College and Research Libraries RONALD F. DOW Academic Librarians: A Survey of Benefits and Responsibilities This article summarizes a survey of 166 librarian positions in forty- one colleges and universities which offer faculty status to librarians. The survey records the various benefits received by librarians as well as their responsibilities in campus governance. As PART OF A PLAN OF ACTION to ac- quire faculty status for the librarians at Hamilton and Kirkland Colleges, Clinton, New York, the local chapter of the American Association of University Professors ( AA UP) designed and con- ducted a survey. The chapter reasoned that the most effective means of present- ing the case for librarians to other fac- ulty and administrators on campus would be to reinforce each position con- cerning a faculty right or responsibility with evidence for the stance in the form of data gathered from institu- tions claiming faculty status for librari- ans. A questionnaire was designed and mailed to fifty-three libraries across the country. The libraries chosen for the survey were libraries which had adver- tised faculty status for librarians at their institutions, either in job adver- tisements or in articles which had ap- peared in various professional journals since the 1940s. When a state system was queried, only one library in that system was approached; thus, in reality, the survey results represented many more libraries than would appear to be the case. Ronald F. Dow is branch reference li- brarian, Feldberg Library, Dartmouth Col- lege, Hanover, New Hampshire. 218 I One questionnaire only was sent to a library, and in general the response was prepared by either the head librarian or an assistant. A return rate of 77.4 per- cent represented nineteen state colleges and universities, eighteen private col- leges, and four private universities. The questionnaire was arranged to so- licit responses by position within the library. From the forty-one responding institutions, information was collected for 166 positions labelled head librari- an, associate librarian, assistant librari- an, department head, or other profes- sional title. Only one response per position per library was used. The local AA UP chapter had devel- oped a list of rights and responsibilities that faculty mem hers believed existed for them but did not exist for the li- brarians at the two colleges. The survey then was to determine if the concept "faculty status" for librarians did in- deed reflect the sentiment of the 1972 "Joint Statement" issued by the Ameri- can Association of University Profes- sors and the Association of College and Research Libraries. The statement r~ads in part that "faculty status entails for librarians the same rights and responsi- bilities as for other members of the faculty." 1 If indeed this were the case, the chap- ter reasoned; the survey results would support the "Joint Statement's" position of faculty status for librarians. The survey was not intended to affix the per- centage of schools which offer faculty status to their librarians. BENEFITS A look at the survey results and what had been labelled by the local AAUP chapter as the benefits of faculty status is provided in Table 1. Although such benefits as tenure and academic rank do exist for a majority of the librarians at the surveyed institutions, only 3.6 per- cent of the surveyed positions are staffed by librarians who possess nine- month contracts. It is evident from this table that not all benefits are available across-the-board to librarians with fac- ulty status. (The survey was not con- cerned with such benefits as holidays or evening and weekend work. These were considered to be administrative matters rather than ones of status. ) TABLE 1 BENEFITS OF FACULTY STATUS FOR 166 PosiTIONs AT FoRTY-ONE INsTITUTIONs Benefit Can offer courses for Positions with the Benefit Number Percent (n = 166) academic credit 127 76.5 Are eligible for tenure 104 62.7 Are reimbursed for attendance at professional meetings 166 100.0 Are eligible for paid leaves 154 92.8 Have nine-month contracts 6 3.6 Possess academic or equivalent ranks 103 62.0 Are eligible for school research funds 161 96.9 RESPONSIBILITIES The AA UP chapter was also interest- ed in the librarians' exercise of respon- sibility in the overall governance of the academic community. This takes the form of voting rights in the faculty forum and eligibility for service on faculty committees. In this instance the results were more interesting when Academic Librarians I 219 viewed in terms of staff positions. As Table 2 indicates, no position guarantees basic faculty governance re- sponsibilities, although there is a gener- al trend supporting the point of view that the higher the position in the li- brary administration, the more likely there is the opportunity to participate in campus governance. Further, we may conclude from Ta- bles 1 and 2 that, in the case of the sur- veyed libraries, librarians with faculty status are more likely to enjoy the bene- fits of the "teaching" faculty than the "teaching" faculty's responsibility for campus governance. BENEFITS AND RESPONSIBILITIES A cross-tabulation was employed to view the relationships of responsibility for faculty governance with benefits re- ceived by librarians. It was shown that librarians who have the opportunity to exercise greater governance responsibili- ty also receive a greater percentage of the benefits associated with the "teach- ing" faculty's status. Tables 3 through 5 present these results. For instance, as is illustrated by Table 3, 83.3 percent of the total assistant li- brarian positions surveyed possessed aca- demic rank or its equivalent. But among assistant librarian positions where the governance responsibility was inherent, 94.8 percent of the positions carried TABLE 2 RESPONSffiiLITIES OF FACULTY STATUS Position Head Librarian ( n = 40) Associate Librarian ( n = 23) Assistant Librarian ( n = 24) Department Head ( n = 38) Other Professional (n = 41) Possesses Governance Responsibility (Faculty Voting Rights and Committee Eligibility) Number Percent 35 18 18 30 28 87.5 78.3 75.0 78.9 68.3 220 I College & Research Libraries • May 1977 TABLE 3 AcADEMIC RANK AND ITs RELA noN To GoVERNANCE RESPONSIBILITY (FAcULTY VoTING RIGHTS AND CoMMITTEE ELIGIBILITY) Position Positions with Academic Rank Total of Surveyed Positions with Positions Governance Responsibilities Number Percent Number Percent Head Librarian 32 Associate Librarian 15 Assistant Librarian 20 Department Head 33 Other Professional 27 80 65.2 83.3 86.8 65.9 30 14 17 26 24 TABLE 4 TENURE AND ITS RELATION TO GovERNANCE REsPONSIBILITY (FACULTY VoTING RIGHTS AND CoMMITTEE ELIGIBILITY) Position Positions with Tenure 85.7 77.3 94.8 86.6 85.7 Total of Surveyed Positions with Head Librarian Associate Librarian Assistant Librarian Department Head Other Professional Positions Governance Responsibilities Number Percent Number Percent 25 62.5 24 68.6 13 56.5 12 66.7 18 75.0 16 89.5 24 63.2 25 83.3 24 58.5 23 82.1 TABLE 5 THE NINE-MONTH CoNTRACT AND ITs RELATION TO GOVERNANCE RESPONSIBILITY ( FACULTY VoTING RIGHTS AND CoMMITTEE ELIGIBILITY) Position Head Librarian Position with Nine-Month Contract Total of Surveyed Positions with Positions Governance Responsibilities Number Percent Number Percent 2 5 2 5.7 Associate Librarian 0 0 0 0 Assistant Librarian 0 0 0 0 Department Head 2 5.3 2 6.6 Other Professional 2 4.9 2 7.1 rank. Likewise, from Table 4, we can see that although 75 percent of the as- sistant librarians with faculty status are eligible for tenure, 89.5 percent of the assistant librarians with governance re- sponsibility associated with their faculty status qualify for tenure consideration. As is shown in Table 3, we can see there continues to be a downward trend by position for librarians with academic rank; however, librarians with voting rights and committee responsibilities appear much closer to equality with the "teaching" faculty. The case was true as well for paid leaves, academic rank, and most of the other benefits identified by the local AAUP chapter. Even the nine-month contract for librarians, illustrated in Table 5, seems related to this gauge of librarian responsibility outside the li- brary. It is interesting to observe that, in the case of both tenure and rank, the assist- ant librarian is more likely to enjoy these benefits than is either the head or the associate librarian. This phenome- non probably results from senior library administrators in large universities hold- ing administrative rather than faculty ranks. As commentary on this study and the picture it paints of librarians, it would seem fair to conclude that even those who fill the highest positions in the sur- veyed libraries cannot, as a group, claim the same status on the faculty as those faculty who appear regularly in the classroom. Though some institutions do provide their librarians with the total range of faculty rights and responsibil- ities, this simply is not the case for the majority of the surveyed librarians. One positive point can be made, how- ever, and that is that as librarians be- come more active in the academic com- munity, working with faculty in setting the academic tone of the institution through participation in college and university governance, they do achieve a status more comparable to the status enjoyed by the "teaching" faculty. REFERENCE 1. "Joint Statement on Faculty Status of Col- lege and University Librarians," College & Research Libraries News 33:209-10 (Sept. 1972).