Poof Goes the Librarian

But we don't hear squat from this group when we report that jobs--in actual libraries--go unfilled due to laughable salaries or disappear due to a lack of legislative protection. These are our field's chronic, deeply rooted problems, problems that can't be solved in the time it takes to send off a flurry of furious messages to e-mail discussion groups.

The facts are under our noses. Young librarians are fleeing large public library systems because what passes for an entry-level salary is a joke. Last month, several hundred librarians protested low salaries at the Queens Borough (NY) Public Library. Each year, 17 percent of its librarians depart after failing to make ends meet in pricey New York City on an entry-level salary of $29,000. The New York Public Library, a system renowned in the history of children's services, is facing similar flight among its staff.

In Cincinnati, two schools that had closed this spring because of poor performance removed their librarians upon opening this fall, as the district was simultaneously hailed as a national leader in education reform.

Was there any recourse? No. Ohio's legislation merely requires a single certified library media specialist in an entire school district. The lack of state requirements for adequate staffing means that laying off librarians is as easy as sliding a fried egg out of a greased pan. Ohio is hardly alone. As of 1998, only three states--Hawaii, Kansas, Rhode Island--and the District of Columbia required every school to employ a full-time certified library media specialist.

The problem isn't getting a job these days--larger school districts and library systems are finding it near impossible to fill all the openings they have--but rather, "Will you want to keep it?" How long will you stick it out, knowing that you're undercompensated or that your position, unlike that of a classroom teacher's, exists at the whim of your district? If you're an energetic, forward-thinking librarian, the kind that young people deserve, the answer may be, regrettably,"Not long."

We have a serious problem. In a healthy economy, instead of concentrating on building exemplary collections and programs, we're plagued by thoughts of unjustifiably low paychecks--or no paychecks at all. Worse still, ALA stands by, seemingly unconcerned, as President Sarah Long busies herself with something called the Sister Libraries project. If you've missed the publicity, the project pairs U.S. libraries with libraries in other countries and immerses staff in such essential activities as organizing "pen pals for library staff and users" and creating "a bulletin board with photos of your Sister library."

Fill me in. What is this likely to achieve? A pen pal project, like railing against hiring a non-librarian for ALA's Washington Office, requires little investment of time and energy. Not surprisingly, the payoffs are likewise minuscule.

In such a climate, I'm skeptical that we will make the sustained effort to dig our heels into solving persistent employment problems. But there are a few hopeful signs of librarians stretching to reach the people who hold the purse strings. There are the good lessons of the now-expired National Library Power Project and the work of others in the field, including Ken Haycock, of the University of British Columbia's School of Library, Archival, and Information Studies, who guest edited the March 1999 issue of the Bulletin of the National Association of Secondary School Principals.

We need the field to acknowledge that the effort required to rectify salary problems and enact legislative protections is tedious and time-consuming and cannot be done entirely by individuals. While ALA, quite sensibly, doesn't involve itself in individual library personnel matters, it could choose to focus attention on the vital issue of vanishing librarians nationwide. It could also supply a national toolkit of comparative salary information and state legislative data for lobbying purposes.

That is, if it can take time from writing its pen pals.