2004 SALARY SURVEY

Introduction

The New England Chapter of the Association of College and Research Libraries has again conducted a salary survey of librarians in four-year undergraduate academic institutions in the New England region. This edition, as in the past, covers only academic libraries that are not members of the Association of Research Libraries; data for those libraries is available in ARL's Annual Salary Survey.

The same basic survey questions that were used in previous ACRL/NEC salary surveys were used to gather data for this report. As was done for the 2002 survey, all data was gathered using an online version of the form. All institutions included in the previous surveys, as well as other known academic libraries in the New England region who are not members of ARL, were sent emails asking them to participate in the survey. Those libraries that had not completed the survey by the due date of September 23, 2004 were sent follow-up emails on September 23, 2004 reminding them of the due date. Fifty-five libraries responded to the survey this year. This was 3.8% greater than the number of participants in the survey conducted in 2002.

Fifteen of the libraries that participated in the 2002 survey did not complete the online forms for the 2004 survey. Seventeen libraries that did not contribute to the 2002 survey participated in this year's. Two participants did not enter complete data for all staff. Only the information entered in Survey 1 was used for these two libraries.

Data for this year's survey includes five hundred eighteen full-time filled positions, fifty-five part-time filled positions, and three vacant full-time positions in fifty-five libraries . The data has been reported in the same basic format that was used in the report for the 2002 survey with separate tables for full-time positions and for part-time positions.

Over the years Table F and Table I have been eliminated from the report. These tables have not been included in this report and the same labeling order has been maintained for the remaining tables. No salary data is published for categories with fewer than four persons, in order to protect individual confidentiality.

Analysis of the data was accomplished using Microsoft Excel (Version 4.0) and StatView (Version 4.1) on a Macintosh computer. Tables for this report were constructed using DreamWeaver.

The average salary for full-time four-year academic librarians is $54,963 as compared to $52,049 in the 2002 survey. This is an increase of 5.60% over the two-year period. The median salary of full-time four-year academic librarians is $51,299 and the standard deviation (S.D.) for all reported full-time salaries is $17,253. Further analysis shows that the salaries are positively skewed (1.33). The average number of years of experience for full-time librarians increased from 16.14 in 2002, to 16.93 (S.D.=10.28). The median number of years of experience has increased from 16.00 in 2002 to 18.00 in this survey.

The average hourly rate for part-time four-year academic librarians is $22.28 (S.D.= $8.98)which is an increase of 7.79% above the $20.67 per hour in 2002. The median hourly rate of part-time four-year academic librarians is $20.00 per hour. The hourly rates for part-time librarians are positively skewed (3.28). The average number of years of experience for part-time librarians increased from 14.62 in 2002 to 17.39 (S.D.= 11.86) in 2004. The median number of years of experience for part-time librarians is 18.00.

The number of minorities in positions in full-time four-year academic libraries has decreased from thirty-eight to thirty. Minorities make up 5.79% of the filled positions reported in the survey (down from 7.7% from 2002). The average (16.21) and the median (14.00) number of years of experience for the full-time minority four-year academic librarians have increased from 12.87 and 12.00, respectfully, from those reported in 2002. Both the mean salary of the minority librarians ($59,019) and the median salary ($53,250) are again greater than the overall average and median of all full-time librarians included in the survey. The average salaries for minorities have increased by 7.16%. This is greater than the 5.60% increase experienced by all librarians in this study. The standard deviation for full-time minority salaries is $18,353 and a positive skew of 1.094 is indicated. The number of minorities in full-time positions decreased from thirty-eight in the 2002 survey to thirty in this more recent survey. No minorities were reported to have been holding part-time positions in any of the libraries surveyed which is a decrease from four having been reported in the 2002 survey.

I would like to acknowledge the Graduate School of Library and Information Studies (GSLIS) at the University of Rhode Island for its support in this project. I would also like to thank Holly Hendricks, GSLIS graduate assistant, for assisting in making this report available on the GSLIS server. Finally, I want to extend my appreciation to the Board of ACRL/NEC for their assistance with this survey.

If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to contact me.

C. Herbert Carson, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Graduate School of Library and Information Studies
Rodman Hall
University of Rhode Island
Kingston, RI 02881
(401) 874-4646
E-mail: chcarson@uri.edu

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File last updated: Tuesday, October 26, 2004
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