This study presents data from random sample of 88 academic libraries in North America about their plans to add to, subtract from or maintain their employment and staffing levels in the upcoming academic year, 20-21. It also looks at plans for salary increases or cuts and examines plans for other employee-related expenses such as education reimbursement, employee training, travel and conference and other expenses. The study provides highly specific data for professional librarians, overall non-student staff, and even for library student employees, with detailed data looking at levels in Spring 2020 and expected levels for Fall 2020. Survey respondents also discuss their attitudes towards staffing in the future, how their libraries have fared vs. other academic departments in confronting the Covid-19 driven downturn in funding at many institutions, and the extent to which they expect library staff will continue to work remotely in Fall 2020.
Just a few of this 55-page report’s hundreds of data points are that:
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The number of students employed by the libraries in the sample in the Fall of 2020 relative to the beginning of Spring semester 2020 is expected to fall by 14.85%.
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71.43% of the junior college libraries in the sample expected to spend less on employee training in the next year.
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50% of librarians from research universities felt that their libraries would fare better than other non-library departments in the distribution of budget cuts over the next year at their institutions, a far higher percentage expressing this confidence than by libraries at other types of higher ed institution.
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For summer session 2020 librarians sampled expect to see approximately 44% of their staff working in the library rather than remotely.
Data in the page report is broken out by size and type of institution, by tuition level, for public and private institutions and enrollment level.