Serve and Starve? Not Now-Library Journal Editorial

Library Journal

Serve and Starve? Not Now
by John N. Berry III, Editor-in-Chief -- 11/1/2002

Don't let association staff blunt the salary movement

Comment
on this editorial

The well-paid editor of the official organ of the American Library Association (ALA) recently wrote, "So what's the use in squawking about salaries in times like these? None." Thus he undercuts the major initiative of the current president of ALA, Mitch Freedman. To support this view, the editor cites a very expensive media trainer named Dave Baum, who ran a workshop not for members but (all too typically) for ALA staff only. If that is what the editor learned, it shows exactly why ALA has been so singularly ineffective in getting out the message on behalf of America's librarians.

Next the editor quotes an unpublished article by the even-better-paid Joey Rodger, president of the management-centered Urban Libraries Council (ULC). Many of that crowd have never seen a rank-and-file library workers' salary increase they liked. Apparently it has been a long time since the ALA editor or the ULC president ventured down into the impoverished trenches of library service, like the branches of the big city libraries they purport to represent, places where library workers know firsthand that you can't live on library pay.

The editor admits that ALA was asleep on the watch during what he calls "the good times." And indeed they were good times at ALA HQ. The budget was way up. Growing membership produced a bonanza of dues money and conference registration fees, money taken right out of the pockets of working librarians and put in ALA bank accounts to pay for such perks as those media workshops, for staff only.

Despite concerted drives by ALA and its units to increase revenues, most librarians still got much less value from their membership than the money they paid for participation. What hypocrisy for the spokespeople of library organizations to criticize one of the few initiatives aimed at improving the condition of the masses of library workers, not just the managers and "leaders."

"Bad timing," claims the editor, echoing what every librarian has heard from a boss reluctant to pay more. The real point is that at last, after years of pressure from the rank and file, ALA has finally decided to try to do something about the dismal pay of librarians and other library workers. It was long overdue, and it is about time the effort became the No. 1 priority at ALA. It must stay atop the agenda until real progress is made.

The editor and the rest of the well-paid staff at ALA HQ haven't spent their own money for travel to or accommodations at a library conference, or dipped into their own bank accounts for ALA registration fees since Melvil Dewey was a pup. They have no idea what it costs the members, what sacrifice is required of a librarian to participate in ALA. The great majority of librarians simply can't afford it.

Up there in the ivory towers in Illinois, they continue to preach the ancient gospel that librarians can only demonstrate their worth by "being responsive" and "supporting the kind of lifelong learning products and services that will benefit the entire community." Serve and starve. This old, standard response has kept library salaries depressed for our entire history.

Timing isn't the issue. It makes no difference where we are in the economic cycles: library workers deserve better pay. There is no question that ALA must lead the charge. To exercise that leadership ALA must develop strategies, prepare tools, and be ready to mount the attack on low pay whenever and wherever the opportunity arises. We must not allow headquarters staff, with their own agendas, to slow down or resist the salary movement. Now that library pay is finally first on our professional docket, we will have to fight to keep it there.

jberry@reedbusiness.com