It’s Staturday!
204 people who hire librarians have responded to our new State of the Library Job Market Survey. It’s still open, so if you’ve hired at least one librarian and want to add your voice, please visit: http://tinyurl.com/hiringlibjobmarketsurvey
And now, here are the
Results!
Approximately how many people applied for the last librarian (or other professional level) job at your workplace?
| 25 or fewer | 86 | 42% |
| 25-75 | 74 | 36% |
| 75-100 | 20 | 10% |
| more than 100, but less than 200 | 15 | 7% |
| more than 200 | 2 | 1% |
| Other | 5 | 2% |
Approximately what percentage of those would you say were hirable?
| 25% or less | 130 | 64% |
| 26-50% | 41 | 20% |
| 51-75% | 10 | 5% |
| more than 75% | 6 | 6% |
| Other | 15 | 7% |
Do you (or does your library) give candidates feedback about applications or interview performance?
| Yes | 17 | 8% |
| No | 123 | 60% |
| Other | 61 | 30% |
The Workplace
How many staff members are at your library/organization?
| 0-10 | 33 | 16% |
| 10-50 | 80 | 39% |
| 50-100 | 32 | 16% |
| 100-200 | 30 | 15% |
| 200+ | 27 | 13% |
How many permanent, full time librarian (or other professional level) jobs has your workplace posted in the last year?
| 1 | 43 | 21% |
| 2 | 44 | 22% |
| 3-4 | 38 | 19% |
| 5-6 | 29 | 14% |
| 7 or more | 22 | 11% |
| Other | 26 | 13% |
How many permanent, full time para-professional (or other non-professional level) jobs has your workplace posted in the last year?
| 1 | 29 | 14% |
| 2 | 29 | 14% |
| 3-4 | 39 | 19% |
| 5-6 | 23 | 11% |
| 7 or more | 33 | 16% |
| Other | 43 | 21% |
Can you tell us how the number of permanent, full-time librarian positions at your workplace has changed over the past decade?
| There are more positions | 73 | 36% |
| There are fewer positions | 67 | 33% |
| There are the same number of positions | 41 | 20% |
| I don’t know | 13 | 6% |
| Other | 6 | 3% |
Have any full-time librarian positions been replaced with part-time or hourly workers over the past decade?
| Yes | 53 | 26% |
| No | 126 | 62% |
| I don’t know | 14 | 7% |
| Other | 8 | 4% |
Have any full-time librarian positions been replaced with para-professional workers over the past decade?
| Yes | 53 | 26% |
| No | 128 | 63% |
| I don’t know | 14 | 7% |
| Other | 6 | 3% |
Is librarianship a dying profession?
| Yes | 9 | 4% |
| No | 151 | 74% |
| I don’t know | 16 | 8% |
| Other | 24 | 12% |
Demographics
Where are you?
| Northeastern US | 39 | 19% |
| Midwestern US | 48 | 24% |
| Southern US | 53 | 26% |
| Western US | 51 | 25% |
| Canada | 4 | 2% |
| UK | 1 | 0% |
| Australia/New Zealand | 0 | 0% |
| Other | 5 | 2% |
Where are you?
| Urban area | 80 | 39% |
| Suburban area | 78 | 38% |
| Rural area | 38 | 19% |
| Other | 6 | 3% |
What type of institution do you hire for?
| Academic Library | 106 | 52% |
| Public Library | 78 | 38% |
| School Library | 1 | 0% |
| Special Library | 4 | 2% |
| Archives | 1 | 0% |
| Other | 9 | 4% |
Are you a librarian?
| Yes | 189 | 93% |
| No | 3 | 1% |
| It’s complicated | 9 | 4% |
Are you now or have you ever been:
| A hiring manager | 167 | 82% |
| A member of a hiring or search committee | 181 | 89% |
| Human resources | 11 | 5% |
| Other | 6 | 3% |
Would you like to have information about you or your organization shared ?
| No, I prefer to remain anonymous | 178 | 87% |
| Yes, and I’ll give you my email address on the next page | 24 | 12 |
We’ll post the first full response tomorrow. You’ll see longer answers to questions such as:
And how would you define “hirable”?
How are applications evaluated, and by whom?
What is the most common reason for disqualifying an applicant without an interview?
What is the most important thing for a job hunter to do in order to improve his/her/their hirability?
I want to hire someone who is ___________.
Does your workplace require experience for entry-level professional positions? If so, is it an official requirement or just what happens in practice?
Is librarianship a dying profession? Why or why not?
Hiring Librarians 
Do you plan to make your dataset available for download? Or would you share it with others on an individual basis? It looks like a great dataset, and I would love to explore it.
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hmmm. I don’t plan on making it available for download – one of the things I promise respondents is confidentiality, and releasing the complete dataset would compromise that. I *am* interested in providing more analysis for readers, so if that is something you’re interested in working on, email me and we can chat about the possibility.
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Pingback: We look for someone with some prior experience while in library school | Hiring Librarians
Thanks, Emily, this makes for very interesting reading!
I was a bit skeptical about the relatively low percentage of part-time or hourly hires replacing full-time, salaried positions, since this doesn’t square with my impression of what’s happening in public libraries. But then I noticed that 52% of respondents are from academic libraries versus only 38% from public libraries, so perhaps the hourly/part-time trend has not hit academic libraries as hard. -Judy Atterholt
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I was a bit surprised by that too! Hopefully I’ll have time to put together numbers for just public libraries.
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Pingback: News: State of the Library Market Job Survey | The Traveling Librarian
Interesting results but not totally suprising. I don’t think it’s useful anymore to ask the readers of this specialized blog: “Are you a librarian?” And “Is librarianship a dying profession?” That’s not the purpose of a library/information science university degree anymore. Graduates in the past 2 decades (I graduated even earlier.) do take mandatory courses and have skills that are transferable for the information management industry.
The focus of this blog needs to broaden to be of greater value to job seekers.
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I ask those questions because I’m interested, frankly. I’m not particularly interested in the information management industry. The broader LIS fields are tangential for me. They’re part of the breadth of my field, and I’m happy to include them if they wish to be included, but really this is a blog about Hiring Librarians. Absolutely no disrespect to anyone in those fields, it’s just my personal interest.
Librarians have this cultural anxiety about “dying” I was looking to see what the responses would look like if I asked that in a largely anonymous forum. The consensus seems to be “not dying but changing”
And I’m sure that this is related to your wish to see a broader scope in this blog.
The issue is that we don’t know what that change will look like. I hope that we can change and still be just “librarians.”
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Blog is your baby. Understood.
“The issue is that we don’t know what that change will look like. I hope that we can change and still be just “librarians.”
As you know already, the work scope of “librarians” in the 21st century has changed and the expression of the work and service offerings, for some libraries.
My feedback is most likely a reflection of 75% of my career in special libraries. I have never worked in academic, public nor school libraries. Now for last few years, the switch for me has been to knowledge management and e-records management..this actually may be the growth area but sometimes has practitioners who do NOT have formal training and expertise on systems standards setting, best practices, marketing and performance metrics. It’s painful to witness this and sometimes it’s large organizations. Big systems dollars involved.
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We are not “dying”, but are just undergoing metamorphosis! Same species, different approach to our world.
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If your readers want you to continue to confine the blog just to librarian roles, then great!
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I don’t think it’s confined, just biased. Like I said, I’m not adverse to including other LIS perspectives.
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I don’t think it’s so much a question of what the readers want. The blogger gets to decide what she’s interested in blogging about, and readers get to decide whether or not they are interested in reading the blog. 🙂
But I’m sure there are people out there blogging about knowledge management, special libraries, or other topics of interest. If not, it would be a great opportunity to start your own blog!
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Pingback: we hired a new grad who worked at the research desk of a university during grad school. | Hiring Librarians
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Pingback: It went down in the first part of the past decade but it is now back to where it was. | Hiring Librarians
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Pingback: There is a level of expertise required that can only be filled by a trained librarian. | Hiring Librarians
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Pingback: There is a lot of regard for the contributions of librarians who fit this description. | Hiring Librarians
Pingback: Internal candidates can receive interview feedback with HR | Hiring Librarians
Pingback: HR weeded applications but I still read them all and un-weeded some. | Hiring Librarians
Pingback: Be interested in the job. | Hiring Librarians
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Pingback: I would rather hire somebody who has a ton of IT experience or has a PhD in education or who actually understands about research than a person who only has an MLIS | Hiring Librarians
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Pingback: Many applicants can spin related experience to their advantage | Hiring Librarians
Pingback: no red flags in their application (positive recommendations, no disciplinary/criminal issues). | Hiring Librarians
Pingback: The less you need the job, the more likely you are to be hired. | Hiring Librarians
Pingback: If I see a pattern of job-hopping, I’ll be very wary of hiring that person. | Hiring Librarians
Pingback: We are hiring more librarian positions when para-professional positions become vacant. | Hiring Librarians
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Pingback: Do not overwhelm with too much information e.g. pages and pages of publications. | Hiring Librarians
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Pingback: However, “experience” to us can mean internship/volunteer experience obtained as a student. | Hiring Librarians
Pingback: However, “experience” to us can mean internship/volunteer experience obtained as a student. | Hiring Librarians
Pingback: Does not have the requested qualifications or experience. | Hiring Librarians
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Thanks for these stats. As an adjunct librarian who is seeking a F/T academic librarian position, it is heartening to know that people really are being hired, and that for many searches, I only have to be mroe awesome than 25 other people :-). I found one of the comments interesting. The commenter said that he/she would rather hire someone with an IT background or someone with a Ph.D. who understands research than someone with an MLIS. I wish I could talk to that person because I have several years of professional IT experience (web applications to low-level system database code), a Ph.D. in the humanities, and an MLIS (plus reference and instruction experience). Maybe the person would hire me, because that combination has not gotten me a position yet, although it is getting me interviews.
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