ARL Salary Survey Highlights

Source: Les Bland, Research Library Issues: A Bimonthly Report from ARL, CNI, and SPARC, no. 266, October 2009

The ARL Annual Salary Survey 2008-2009 shows that current ARL librarian's salaries have failed to keep pace with inflation. This is in contrast to 2007-08 when the increase in median salaries exceeded the rise of inflation as judged by the Consumer Price Index (CPI). The median salary of ARL academic librarians in the United States for 2008-09 was $63,673; an increase of 3.8% from the previous reporting period of 2007-08. However, during this same period, the U.S. CPI rose 5.6%. In Canada, the experience of ARL academic librarians was similar (but not as extreme): Canadian ARL academic librarians earned a median salary of $78,742 (Canadian Dollars) an increase of 3.3% from the previous year, which also failed to match a 3.4% rise in inflation as reported by the Canadian CPI. The salaries of ARL non-academic librarians experienced larger growth, as their median salaries increased 6%, from $80,261 (2007-08) to $85,320 (thereby exceeding inflation). Moreover, non-academic librarian's median salaries were 25.4% higher than that of academic librarians.