What Numbers Can’t Tell Us | Editorial
Support for our profession has to come from all of us Jul 15, 2011For the past two days, my head has been spinning with numbers. As Andrew Beveridge, who started it all on the Oxford University Press (OUP) blog, said, I might have done better to listen to Mark Twain: “There are three kinds of lies: Lies, damn lies, and statistics.”
Is the number of librarians—MLS “librarians” and “library technicians,” as the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook designates them—or library jobs declining? That seems obvious, given the current state of libraries and the stories from LIS grads about how difficult it is to find employment. We don’t need no (sic) damn statistics to confirm that.
Yet the dramatic drop represented by Beveridge’s stats is startling. From 1990, when the number of librarians peaked at 307,273, says the blog entry (“Librarians in the U.S. from 1880–2009: an analysis using 120 years of census data”), “the profession began to shrink, and as of 2009 it had dropped by nearly a third to 212,742.” One third?
Even LJ’s budget surveys (each January), which generally ask about cuts to staff, and annual Placements & Salaries surveys (each October 15) only hint at such a huge decline. The impact of technology on the library field has loomed large, perhaps more than any of us imagined. More recently, in LJ’s Job Satisfaction Survey (LJ 6/1/11, “Rocked by Recession, Buoyed by Service”), 54% of those who reported their job responsibilities had changed in the past year said they “were given additional responsibilities owing to staff cuts.”
The numbers in the OUP blog post represent full-time and part-time positions combined, so we asked Beveridge, who leads the online research tool Social Explorer, for the breakdowns for full-time and part-time. Again the numbers are startling. Part-time jobs have declined as a percent of the total, from 136,206 in 1990 to 71,609 in 2009, or from 44% of the total to 33.6%. So over the last two decades, the stats indicate a trend toward more full-time staff, contradictory to what we know from the field. At Vancouver Public Library, BC, for instance, 57% of the staff are part-time!
LJ’s annual Placement & Salaries survey of new graduates (the latest reports 2009 data, LJ 10/15/10) never showed such high percentages for part-timers (admittedly they cover only new MLS grads). In 1993, 20% were unable to find a full-time position. In 2009, about 30% said they could not find a full-time job. Meanwhile, an AFL-CIO fact sheet for 2011, “Library Workers: Facts & Figures,” states that the number of MLS librarians is expected to grow by 7.8% and library technicians by 8.8%, between 2008 and 2018. Beveridge agrees, noting the numbers have shown a slight uptick since 2000 (i.e., full-timers went from 131,170 to 141,133). Where are those jobs coming from?
Librarians who have an MLS or at least a BA, according to Beveridge, have gone up strikingly. In 1990, 39.3% had MLSes (or another professional degree); in 2009, 63.3% had it. In 1990, 52% had a BA; in 2009, 82.5% had a BA. The BA statistics aren’t inconsistent with the expansion of educational opportunities in the late 20th century. It’s surprising, however, that nearly two-thirds of librarians have an MLS, when we know that most libraries report only one-quarter to one-third of staff with that degree and that non-MLS staff predominate. For years, we’ve been hearing about the ongoing deprofessionalization of the field; library managers themselves often led the demise in their rush to “corporatize” and cut costs by replacing librarians with technicians and clerks.
Why do some statistics differ so dramatically from Vancouver’s own stats? I’m concerned that there is no common understanding of where the profession is in terms of pure numbers. Simultaneously, the field is in a time of rapid cultural and technological change, which some feel is downright threatening to libraries’ ability to deliver on their mission.
Library statisticians need to look at the numbers more carefully to bring clarity. The numbers can only go so far, however, in giving us answers about the future of the field. That will come from concerted efforts by rank-and-file librarians and library managers together to identify user needs, to have open discussions about librarians’ roles as libraries evolve, and to create opportunities for librarians to participate fully as we move forward. As one MLS friend said, “Support for our profession has to come from library schools, library organizations, publishers, the public, politicians, and us.”
| Author Information |
| Francine Fialkoff (ffialkoff@mediasourceinc.com) is Editor-in-Chief, LJ |
