status for librarians is not cost neutral, campus administrators would do well to integrate this fact into their thinking as they look at revised models of information delivery across the campus. Librarians would also be advised to ana- lyze how well the faculty status model has served their purposes over the years and whether or not, as Fred Batt states, force- fitting librarians into the teaching faculty mode is comfortable. 26 If this model is found to be lacking, then perhaps it is time to develop a new model that more appropriately serves the patrons' and the librarians' needs in this brave new world of electronic resources and infor- mation access. REFERENCES AND NOTES 1. William J. Baumol and Alan S. Blinder, Economics: Principles and Policy, 5th ed. (New York: Harcourt, 1991}, 6. 2. Barbara B. Moran," Academic Libraries: The Changing Knowledge Centers of Colleges and Universiti~s," ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Research Report No . 8 (Washington D.C.: ASHE, 1984), 46. 264 College & Research Libraries May1995 3. Barbara B. Moran, "The Unintended Revolution in Academic Libraries: 1939-1989 and Beyond," College & Research Libraries 50 Oan. 1989): 25-40. . 4. One article that does touch on the costs of faculty status, although its main focus is to determine whether or not faculty status improves the earnings of academic librarians, is that of Richard W. Meyer, "Earnings Gains through the Institutionalized Standard of Faculty Status," Library Administration & Management 4 (Fall1990): 184-93. 5. "Standards for Faculty Status for College and University Librarians," prepared by Larry R. Oberg for the ACRLAcademic Status Committee, College & Research Libraries News 53 (May 1992): 317-18. 6. For a discussion of the varied surveys on how many and which libraries, see note 1 in William K. Black and Joan M. Leysen, "Scholarship and the Academic Librarian," College & Research Libraries 55 (May 1994): 229-41. 7. Deborah Rinderknecht, "New Norms for Reference Desk Staffing Adequacy: A Comparative Study," College & Research Libraries 53 (Sept. 1992): 429-36. 8. Meyer, "Earning Gains." 9. Ibid. 10. Rachel Applegate, "Deconstructing Faculty Status: Research and Assumptions," Journal of Academic Librarianship 19 Ouly 1993): 158-64. 11. Thomas G. English, "Librarian Status in the Eighty-nine U.S. Academic Institutions of the Association of Research Libraries: 1982" College & Research Libraries 44 (May 1983): 199-211. 12. Janet Kramp art and Aara DiFelice, "A Review of Faculty Status Surveys, 1971-1984," Journal of Academic Librarianship 13 (Mar. 1987): 14-18. 13. Association of Research Libraries, ARL Annual Salary Survey (Washington D.C.: ARL, 1992). 14. Association of Research Libraries, ARL Statistics (Washington D.C.: ARL, 1992). 15. Jack Siggins, comp., Academic Status for Librarians in ARL Libraries, SPEC Kit 182 (Wash- ington, D.C.: ARL, Office of Management Services, 1992). 16. Ordinary least squares were used to estimate the coefficients in these equations. To deter- mine if a coefficient is statistically significant from zero, the coefficient must be divided by the standard error. This ratio is a t-statistic that can be checked for statistical significance, using a table for the student's t distribution. See G. S. Maddala, Econometrics (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1977) for further insight. 17. Charles B. Lowry, "The Status of Faculty Status for Academic Libraries: A Twenty-Year Perspective," College & Research Libraries 54 (Mar. 1993): 163-72. 18. Irene Hoadley, "Faculty Status: 2001. Results of an ACRL-Sponsored Think Tank," College & Research Libraries News 54 Oune 1993): 338-40. 19. See the response by Be~h J. Shapiro, "The Myths Surrounding Faculty Status for Librarians," College & Research Libraries News 54 (Nov. 1993), 562-63, and Jean A. Major's article "Mature Librarians and the University Faculty: Factors Contributing to Librarians' Accep- tance as Colleagues," College & Research Libraries 54 (Nov. 1993), 463-69. 20. Shapiro's contentions were described as "wrongheaded" by Fred Hill, "Faculty Status for Librarians: A Response," College & Research Libraries News 55 Oan. 1994): 26. 21. Donald E. Riggs, "Losing the Foundation of Understanding," American Libraries 25 (May 1994): 449. 22. Lowry, "The Status of Faculty Status." 23. Diane J. Cimbala, "The Scholarly Information Center: An Organizational Model" College & Research Libraries 48 (Sept. 1987): 393-97. 24. Anne Woodsworth and Theresa Malone, Reinvesting in the Information Job Family: Context, Changes, New Jobs, and Models for Evaluation and Compensation CAUSE Paper No.11 (Boulder, Colo.: CAUSE, 1993). 25. Applegate, "Deconstructing." 26. Fred Batt, "Faculty Status for Academic Librarians: Justified or Just a Farce?" Issues in Academic Librarianship: Views and Case Studies for the 1980's and 1990's, ed. Peter Spyers- Duran and Thomas W. Mann, Jr. (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1985).