Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Interesting, but unsurprising statistics

Some pretty charts explaining the state of librarians in the workforce can be found here at the OUP blog.

The too long; didn't read (tl;dr) version:

Library science has been for the last hundred years, and continues to be a primarily female-driven profession. People working in libraries make more money than the median income in the US, but make far less than those with similar education in other places in the workforce. The number of librarians began growing after World War II, but has been in decline since 1990. The gender wage gap between male and female librarians was significant until 2009, when female librarians came within $100 (average) of their male counterparts (who still out-earn, despite the profession being female-driven). It's still a predominantly white profession. Most librarians are married, most work in the public setting.

This is all very lovely, what does it mean?

Like most statistics, they mean what we say they mean :)

However, I think many of us already knew or sensed that many of these things were true. Having good solid numbers based on census statistics is extremely helpful for advocacy, however. First of all, it gives us a clearer idea of some of the issues we face. Want more ideas in libraries? Want a more inclusive public persona for your library? Want more people to come into your library? A more diverse librarian population can help! Of course, this isn't just a problem in the hiring process--more men and more minorities need to see the library as a potential career for them, and WANT the job. I think a diversity of faces, backgrounds and talents can bring a lot to the library--not just in the idea-arena (and lets face it... librarians can be a bit set in their ways--we see the problem the way we see it, and can't quite get out of that box), but also in bringing folks into the library. One way to know that you belong in a place is to see other people like you in that place.

The female-oriented nature of the library is something we really do need to overcome. There are a lot of "social conditioning" reasons why women tend to be less assertive than their male counterparts (see previous post regarding wage negotiation, which I'm guilty of as well), but proper advocacy means being assertive and stating what we need, be it resources for ourselves, in order to take care of ourselves and our families, or resources for our libraries, in order to do our jobs properly, and serve our communities fully. I'm sure others would argue differently, but I suspect that if library science were a male-dominated profession, wages would be higher, which would attract (and keep!) a top-notch group of folks that libraries just can't keep right now (how many friends have left for non-library positions elsewhere that paid better?).

I suspect that libraries would have better resources because libraries would be better at speaking up for themselves, their value, and what they do for communities and organizations. I suspect that librarians, as a profession would not be looked down upon quite so much as being women's work, or work for people who like reading, or English majors who couldn't find a job. Basically, a frivolous position for people who don't like hard work, or are marking time until marriage, babies, or a better job comes along.

Only two days ago my job was refered to by a patron as "cushy." I wanted to go into a litany of details that made my job fun, and wonderful, but also made it challenging and less than "cushy." (Packing up and moving, box-by-box an archive to be put into storage comes to mind)

I think we need to take a good look at these statistics, and evaluate what they mean in terms of what we see in the every-day life of our libraries, and also try to imagine what they could mean for the future, and where we can help improve things.

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