More Pay for Public Librarians
Civic leaders need proof that youth services librarians transform lives
By Evan St. Lifer, Editor -- School Library Journal, 4/1/2004
I say no. Instead we need to look at the public library landscape, particularly the children's and teen services area, and devise strategies to ensure more compensation and recognition for professionals who are helping to mold better readers and critical thinkers. We need to ingrain in our civic leaders the imprint of the children's and young adult librarian as a critical, high-priority role in the development of our children. That's why the Public Library Association's "Early Literacy Project" is so essential (see "PLA Promotes Student Literacy ," p. 20): it shows how public libraries have been instrumental in improving the literacy levels of teenage parents, low-income wage earners, and their preschool children. The study should be required reading for every mayor and city administrator in America.
Although there are exceptions—witness salaries in Seattle and Los Angeles—the earnings of youth services librarians are simply inferior to library media specialists'. School librarians join the teachers' union, and thus enjoy the benefits that go along with that membership. Strong property taxes that support a strong school district lead to enhanced earnings. Public librarians' pay often depends on how strong their union is, if there is any union at all, and often there is not.
A cursory scan of the 2003 Public Library Data Service Statistical Report reveals that public librarians' salaries are directly proportionate to the size of the population served by their libraries: generally the bigger the library, the better the salary, a few scattered tony enclaves notwithstanding.
Bromann left her job as HEAD of youth services at the Prairie Trails Public Library in Illinois, which serves a population of nearly 29,000, where she was making an anemic $36,000. As a point of comparison, the King County Library System, the nation's tenth largest library system serving a population 50 times larger than Prairie Trails', is advertising for a Librarian I in teen services with a salary range of $51,000 to $61,000. Would Bromann and others like her have left the public library if they were earning a more realistic wage? Perhaps she wouldn't have thought about "reevaluating" her public library career if she hadn't been so woefully underpaid.
The American Library Association has recognized the depth of this problem, as evidenced by its creation of the Allied Professional Association (www.ala-apa.org) "to promote the mutual professional interests of librarians and other library workers." Although APA's dual focus on certification and pay equity are admirable, we live in a "prove it to me" world where documented evidence now reigns supreme. Only a continuous stream of research that politicians can support will help crack the recalcitrant civic culture in so many communities that keeps public library pay moored to the bottom rungs.
Evan St. Lifer, Editor
