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Overview: LIBRARIAN POSITION DESCRIPTIONS (CUPA-HR)

Task Force Draft Report

TOPIC: Updating Academic Librarian Position Descriptions Published in CUPA-HR

PURPOSE: Continuing discussion and collection of feedback to update CUPA-HR’s annual publication listing professional academic library positions. CUPA-HR is the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources (CUPA-HR) Ultimately this project will bring the current listings up to date with today’s libraries and technologies, and establish a collaborative process between ACRL and CUPA-HR to maintain the currency of the lists.

CHARGE TO THE TASK FORCE as approved by ACRL Executive Committee on October 28, 2006, at its meeting in Chicago.

FEEDBACK NEEDED:

See the spreadsheet listing the 19 proposed academic librarian position descriptions developed by the Task Force with input from members. Between now and June 15, the Friday before Annual, we welcome additional feedback. Please send it directly to Tom Abbott, Dean of Libraries and Distance Learning: tabbott@maine.edu.

Additional feedback is needed in 3 areas:

1. Did the Task Force leave any position out that is substantially different that what is listed?
2. Are there any other combinations that should be suggested – See column 2 – "this position may be combined with . . . . ?
3. Are there ways to improve the wording in any of the boxes for any of the positions?

Please note that the CUPA-HR listing once published will be very short, similar to those below from the 2005-2006 CUPA-HR Survey – However, it is intended that the final version of the spreadsheet will remain an active document accessible from the ACRL Website – with instructions about the information might be used. At the ACRL Board meeting June at ALA, the Task Force will also be recommending that the Status of Academic Libraries Committee of ACRL review and revise as necessary, the position descriptions and related supplemental information every five years, reporting changes to the membership for comment, and then sending the changes to CUPA-HR for their next publication.

JOIN US IN WASHINGTON

The Final Report presentation will be made by the Task Force at ALA Annual in Washington on Monday June 25 from 10:30 – noon. All are welcome.

BACKGROUND of this project:

The Maine experience: During a review and rating of all professional positions within the University of Maine System, the Library Directors’ Council learned that one of the indexing factors used to create a regression (projection) formula for relative value and resulting placement on a wage scale were the outdated CUPA descriptions of academic librarians. The position descriptions were described by one director as portraying librarians of the 1980’s. At the same time, all IT/computer service related professional positions in the University of Maine System ranked higher. There is no mention of librarians teaching, developing databases or designing and implementing other digital projects including metadata cataloging. CUPA’s limited number of librarian positions are narrowly framed positions and limited in scope.

When the UMS Library Directors’ Council talked with CUPA leadership, they acknowledged the deficiency and welcomed their review of the descriptions and encouraged them to complete the work in two weeks for their fall 2006 publication. Thinking it wiser to engage ACRL, UMS librarians spoke with Mary Ellen Davis and others and gained their support to spend the next year reviewing the current CUPA academic librarian position descriptions. The task force was approved in October of 2006 by the ACRL Board. The intent of the project is to create widely representative input through this task force and complete the task for ACRL Board approval at the 2007 Annual Conference and in time for CUPA’s fall 2007 publication.

WHAT THE INFORMATION/LISTING IN CUPA-HR IS AND IS NOT:

The CUPA-HR publication provides categories used in institutions of higher education. That listing allows colleges and universities to report salaries and other related information within the categories listed. Once a body of data is collected over time from numerous colleges and universities, averages, means, and comparisons can be made and used for comparison at anyone’s individual institution. For example, if a college is hiring a Digitization Collections Librarian, their HR person will eventually be able to go to CUPA-HR to determine what other schools in their size range are paying for starting salaries. Getting the data into the system with CUPA-HR will take a while – and obviously won’t be collected if the position isn’t even listed – so that is why we are starting here.

IT IS NOT: a process that will automatically advance the cause of low librarian salaries. Simply listing the positions in CUPA-HR only gets the process started. Every academic librarian will need to encourage their HR departments to report current salaries to CUPA-HR and use the information once it is accumulated from around the country – and then how we read that data and how effectively we argue for better salaries will determine how well librarians are recognized within higher education as a whole.

BOTTOM LINE: if we had not taken this first step to list the typical academic librarian position descriptions, then the CUPA-HR database would not be able to collect information about what colleges and universities are paying.

Thank you for your interest. Please contact Dr. Tom Abbott, Dean of Libraries and Distance Learning at the University of Maine at Augusta for further information: 207-621-3342 or by e-mail at tabbott@maine.edu