Navigating the Early Career Landscape Room: "Fulfilling Work with a Sufficient Salary": Resident Librarians' Perceptions on Compensation
Event Type
Lightning Talk
Start Date
25-7-2025 1:15 PM
End Date
25-7-2025 2:00 PM
Description
Because of its low pay and slow salary growth, the master’s in library and information science was once ranked by Forbes.com as the worst degree for jobs. For the resident librarian, this can be particularly troubling, given the precarious nature of the temporary position. Although there is a growing body of literature on various aspects of resident librarian experience, virtually nothing exists on views of their compensation. How does the resident librarian’s perception of compensation impact their residency experience? How does that perception also impact the librarian’s decision to remain in librarianship at the residency’s conclusion? This lightning talk will discuss preliminary findings of a work-in-progress mixed methods research study examining the impact perceptions of compensation may have had on professionals who participated in a library residency within the last five years. The researcher hopes that findings from this study may better inform guidelines and recommend best practices around compensation for organizations that facilitate residency programs or institutions that host resident librarians, such as the ACRL Diversity Alliance, the National Library of Medicine, and the Library of Congress. This research may also advance broader discussions on how to effectively recruit and retain academic librarians.
Outcomes
Attendees to this lightning talk will come away being able to:
- Define a library residency;
- Understand current trends in compensation for early career librarians; and
- Gain some aggregate insights on recent resident librarians’ perceptions around their compensation and its impact on librarianship.
Navigating the Early Career Landscape Room: "Fulfilling Work with a Sufficient Salary": Resident Librarians' Perceptions on Compensation
Because of its low pay and slow salary growth, the master’s in library and information science was once ranked by Forbes.com as the worst degree for jobs. For the resident librarian, this can be particularly troubling, given the precarious nature of the temporary position. Although there is a growing body of literature on various aspects of resident librarian experience, virtually nothing exists on views of their compensation. How does the resident librarian’s perception of compensation impact their residency experience? How does that perception also impact the librarian’s decision to remain in librarianship at the residency’s conclusion? This lightning talk will discuss preliminary findings of a work-in-progress mixed methods research study examining the impact perceptions of compensation may have had on professionals who participated in a library residency within the last five years. The researcher hopes that findings from this study may better inform guidelines and recommend best practices around compensation for organizations that facilitate residency programs or institutions that host resident librarians, such as the ACRL Diversity Alliance, the National Library of Medicine, and the Library of Congress. This research may also advance broader discussions on how to effectively recruit and retain academic librarians.
Outcomes
Attendees to this lightning talk will come away being able to:
- Define a library residency;
- Understand current trends in compensation for early career librarians; and
- Gain some aggregate insights on recent resident librarians’ perceptions around their compensation and its impact on librarianship.
