For the People Who Work in Libraries

As a candidate for president of the American Library Association (ALA), I focused on the single issue most neglected by the organization, the disgracefully low salaries paid to library workers. I believed that everyone, those with the MLS and those without it, needed help. I was a bit surprised at the reaction from the field. People who had been disaffected with ALA inundated me with their "hard feelings." They felt that ALA was only concerned about libraries, not the people who worked in them.

One person rejoined ALA after having quit in disgust, and another decided to renew membership because an ALA candidate was going to work for better pay for all library workers.

During the campaign, I continually heard the question, "What can you do about salaries?" I was unsure myself, but I was sure ALA must take action. Aside from a longstanding Pay Equity Committee and ALA's membership in the National Committee on Pay Equity, there has been no continuing commitment on ALA's agenda.

In June 2001 I wrote initial directions for the task force. Beginning with the Advocating for Better Salaries & Pay Equity Toolkit, I wanted to amass a wealth of information for all library workers, which would include research and data on library salaries and pay equity, case studies of salary and pay equity disputes/campaigns involving libraries, library systems, etc., frequently asked questions, and how to overcome stereotypes about librarians.

The task force would also make recommendations for action by ALA, hold programs at ALA conferences, have institutes and regional programs that promote and explain the issue, and create a web site accessible to all featuring source documents and information relevant to the committee's work.

As the task force addressed the needs of all library staff, I wanted it to concern itself with the concept and issue of the living wage. I thought it was important to bring the living wage issue to the ALA membership and to write and to advocate forcefully for it.

Looking to the future, I have concerns about how the newly formed ALA-APA will deal with the salaries issue, now that it is institutionalized, and whether it will have a budget, a staff, and a standing committee of members. I am looking for the APA salaries committee to take an active role nationally in promoting pay equity at regional, chapter, and local library association meetings. It is not clear how it will be resolved, but I hope that the salaries committee and the APA staff person will be powerful resources for everyone with improved salary aspirations, be they academic, school, or government officials, library boards, library management, library staff, or union members, and MLS and support staff alike. My vision and hope is that the APA salaries committee will be a safe haven that the underpaid know they can go to for help.

In retrospect I wasn't as explicit as I could have been in charging the task force with emphasizing the need to change the self-perception of library workers. The tool kit, the workshops, and programs are the means to help us achieve the salaries that would be commensurate with our new self-esteem.

I made it my job to change that perception. At dozens of sessions of state and regional meetings, library schools, libraries, and international conferences, I hammered home the point that what we need to change most is our passive acceptance of our unfair salaries.

It gave me enormous satisfaction that every association at which I spoke either had or planned to create a committee to work on better salaries. At one workshop a librarian came up after my talk. "I always accepted my meager salary as part of my lot as a librarian. Not any more! I'm going back to push for better pay." Amen!