For 3 months in 2023 I collected job postings on the partnership job board, and have been analyzing them to determine what salaries people who work in Canadian libraries are being offered, and what that means for their material quality of life.

The main research questions I have set out to answer are: 
1. Based on salary information available for new job postings in libraries, what is the material quality of life that someone working in a library can expect to have? 
2. Does this quality of life differ depending on the location and level of education required? 
3. How do library salaries compare to other incomes within the same community?  

To answer the first and third question I am also using the 2021 Canadian census to determine housing costs and salary deciles in the communities where the jobs were posted.

To perform my analysis I have created a python script (with assistance from ChatGPT) to extract information such as salary, location of job, and keywords about required education level from the job postings. I also extracted the relevant census characteristics about income and housing (suitability and cost in relation to income) from the census by location. I joined both datasets on location.

My research is still in progress. I have completely answered the second question, and the others will be completed before the Forum. Sharing a sneak-peak of the results of the second question, I was shocked at how large of a gap there was between MLIS-holders and library technicians, even though I anticipated it would be substantial. The average yearly low of jobs for MLIS postings was $73,169.95, whereas the average for library technician diploma positions was $51,103.73. General college diplomas had a higher average than library technician diplomas at $57,604.76, and general university degree requirements were higher still at $65,279.98. In my presentation I will discuss in more detail how these results may be complicated by number of postings, location of the jobs, and perhaps even the types of jobs that were included.

I am hopeful that by asking these questions about how well our labour is compensated, we can open ourselves up to understanding a few other things. One, the profession regularly bemoans its heterogeneous nature. We understand through surveys that librarians are predominantly white, female, and middle class, but this may not be true of all people who work in the library. Is it possible that there are economic reasons that these are the only people who can afford to become, and stay, librarians? Two, we are all workers who have full lives within our broader communities. By having a better understanding of where we fall economically within our communities, we can improve our sensitivity around the class and power dynamics that might be at play within our workplaces (both between colleagues and us and our patrons). We can also stand in solidarity with other workers, with an improved self-awareness of our respective privileges and struggles.