DigitalKoans

The ARL Annual Salary Survey 2006–07 has been published, and it can be purchased from ARL.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The 2006–07 data show that ARL librarians’ salaries outperformed inflation. The combined median professional salary in US and Canadian ARL university libraries was $59,648—a 4.5% increase from the previous year. Over the same period, the Consumer Price Index rose 4.1% in the US and 2.4% in Canada. . . .

Gender-based salary differentials persist in ARL libraries in 2006–07. The overall salary for women in the 113 ARL university libraries is 95.7% of that paid to men; this figure compares to 95.5% in 2005–06. While the data show a marked closure of the gender gap in ARL libraries over the long term—in 1980–81, women in ARL libraries were paid roughly 87% of what men were paid—the data also raise the possibility that the closure has peaked, and that a 5% gap between men’s and women’s salaries may persist.

John Truesdale has been named the Director of the National Digital Library, Paul Reynolds has been named the Adjunct Director, and Steve Knight has been named Associate Director.

For details, see the press releases: "National Library of New Zealand appoints Director, National Digital Library" and "Trio of Top Thinkers to Lead National Digital Library."

Indiana University President Michael McRobbie has announced that Patricia A. Steele, who has been the Interim Dean of the Indiana University Libraries since 2005, will continue in that role for up to two years.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

"The recent search for the Dean of the Libraries did not result in the identification of a successor who is better positioned than Pat to move forward with new library initiatives," said McRobbie. "Hence, I asked Pat to continue her appointment, effective immediately.

"I appreciate the leadership and hard work that have characterized Pat's tenure as interim dean, and Provost Karen Hanson and I look forward to working with her in the months ahead," McRobbie added.

McRobbie, who said that a new search would begin later this academic year, noted that Steele had moved the libraries forward since 2005 in advancing scholarly communications initiatives, planning for facilities and engaging an assessment of technical services operations. He expects that she will continue to build upon library planning and initiatives already in place and continue to advance IUB Libraries with the extension of her appointment, he said.

I'm back from the University of Arizona School of Information Resources and Library Science's Advisory Group meeting for its Certificate in Digital Information Management program.

This online post-bachelor's certificate program is shaping up nicely, building on its unusual synthesis of archival, digital technology, and library perspectives. As intended, its attracting a student body from diverse work and educational backgrounds. Peter Botticelli has been hired to lead the certificate program. Recruitment for the next cohort of students is gearing up, and some IMLS-funded scholarships will be available for U.S. citizens.

The certificate program is composed of six three-credit graduate courses.

• IRLS 671 Introduction to Digital Collections
• IRLS 672 Introduction to Applied Technology
• IRLS 673 Managing the Digital Information Environment
• IRLS 674 Preservation of Digital Collections
• IRLS 675 Advanced Digital Collections
• IRLS 676 Capstone

More detailed information can be found on the Course Information & Schedules: Digital Information Management Certificate page.

Annual reports tend to be dull, but not the new one by the British Library, which has spare Web page text complemented by PDFs, an MP3 summary, and Flash movie commentary by library users.

Beginning with the 2005–06 report, ARL is using an Expenditures-Focused Index instead of its traditional Membership Criteria Index in public ranking reports. The Chronicle of Higher Education has published the "Index of Expenditures at University Research Libraries, 2005-6" (requires subscription).

Here's an excerpt from the ARL Index page:

Starting with 2005–06 data, ARL is calculating an Expenditures-Focused Index as an alternative to the ARL Membership Criteria Index. The Expenditures-Focused Index replaces the public availability of the ARL Membership Criteria Index. The Expenditures-Focused Index is highly correlated with the Membership Criteria Index and less affected by changes in the collections variables. The methodology behind this new index is described by Bruce Thompson in his October 2006 paper, "Some Alternative Quantitative Library Activity Descriptions/Statistics that Supplement the ARL Logarithmic Index."

Three surveys of librarian salaries have been recently published.

The Association of Research Libraries has published the ARL Annual Salary Survey 2006-07. PDF and Excel versions are freely available.

ALA has published the 2007 editions of the ALA-APA Salary Survey: Librarian—Public and Academic and the ALA-APA Salary Survey: Non-MLS—Public and Academic. Various priced access options are available.

Here's an excerpt from the ALA press release:

Analysis of data from more than 800 public and academic libraries showed the mean salary for librarians with ALA-accredited Master’s Degrees increased 2.8 percent from 2006, up $1,550 to $57,809. The median ALA MLS salary was $53,000. Salaries ranged from $22,048 to $225,000.

For the first time the non-MLS salary survey data, including 62 non-MLS positions, reported salaries for staff employed as librarians but who do not have ALA-accredited Master’s Degrees in Library Science. Non-MLS salaries ranged $10,712 to $143,700.

Walt Crawford has published Public Library Blogs: 252 Examples.

Here's an excerpt from his posting about the book:

Public Library Blogs: 252 Examples is now available at Cites & Insights Books. Price: $29.50 plus shipping and handling.
The 299-page 6×9 trade paperback (x+289 pages) features descriptions and sample posts for a wide range of blogs from 196 public libraries of all sizes, in the United States, Canada, Australia, Ireland and New Zealand.

If your library is considering a blog, this book should help you find blogs from comparable libraries to consider as examples. If your library has a blog and is considering more (or revising the ones you have), this book should help you find interesting examples–the public library blogging community is remarkably diverse!

For now, Public Library Blogs is only available from the Cites & Insights Books store at Lulu.com, printed on 60lb. cream book stock. In a few days, a version on bright white paper and with an ISBN will be available from CreateSpace–and, a couple of weeks after that, from Amazon.com

If you were writing a strategic plan for a major academic research library in 2007, what would it look like?

Here are two answers to that question:

• Strategic Plan 2007-2011 (Georgia Tech Library and Information Center)
• UK Libraries Strategic Plan, 2007-2009 (University of Kentucky Libraries)

The American Library Association and its divisions have launched a number of Weblogs in the last few years. What copyright provisions are these digital publications under? Do they use Creative Commons licenses?

As the list below shows, the vast majority of ALA Weblogs have no explicit copyright statement on their homepage. The absence of such a statement does not mean that under U.S. law the Weblogs are not under standard copyright provisions. They are copyrighted, but by who? Unless ALA has a copyright transfer or work-for-hire agreement with Weblog authors, it appears that the author of each posting holds the copyright to that posting, and copyright permissions for uses of postings that exceed fair use would need to be obtained from their authors. (Some Weblogs have a single author.)

One ALA Weblog uses the standard ALA copyright statement (ALA Techsource), one is copyrighted under the name of the Weblog (ACRLog), one is under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States license (YALSA)