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ALA does salary surveys every year. This is from the ALA-APA toolkit [1]: "Pay inequity also exists within librarianship. The Association of Research Libraries, in its Annual Salary Survey 2005-6, reported that the average salary for male academic librarians in member libraries was $63,984, while the average for female academic librarians was $61,083.5 Library Journal reported that new library school graduates finally crossed the $40,000 mark as an average salary, but the gender split had women below that point with $39,587 and men at $42,143." And there's more if you go through the literature. kc [1] http://ala-apa.org/improving-salariesstatus/resources/ala-apa-librarian-and-library-worker-salary-surveys/ On 11/29/12 1:19 PM, Chris Fitzpatrick wrote: > Hm. This all has been a long and really interesting conversation...but I > gotta ask if men really outweigh women in the higher paying library jobs > as much as they do in banks and K-12? I guess it depends on the definition > of "tech" vs. "non-tech" jobs in the library setting, which I'll leave to > that other email tread...but since I started working in libraries, 3 of my > last 5 managers (hi, Bess!) were women. I always thought one of the best > things about working at libraries was that there are way more women working > in higher positions than there are in most private for-profit companies. > And I'd be willing to bet my life savings that libraries have > a significantly higher percentage of women executives than Fourtune 500 > companies. But maybe I'm delusional about this? I don't have any figures or > anything... > > What I have noticed is that academic libraries have been trying harder to > emulate the Valley and the general tech field. Not only is "Thinking Like A > Startup" a mantra, but libraries are flocking to flashier cutting edge > technologies. This is probably not a bad thing, but communities like Rails, > Drupal, Django, Hadoop, and Node are all overloaded with particular > chromosome. So maybe a side-effect is that we're now emulating some of > their bad habits along with the good ones? > > Another thing that Karen Coyle's comments about "coders" vs. "helpers" made > me think of is that academic libraries tend to be reorganizing their > departments in kinda interesting ways. There now seems to be things like > "Metadata" or "Systems" groups that are distinct from "Digital Repository" > or "Applications" groups. Catalogers and the people who work on the ILS are > often completely segregated from the people who work on the new flashy > grant-funded projects. The former, it kinda seems to me, tends to have more > women members while the latter is often lacking. Code4Lib draws mostly from > people working in these new-ish groups, which the others get sent to things > like ALA...maybe we can significantly improve our ratio by trying to > involve and interact more with our colleagues sitting on the other side of > the cubical partition? Although the last time I did that I learned the hard > way why turning off the Zebra index is a bad idea, so maybe on second > thought it's better if we don't get in each other's hair.... > > best,fitz. > > > On Thu, Nov 29, 2012 at 9:10 PM, Bess Sadler <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > >> The challenges around getting women into male-dominated professions is a >> little different from the challenges of getting men into women-dominated >> professions. For one thing, professions that are female-dominated are >> notoriously low-paying and low-status (think K-12 teachers, nursing, social >> workers, etc). These professions do have major recruiting problems, largely >> because they are low-paying, often considered to be undesirable, and they >> have high levels of stress burnout. When men choose to enter these fields, >> they often are promoted more quickly and paid more than women. There are >> many professions where this is true. Women outnumber men as K-12 teachers, >> but men outnumber women as K-12 principals and school superintendents. >> Women make up the majority of bank tellers, but men make up the majority of >> bank managers. Women make up the majority of librarians, but men make up >> the majority of the higher-paying technology jobs in libraries. Sensing a >> pattern yet? THAT is what we a! >> re trying to disrupt. >> >> Don't get me wrong, getting more men into nursing is a good thing too! The >> fact that men are less likely to put up with low wages, bad working >> conditions, or disrespectful colleagues can work in everyone's favor, and >> the field of nursing in particular has faced such problems with recruiting >> that they are trying to undergo a major cultural shift. Male nurses have >> been a part of that. Obviously I am not a nurse, but I do have a close >> relative who authored a study on this subject for a nursing school, so I >> have heard a bit about it. >> >> I highly recommend the book "Women Don't Ask" (http://www.womendontask.com), >> which is a great book for anyone who wants to know more about effective >> negotiating. (Read it before your next salary negotiation!) The book >> discusses why men tend to ask for better treatment, better salaries, more >> opportunities, etc, while women more often accept whatever they are given. >> This is learned behavior that we can learn to change, though. I think a >> place like code4lib, where there is so much opportunity to speak up or >> spark initiatives without any hierarchy or bureaucracy getting in the way, >> can be a fertile ground for women who want to develop their negotiation and >> leadership skills, as well as their technical capacity. My entire career >> has been shaped around stuff I learned in code4lib, and only some of it was >> about code. >> >> Bess >> >> On Nov 27, 2012, at 7:56 AM, "Huwig,Steve" <[log in to unmask]> wrote: >> >> I'm just the peanut gallery (having never attended Code4Lib) but it >>> seems to me that a useful analogue to programming/tech conferences -- >>> which Code4Lib surely is -- would be conferences aimed at professional >>> nurses. >>> >>> Do those conference organizers take measures to increase the number of >>> male attendees? If so, what do they do? >>> >>> Just throwing ideas out there, >>> Steve Huwig -- Karen Coyle [log in to unmask] http://kcoyle.net ph: 1-510-540-7596 m: 1-510-435-8234 skype: kcoylenet