540 The Jou

A Demographic and Career Profile of CanadianResearch University Librarians

by David Fox

Available online 29 June 2007

This paper provides an up-to-date career anddemographic profile of Canadian researchuniversity librarians by comparing newly

derived data from the 8Rs Study: The Future ofHuman Resources in Canadian Libraries,with corresponding information from theauthor’s 2006 survey: The Scholarship ofCanadian Research University Librarians,

and other sources.

David Fox is Bibliographic Services Librarian,University of Saskatchewan Library, Canada

bdavid.fox@usask.caN.

rnal of Academic Librarianship, Volume 33, Number 5, pages 540–55

INTRODUCTION

The landmark 8Rs Study: The Future of Human Resources inCanadian Libraries1 provides a wealth of data on theoccupational characteristics of the Canadian library work-force. Comprehensive in scope, the report covers a widerange of topics and issues relating to all library sectors inCanada. This paper seeks to focus in detail on one segment ofthe 8Rs survey population, university librarians employed bythe members of the Canadian Association of ResearchLibraries (CARL), and to examine issues relating to recruit-ment, retention, and mobility of this group. This examinationwill make use of previously published and unpublished datafrom the 8Rs Study, from the author’s 2006 survey TheScholarship of Canadian Research University Librarians, andfrom other statistical sources. The author will show where theScholarship Study confirms, extends, and updates the 8Rsfindings.

BACKGROUND

The full membership of CARL consists of the twenty-sevenlargest university libraries in Canada plus the Canada Institutefor Scientific and Technical Information (CISTI), Library andArchives Canada (LAC), and the Library of Parliament.2

Statistics for CARL published in the 8Rs Study includedtwenty-one respondents from LAC. For the purpose of thispaper, the non-university responses have been removed fromthe 8Rs sample. Statistics for CARL have been recalculated inorder to focus exclusively on university librarians, and to allowa more accurate comparison with the Scholarship Survey data.This revised sample of 495 cases is referred to as the 8RsCARL University Librarian Subset.3 Where data from thissubset are presented in this paper, notes are provided to referthe reader to the original 8Rs table or chart.

The 8Rs Study and the Scholarship Study were both basedon national surveys. The 8Rs Individual Survey employed acombined random and non-random sampling of 4493 librariansand paraprofessional staff collected during 2004. The Scholar-ship Survey was distributed to all identifiable CARL universitylibrarians during the spring and fall of 2006. In 2004/2005there were 1284 librarians employed at the twenty-sevenCARL universities.4 The survey population for the ScholarshipStudy consisted of the 1052 CARL university librarians forwhom functional e-mail addresses could be retrieved.5 Thesurvey attracted a total of 467 valid returns. This represents

0

Table 2Age

Percent

Age b45 45–54 55+

8Rs Sample, 2004 (N =435) 32 39 29

CAUT Survey, 2003/2004 31 38 31

Scholarship Sample, 2006 (N =463) 42 35 23

44.4 percent of the survey population of 1052 and 36.4 percentof the total population of CARL university librarians. A samplethis size is considered to be statistically accurate within plus orminus 3.4 percent 95 percent of the time.

The following sections will provide comparative demo-graphic and career information from the two studies. Tosimplify the presentation of data, percentages have beenrounded to the nearest whole number.

THE LIBRARIAN POPULATION

The CARL university libraries vary considerably in size. Thenumber of librarians per university ranges from nineteen for theUniversity of Regina to 169 for the University of Toronto, witha median of forty-one.6

GENDER

Table 1 shows a fairly close agreement between the two studieson the current gender balance of the CARL universitylibrarians. Although the majority of Canadian librarians arefemale, the CARL group includes the largest percentage ofmale librarians of any library sector, 26 percent compared to 21percent for all sectors combined, according to 8Rs data.7 Itwould be interesting to investigate the trend in gender balanceover time within the CARL sector, and within librarianship ingeneral.

AGE

The 8Rs Survey and the Scholarship Survey adopted diffe-rent approaches to determine the age distribution of theirrespondents. The 8Rs Survey asked participants for their yearof birth, but only achieved a 77 percent rate of return on thisquestion. On the other hand the Scholarship Survey askedparticipants to indicate age within a five-year range byselecting one of ten categories. Although this was an op-tional question in the survey, the response rate was close to99 percent.

Table 2 shows the percentage of CARL librarians from the8Rs and Scholarship Survey samples in three age groupings,compared to the same breakdown for all university librarians inCanada reported in the 2006 CAUT Almanac (based on 2003/2004 data).8

The Scholarship Survey, conducted in 2006, showed asignificantly higher percentage of respondents in the under-forty-five age category than was found in either the 8Rs Surveysample or the CAUT data. There are two possible explanationsfor the difference. Either there has been a shift in the age profileof CARL librarians in the two years since the 8Rs and CAUTsurveys were conducted, or the Scholarship Survey sample isskewed toward younger respondents. It is possible that bothexplanations may be correct to some degree.

Table 1Gender

Percent

Female Male

8Rs CARL University Subset (N =442) 74 26

Scholarship Sample (N =463) 70 30

Scholarship Population (N =1052) 71 29

Recent CARL statistics tend to support the suggestion thatwe are beginning to see a change in the age profile ofuniversity librarians.9 Table 3 shows that there was a shift inaverage years of experience of CARL university librariansbetween 2001/2002 and 2005/2006. During this period, thenumber of recent entrants to the profession (bseven years ofexperience) in the population increased from 18 percent to 21percent, while the number of senior librarians (twenty+ years ofexperience) declined from 46 percent to 41 percent. If theexperience profile has shifted for CARL librarians, then it islikely that the age structure of this group has also changed.

Fig. 1 provides a more detailed age profile for the CARLuniversity librarians from the two surveys. Although theScholarship Survey attracted a younger sample, both sets ofdata show the same general pattern, demonstrating a matureworkforce. The largest group consists of librarians in the fiftyto fifty-four age bracket. Both sets of data suggest thatrecruitment will need to accelerate substantially if universitylibraries expect to replenish the numbers of librarians in theirfifties and sixties who will retire over the next ten years.

DIVERSITY

Librarians from visible minority groups and librarians ofaboriginal ancestry are not well represented in Canadianresearch university libraries. In the 8Rs CARL UniversitySubset only 7 percent of librarians considered themselves tobelong to a visible minority, and only 1 percent consideredthemselves to be of aboriginal origin.10 By comparison,according to the 2001 Canadian census, 13 percent of thepopulation belongs to a visible minority,11 and 4.4 percent areaboriginals.12 These gaps in representation exist despite thefact that three quarters of CARL universities have hiringpolicies designed to recruit professional librarians from diverseethnic and racial backgrounds.13 Furthermore, the visibleminority and aboriginal segment of Canadian society isgrowing faster than the population as a whole. The Departmentof Canadian Heritage predicts that by 2017, visible minoritieswill account for 20 percent of the Canadian population.14

Given this situation, the 8Rs Study recommended thatlibraries should explore recruitment strategies that actively

Table 3Years of Experience: CARL Librarians

Percent

Years of experience b7 7–20 20+

2001/2002 (N =1264) 18 36 46

2005/2006 (N =1214) 21 37 41

September 2007 541

Figure 1Age of Respondents

attract minorities. Those without diversity policies shouldimplement one, and those with such policies should re-examinewhy they have not produced the desired results. Libraries asemployers, library educators, and library associations should alltake steps to recruit a higher percentage of librarians fromminority groups. Getting proportional representation of abori-ginal librarians is a particular challenge due to the low par-ticipation of aboriginals in post-secondary education. At the2001 census only 8 percent of aboriginal people between theages of twenty-five and sixty-four had a university education,compared to 23 percent for Canadians as a whole.15

YEARS OF PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE

Fig. 2 compares the results for Question 4 of the ScholarshipSurvey: ‘‘Years of professional practice as a university librarian’’

Figure 2Years of Professional Practice as a University Librarian (Scholarship Survey).

Years Working in this Career (8Rs Survey)

542 The Journal of Academic Librarianship

with the corresponding question from the 8Rs Survey: ‘‘Howlong have you worked in this career?’’ using the uneven timescale employed by the 8Rs Study. Both data sets show that themajority of CARL university librarians have more than 15 yearsof experience. However, this comparison is somewhat mislead-ing. It gives the impression that CARL is top-heavy with long-serving librarians. While this is undoubtedly true, it obscures thefact that some renewal appears to be happening within the ranks.Fig. 3, from the Scholarship Survey, provides a more detailedexperience distribution based on the same data configured inequal three-year intervals. It shows that, in fact, the largestexperience groups consist of librarians with zero to three andfour to six years of professional practice.

Data from the CARL 2005/2006 Salary Survey tend tosupport this result.16 Fig. 4, comparing Scholarship Survey

Figure 3Years of Professional Practice as a University Librarian

data and CARL data on years of experience, shows a generaldownward slope from left to right, indicating a higherpercentage of librarians in the early phases of their careersversus librarians with more lengthy professional experience.CARL has reported a decline in the average years of experienceof professional library staff for the past six years in a row,17

which suggests that a rejuvenation of the professional rankswithin CARL libraries is an established trend.

EDUCATIONAL QUALIFICATIONS

The 8Rs Individual Survey and the Scholarship Survey adoptedsomewhat different approaches, and collected slightly differentdata on the education qualifications of the respondents. For the8Rs Study ‘‘librarian’’ was defined as someone possessing anMLIS degree or its historical equivalent. In the sample ofresponses to the Scholarship Survey, there was a small

FigureYears of Professional Experience Schol

percentage of individuals without an MLIS or equivalent, butwho had other advanced degrees, who were performing workof, or similar to, a librarian, who were eligible for tenure, andwhose responses to the survey questions were consistent withothers in the sample.18 For the Scholarship Survey theserespondents were considered to be ‘‘equivalent to a librarian’’and are included in the survey results. However, for the purposeof comparison with the 8Rs data, they have been excluded fromTable 4.

Table 4 compares the results of the questions on EducationalQualifications from the 8Rs CARL University Sample19 andthe Scholarship Survey Sample.20 The two questionnairesshared some response options in common while several wereunique to each survey. Together the results provide a morecomplete profile of the educational qualifications of the CARLuniversity librarians. Both surveys found that more than 40

4arship Sample Versus CARL Statistics

September 2007 543

Table 4Educational Qualifications

Percent

Type of Qualification

8Rs CARLUniversity Sample

(N =495)

ScholarshipSurvey Sample

(N =460)

Library Technician

Certificate/Diploma

4 –

Education Degree 11 –

MLIS or historical

equivalent

100 100

Other Masters Degree 28 28

PhD or other doctoral

degree

3 4

Other Professional

Degree(s) e.g. LLB

– 5

Other qualification – 6

percent of CARL university librarians have some otherqualification in addition to their library degree.

Fig. 5 shows the distribution of educational qualificationsfor the Scholarship Survey participants. In addition to thespecified degrees there were twenty-eight responses under‘‘Other Qualifications.’’ The most common of these were B.Eddegrees or diplomas and certificates related to some aspect ofEducation. Five respondents reported second Masters, PhD orother doctoral studies in progress. Two participants possessedMasters of Archival Studies degrees. One Library Techniciandiploma was reported.

YEARS OF EMPLOYMENT AT CURRENT UNIVERSITY

The employment pattern of the CARL university librarians ismarked by organizational longevity and low inter-institutionalmobility. On average CARL librarians have been employed at

FigureEducational Qua

544 The Journal of Academic Librarianship

their current university for fourteen years.21 For the 8Rs CARLUniversity Subset, 82 percent of senior librarians (librarianswith more than fifteen years of professional experience) hadworked at their current library for more than ten years.22 TheScholarship Survey puts this statistic even higher, at 87 percent.

‘‘The employment pattern of the CARLuniversity librarians is marked byorganizational longevity and low

inter-institutional mobility.’’

The 8Rs Study reported that 83 percent of librarians from allsectors surveyed had worked in at least one library prior to theircurrent workplace.23 However, analysis of the 8Rs CARLUniversity Librarian Subset showed that only 75 percent ofuniversity librarians had previously worked at another library,indicating that university librarians are less mobile thanlibrarians in other employment sectors. Fig. 6 shows that 47percent of participants in the Scholarship Survey had neverworked at another university library (compared to 25 percent ofthe 8Rs CARL University Subset).24 The greater lack of mobi-lity found in the Scholarship Sample may be partly the result ofthe higher proportion of new librarians previously mentioned.

A surprising and unexpected result of this analysis was thatfor 9 percent of the Scholarship Sample the difference betweenyears of professional practice and years of employment atcurrent university was a negative number. The 8Rs CARLUniversity Subset showed the same pattern to a lesser extent.25

There could be a variety of reasons for this outcome. Thepercentages are too large to be explained by errors incompleting the questionnaires, although that may be a factorin a few cases. This result suggests that a small percentage ofparticipants in both surveys have been employed at theiruniversity longer than they have been practicing librarianship.This could happen in cases where paraprofessional staff

5lifications

Figure 6Difference Between Years of Practice as a University Librarian and Years of Employment at Current University

upgraded their qualifications and then obtained librarianpositions at the same university. It could happen in cases whereindividuals with MLIS degrees have worked for some portion oftheir university career in a capacity other than as a librarian. Forexample, one of the 44 Scholarship Survey cases is currently anassistant professor in the MLIS program at her university.

ACADEMIC STATUS

Academic status is an issue that applies exclusively to academiclibrarians and differentiates them from librarians in othersectors. It influences the role expectations for university lib-rarians, their rights and obligations, and their relationships withthe teaching faculty and university administration. The Asso-ciation of College and Research Libraries has issued Guidelinesfor the Academic Status of College and University Librarians,26

and has endorsed the concept of faculty status for academic

FigureAcademic

librarians as essential to the recognition of their unique contri-butions to the academic community and to higher education.27

The 8Rs Study, being concerned primarily with factorscommon to all library sectors, did not address the issue ofacademic status. The Scholarship Survey did ask respondentsto indicate the academic status of their position. The results areshown in Fig. 7.

It is evident from survey responses, and from written com-ments, that a variety of circumstances exist in the CARLlibraries with respect to academic status. Conditions range fromfull faculty status (with an obligation to research and publish,eligibility for sabbatical leave, and criteria for tenure andpromotion similar to those of university professors) to thestatus of support staff in a separate bargaining unit. The mostcommon situation seems to be membership in the facultyassociation for the purpose of contract negotiation, but with a

7Status

September 2007 545

Table 5Position Status

Percent

Part-Time Temporary

8Rs CARL University Sample (N =492) 5 9

Scholarship Sample (N =408) 15 5

Table 6Academic Benefits

Percent

EducationLeave

SabbaticalLeave Tenure

8Rs CARL University Sample

(N =24)

75 54 71

Scholarship Sample (N =27) 85 78 74

Percent

Non-management 48

Supervisor/Middle management 38

Senior administration 14

Percent

Lower ranks (Librarian I, II) 30

Middle ranks (Librarian III, IV) 44

Higher ranks (Librarian V, Out of Scope) 14

Other 12

status, pay scale, and expectations for scholarship lower thanfor the teaching faculty.

Fifty-three percent of the Scholarship Survey respondentsdescribed their position as having faculty status. Nineteen per-cent were classified as academic staff, 15 percent describedthemselves as professional staff, and 5 percent held adminis-trative positions. When individual responses were aggregated atthe institutional level, it appeared that 63 percent (seventeen outof twenty-seven) of the CARL universities consider librarians tobe ‘‘Faculty.’’ Nineteen percent classify librarians as Profes-sional Staff, 11 percent refer to them as Academic Staff, and theremaining 7 percent were inconclusive. The terms ProfessionalStaff and Academic Staff seem to be essentially synonymous.

POSITION STATUS

The Scholarship Survey found that 46 percent of CARL uni-versity librarians have achieved tenure, or its equivalent, at theircurrent institution, and that another 12 percent are in tenure-track positions. The 8Rs Study collected information oneligibility for tenure (see Table 6), but did not ask how manylibrarians had actually achieved tenure.

The two studies were quite divergent on the on the questionof full-time versus part-time employment. The 8Rs Studydefined Part-time status to include individuals working lessthan thirty hours per week, and defined a Temporary positionas one for which there is an indication when the employmentwill end.28 Based on these definitions, Table 5 shows a com-parison of results from the two surveys.

It is difficult to understand how the two studies could havefound such a different percentage of part-time librarians withinthe same population. Perhaps the explanation lies in thevarying distribution of the two samples. Just five Ontariouniversities, York, McMaster, Toronto, Western, and Carleton,accounted for half of the part-time librarians reported in theScholarship Survey. If these universities are excluded from thecalculation, the average ratio of part-time librarians at theremaining universities is only 6 percent. Unfortunately, thereappears to be no other sources of data to verify these results.Neither CARL, nor CAUT, nor ARL provides statistics on full-time versus part-time librarians. A more comprehensiveinvestigation would be necessary to reconcile these numbers.

There was also a substantial difference between the findingsof the two studies on the percentage of Temporary librarians.29

Whereas the 8Rs question on Work Status offered three choicesand required a single response, the corresponding question in theScholarship Survey offered nine response options and invitedthe participant to ‘‘select all that apply.’’30 This would tend toscatter the responses more. One of the Scholarship Surveyresponse options was ‘‘Probationary,’’ meaning continuationsubject to positive performance review. The combination of‘‘Term’’ and ‘‘Probationary’’ responses was 10 percent, which isvery close to the 8Rs result of 9 percent for ‘‘Temporary.’’

546 The Journal of Academic Librarianship

Some Scholarship Survey participants felt that their partic-ular situation did not quite fit any of the response optionsoffered. Among the 18 responses in the ‘‘Other’’ category werethe following additional descriptions of position status:externally funded, renewable contract, sessional, reducedappointment, intermittent employment, and recently retired.

RANK/OCCUPATIONAL LEVEL

The 8Rs Study and the Scholarship Study results are not easilycomparable with respect to librarian ranks. The 8Rs Study,designed to look at all library sectors, grouped librarians byOccupational Level into three general categories: Non-Man-agement, Supervisor/Middle Management, and Senior Admin-istration.31 For the CARL university librarians the breakdownwas:

The Scholarship Survey, which focused exclusively onuniversity librarians, looked at rank within the organizationrather than management role. Since rank and management levelare not necessarily related in university libraries, the percentagesof librarians in the low, middle and high ranks do not necessarilymatch the percentages shown in the 8Rs Occupational Levels.

The Scholarship Survey attempted to develop categorizationoptions to capture information about librarians’ organizationalrank (see Fig. 8). This attempt was only partially successfuljudging by the large number of responses (12 percent) in the‘‘Other’’ category. It is evident that there is no universal schemefor classifying university librarians in Canada. The mostcommon system is the Librarian I–IV ranking scheme fornon-administrative librarians, which in some libraries isreplaced by descriptive terms such as General Librarian,Assistant Librarian, Associate Librarian, and Senior Librarian.However, some libraries have only three ranks, some have five,

Figure 8Current Rank

and some have no ranks at all. The latter case is especially trueof the French-speaking universities of Quebec.

Of the sixty respondents who declared their rank as ‘‘Other,’’the most common response was that there was no rankingsystem in place (or all librarians shared the same rank).Interestingly, one respondent listed her rank as AssociateProfessor in an MLIS program. Another indicated that, althoughhe possesses an MLIS degree, his position is classified as‘‘Research Associate.’’

ACADEMIC BENEFITS

The 8Rs Institutional Survey collected information on eligi-bility for tenure, sabbatical leave, and educational leave forlibrarians through interviews with library directors.32 The

FigureAcademic B

Scholarship Survey captured the same information throughresponses from individual librarians. Table 6 shows thecomparative results from the two surveys, with the individualresponses from the Scholarship Survey aggregated at theinstitutional level. The large discrepancy in the figures forsabbatical leave for the two surveys would require furtherinvestigation to reconcile. However, an earlier study ofCanadian university librarians by Leckie and Brett confirmsthe Scholarship Survey result of 78 percent eligibility forsabbatical leave.33

Analysis of the Scholarship Survey data on these questionsrevealed a surprising degree of uncertainty in some casesconcerning eligibility for these benefits. For example, on thequestions concerning eligibility for tenure and sabbatical leave,

9enefits

September 2007 547

in a few cases there was a significant split between the ‘‘Yes’’and ‘‘No’’ answers from librarians at the same university. Aswell, a surprising number of survey participants answered‘‘Don’t Know’’ to these questions.

Fig. 9 shows the distribution of individual responses toquestions on eligibility for Study Leave (Educational Leave),Sabbatical leave, and Tenure from the Scholarship Survey.

It is apparent that academic benefits for librarians are notuniversally offered by all of the CARL universities, and thatterms such as ‘‘sabbatical leave,’’ ‘‘educational leave,’’ ‘‘studyleave,’’ and ‘‘tenure’’ have somewhat different meanings atdifferent institutions. The discrepancies between the institu-tional level data and the individual responses to thesequestions, and the percentage of ‘‘Don’t Know’’ responses tothe Scholarship Survey, suggest that there is a degree ofuncertainty among librarians at some universities regardingtheir eligibility for academic benefits. This is a matter thatshould be addressed by the CARL institutions concerned.

AREAS OF PROFESSIONAL RESPONSIBILITY

The 8Rs Institutional Survey provided the following break-down of the CARL librarians by functional area.34

Percent

Public Service Librarians 50

Technical Service Librarians 18

IT Librarians 5

Management 18

Other 9

The Scholarship Survey took the functional breakdown toanother level of specificity by asking participants to indicatetheir area(s) of professional responsibility in twenty-three

FigureAreas of Professional Respon

548 The Journal of Academic Librarianship

categories. Multiple responses were possible. Fig. 10 showsthe results for this question in ranked order. The findings aregenerally consistent with 8Rs data, but at a finer level ofdetail.

It is interesting to observe that, although the CARL librarianpopulation has remained relatively constant, a significantpercentage of librarians are now engaged in activities that didnot exist 15 years ago, e.g. Web Development: 22 percent,Electronic Resources: 21 percent, Digital Library Develop-ment: 16 percent. This illustrates the evolution and adaptabilityof the profession. Where has the manpower come from for thisredeployment of library staffing? One probable source is thedownsizing of technical services operations resulting from theincreased availability of copy cataloguing and the outsourcingof technical service functions.

‘‘...although the CARL librarian population hasremained relatively constant, a significant

percentage of librarians are now engaged inactivities that did not exist 15 years ago, e.g.

Web Development: 22 percent, ElectronicResources: 21 percent, Digital Library

Development 16 percent.’’

SUMMARY AND DISCUSSION

This paper has attempted to enlarge the understanding of theoccupational characteristics of the CARL university librariansby comparing data from the 8Rs Study with results from TheScholarship of Canadian Research University Librarianssurvey. The comparison has covered gender, age, diversity,

10sibility (Ranked Order)

years of professional practice, educational qualifications, yearsof employment at current university, academic status, positionstatus, rank, academic benefits, and areas of professionalresponsibility. The comparison has noted areas of agreementand areas of divergence between the two studies, and areaswhere further investigation would be necessary to confirmtrends.

There is good agreement that the gender balance of theCARL university librarians is more than 70 percent female.The percentage of females is slightly lower (67 percent) for the14 CARL members of ARL,35 suggesting that there is a higherproportion of male librarians employed by the larger researchlibraries in Canada than is the case for CARL as a whole.

The Scholarship Study sample included a higher percentageof librarians in younger age categories and with fewer years ofprofessional experience than was found by the 8Rs Study, orhas been reported in previous surveys.36,37 It is acknowledgedthat part of the difference may be due to the strongrepresentation by younger librarians in the Scholarship Sample.However, the Scholarship Survey data are supported by recentCARL statistics suggesting that there has indeed been ademographic shift in the age profile of the CARL librarianssince 2001/2002.

Wilder has reported that staff reductions in the mid-1990shad a dramatic influence on the age profile of the CARLlibrarian cohort. By 1998 53.7 percent of librarians in theCARL members of ARL were over 50 years of age.38 Sincethat time staffing levels have improved and there has beensome reversal in the aging pattern. In fact, CARL has reporteda decline in the average years of experience of professionallibrary staff for the past six years in a row, which suggests thata rejuvenation of the professional ranks within CARL librariesis beginning to take place.

The organizational longevity of Canadian universitylibrarians has been documented by several researchersincluding the 8Rs Team, Leckie, and Brett,39 and Millard.40

The new and unexpected discovery presented in this paper isthat for some CARL librarians (9 percent of the ScholarshipSample and 6 percent of the 8Rs University Librarian Subset)the time employed at their university has exceeded the lengthof their careers as librarians. This previously unreportedphenomenon suggests that the tendency toward institutionallongevity by university librarians may be even greater thanearlier thought.

Insofar as the experience of working in different librarysystems in different geographical regions serves to enrich alibrarian’s career and knowledge of the profession, the lack ofmobility in the Canadian university library workforce may be acause for concern. The tendency for university librarians tospend long stretches of their careers in one place makesrecruitment of appropriate professional staff a critical matter forresearch university libraries.

The lack of inter-institutional movement of Canadianuniversity librarians may be at least partly due to reductionsin librarian positions at Canada’s research universities duringthe 1990s. Wilder41 and Curran42 have pointed out that thisfactor contributed to an increase in the age profile and career‘‘plateauing’’ for CARL librarians. However, this environ-mental factor is about to undergo dramatic change. Curran hassuggested that, due to anticipated severe shortages in the labormarket with the retirement of the baby-boom generation, therewill be fierce competition to recruit academic librarians with

administrative experience in the future.43 Will a ‘‘sellersmarket’’ for experienced university librarians prompt greatermobility in the workforce, or will we continue to see the samehistorical pattern of institutional loyalty and longevity?

A surprising finding of the Scholarship Study was theapparent uncertainty on the part of librarians at a few CARLuniversities concerning their eligibility for sabbatical leave,study leave, and tenure. This confusion suggests that theseacademic benefits are not equally well established at all CARLuniversities. In order to promote consistency with respect toacademic benefits, it might be beneficial for CARL toencourage its member universities to adopt and promote theARL Guidelines on Academic Status.

NOTES AND REFERENCES

1. 8Rs Research Team, The Future of Human Resources in CanadianLibraries (Edmonton, AB: Canadian Library Human ResourceStudy, 2005), 275p. Available: www.ls.ualberta.ca/8rs/8RsFutureofHRLibraries.pdf (December 15, 2006).

2. The university members of CARL are: Alberta, British Columbia,Calgary, Carleton, Concordia, Dalhousie, Guelph, Laval, Manitoba,McGill, McMaster, Memorial, Montreal, New Brunswick, Ottawa,Quebec a Montreal, Queen’s, Regina, Saskatchewan, Sherbrooke,Simon Fraser, Toronto, Victoria, Waterloo, Western Ontario,Windsor, and York.

3. The author is grateful to the 8Rs Research Team for providingaccess to the 8Rs CARL subset for further analysis.

4. CARL Statistics 2004–2005, Table VIII—Summary of librarypersonnel (Ottawa, ON: Canadian Association of ResearchLibraries, 2006): p. 29.

5. Email addresses for the Scholarship Survey were collected fromlistings on university public Web sites. In several cases theselistings were checked and verified by Directors or librarians at thevarious institutions.

6. CARL Statistics, op. cit.7. 8Rs Research Team, p. 44.8. Canadian Association of University Teachers, CAUT Almanac ofPost-Secondary Education 2006: Distribution of Librarians byAge, Fig. 2.8, p. 19. Available: http://www.caut.ca/en/publications/almanac/2006-2.pdf (December 15, 2006).

9. CARL Statistics, Section D: Salaries: Table VI—Average andmedian salary per year of professional experience—Librarianpositions only, 2002–2003: pp. 74–75; 2005–2006: pp. 60–61.

10. 8Rs Research Team, Table C.8, p. 45.11. Krishna Pendakur, ‘‘Visible Minorities in Canada’s Workplaces—

A Perspective on the 2017 Projection’’ (May 2005). Available:http://www.canadianheritage.gc.ca/progs/multi/canada2017/3_e.cfm (February 18, 2007).

12. Statistics Canada, ‘‘Aboriginal peoples of Canada: A demographicprofile’’ (January 2003) p. 5. Available: http://www12.statcan.ca/english/census01/Products/Analytic/companion/abor/pdf/96F0030XIE2001007.pdf (February 26, 2007).

13. 8Rs Research Team, Appendix Table C.6, p. 210.14. Pendakur, ‘‘Visible Minorities in,’’ op. cit.15. StatisticsCanada, ‘‘Education inCanada:Raising the standard’’ (March

2003) pp. 9, 16. Available: http://www12.statcan.ca/english/census01/Products/Analytic/companion/educ/pdf/96F0030XIE2001012.pdf(February 26, 2007).

16. CARL Statistics, 2005–2006: pp. 60–61.17. CARL Statistics 2003–2004, p. 6; 2004–2005, p. 5.18. Several of these individuals were archivists. In the CARL uni-

versities archivists often report to the Director of Libraries, and aregoverned by the same collective agreements and conditions forpromotion and tenure as librarians.

19. 8Rs Research Team, Appendix Table G.2, p. 116.20. This number excludes Scholarship Survey participants without

September 2007 549

MLIS or BLS degrees and participants who failed to answer thisquestion.

21. CARL Statistics, Section D: Salaries 2005–2006. Table II, III,pp. 55–56.

22. 8Rs Research Team, Fig. F1, p. 101.23. Ibid., p. 102 (The 8Rs Survey also asked how many different

organizations a person had worked for throughout her/his career.These data are not reported in The Future of Human Resources inCanadian Libraries and remain to be analyzed.)

24. Fig. 6 shows that for 47 percent of the Scholarship Survey respon-dents the difference between Years of Professional Practice as aUniversity Librarian and Years of Employment at CurrentUniversity was zero.

25. For twenty-eight members (6 percent) of the 8Rs CARLUniversity Subset responses to the question ‘‘How long haveyou worked at your current organization?’’ exceeded their answersto the question ‘‘How long have you worked in this career?’’

26. Association of College & Research Libraries, ‘‘Guidelines forAcademic Status for College and University Librarians’’(June 2002). Available: http://www.ala.org/ala/acrl/acrlstandards/guidelinesacademic.htm (December 15, 2006).

27. ACRL, ‘‘Standards for Faculty Status for College and UniversityLibrarians‘‘ (January 2001). Available: http://www.ala.org/ala/acrl/acrlstandards/standardsfaculty.htm (December 15, 2006).

28. 8Rs Research Team, Table C.4, p. 41.29. Temporary positions were called ‘‘Term’’ positions in the Scholar-

ship Study.

550 The Journal of Academic Librarianship

30. The Position Status response options for the Scholarship Surveywere: Probationary, Permanent, Term, Full-time, Part-time, Ten-ured (or equivalent), Tenure Track, Non-Tenured, and Other.

31. 8Rs Research Team, Table C.2, p. 39.32. Ibid., Table I.12b, p. 157.33. Gloria J. Leckie and Jim Brett, ‘‘Job Satisfaction of Canadian

University Librarians: A National Survey,’’ College & ResearchLibraries 58 (January 1997): 35.

34. 8Rs Research Team, Appendix Table C1, p. 209.35. ARL Annual Salary Survey 2005–2006, Table 34: Number and

Average Salaries of Canadian University Librarians by Years ofExperience and Sex, p. 61. Available: http://www.arl.org/stats/pubpdf/ss05.pdf (December 15, 2006).

36. Stanley Wilder, ‘‘The Changing Profile of Research LibraryProfessional Staff,’’ ARL 208/209 (February/April 2000). Avail-able: http://www.arl.org/newsltr/208_209/chgprofile.html (Decem-ber 15, 2006).

37. CAUT Almanac 2006, op. cit.38. Wilder, ‘‘The Changing Profile,’’ op.cit.39. Leckie and Brett, ‘‘Job Satisfaction,’’ p. 31.40. Donna M. Millard, ‘‘Why Do We Stay? Survey of Long-Term

Academic Librarians in Canada,’’ portal: Libraries & theAcademy 3 (January 2003): 104–105.

41. Wilder, ‘‘The Changing Profile,’’ op. cit.42. William M. Curran, ‘‘Succession: The Next Ones at Bat,’’ College

& Research Libraries 64 (March 2003): 137.43. Ibid., p. 138.