University Times

Last year, the average salary of a Pitt librarian ($45,200) was the lowest among librarians at the 32 public universities that are members of both the Association of American Universities (AAU) and the Association of Research Libraries (ARL).

That was down from 28th place the year before.

Including private as well as public AAU/ARL members, Pitt ranked 54th out of 55 universities in librarians' average salaries — down from 46th place the previous year.

Pitt's fall in rank among its peers can largely be attributed to the departures last year of several senior librarians, including the retirements of two assistant directors of the University Library System (ULS), said Rush G. Miller, Hillman University Librarian and ULS director.

But even without the loss of such comparatively highly paid personnel, ULS's salaries still would rank low among AAU and ARL schools, Miller said.

And that's despite the fact that salary raises for ULS's 56 librarians last year averaged 6.65 percent, the third-highest raise percentage for any Pitt unit, according to the University's Office of Institutional Research.

"One of the reasons that our salaries are low, compared with our peers, is that we hire entry-level librarians. We do that because we have a school [the School of Information Sciences] that produces new librarians right here on campus," Miller said. "Most ARL libraries do not hire anyone without five or 10 years of experience. They have to pay a lot more to get those people."

The starting salary of a ULS librarian is about $30,000, Miller said.

As a part of its annual planning document, ULS submitted to the Provost's office in March a three-year plan for raising Pitt librarians' salaries to the ARL median. The plan calls for an average salary increase of $5,139 per librarian over three years, Miller said.

Miller said he hasn't received feedback from the Provost's office yet. "Whether we can move ahead with it depends on the overall funding situation of the University," he said.

Pitt's budget for next year is outlined in a story on page 1.

Miller said ULS's proposal is modeled after a plan at the University of Colorado. "In 1997, Colorado ranked 91st in the ARL," he said. "Today, they rank 27th. And they did it with a three-year incremental plan like the one that we're proposing."

Last year, average librarians' salaries at Pitt ranked 96th among 112 ARL schools.

The comparison of Pitt librarians' salaries with those of their AAU/ARL peers appeared in a report released last week by the Office of Institutional Research.

The report also compared average salaries of Pitt full, associate and assistant professors with those of their peers in the AAU. See charts on these pages and story in the May 31 University Times.

— Bruce Steele