The College’s Earl Gregg Swem librarians’ salaries are well below the levels of their peers at rival institutions, despite their being among the most experienced librarians in the country.
College librarians have the 17th lowest salaries of 19 peer institutions. Yet the College has the second highest figure for average years of experience — 25.5 years, trailing the University of New Hampshire, which has 27 average years. As of July 1, 2006, the College’s average librarian’s salary was $56,012, while New Hampshire’s average was $69,476.
p. “In 2002, the Librarians’ Assembly investigated the issue with comparative studies,” Head of the Salary Subcommittee of the Librarians Assembly Pat Van Zandt said. “We found that we had more years of experience, but our salaries are incredibly low.”
Library faculty salaries remain behind despite receiving 7.7 percent increases from 2005 to 2006, putting them in the 12.6 percentile of salaries when compared to those of peer institutions. They still beat out Wake Forest University and Boston University; however, Wake Forest, with the lowest average salary, also has the second lowest figure for years of experience.
p. The Librarians Assembly formed a small group within the Librarians Assembly, the Salary Subcommittee, to study salaries and years of experience. They found that for the years 2001, 2002 and 2003, salary percent increases were zero, zero and 2.5 percent , respectively.
p. “You just can’t be in a job where you get zero, zero and 2.5 for 3 years,” Dean of University Libraries Connie Kearns McCarthy said.
p. The peer institutions are from a list set by the State Council of Higher Education in Virginia (SCHEV). SCHEV has issued a list of new peer institutions for 2007. These calculations are based on the previous peer list. Other peer institutions include Emory University, Tulane University and Duke University. While Swem Library is not supporting a large research university with doctoral programs in all fields, it is a research library supporting a research institution, as defined by the Carnegie classification.
p. “I would not expect our salaries to be at the level of what a Duke or Harvard would be,” McCarthy said.
p. While the Librarian’s Assembly is not working with the Faculty Assembly, which uses the same
