Law.com has A Story from the ALA Meeting on Law Librarian Salaries. As you may have guessed, it is not a glowing report on the state of librarian pay. It\’s not just the pay in law offices, but many firms simply don\’t think the libraries are important.
\”\”We need to get away from the attitude that we are lucky to make what we make,\” says Elizabeth Kenney, the law librarian at the Boston office of Philadelphia-based Dechert
Law.com has A Story from the ALA Meeting on Law Librarian Salaries. As you may have guessed, it is not a glowing report on the state of librarian pay. It\’s not just the pay in law offices, but many firms simply don\’t think the libraries are important.
\”\”We need to get away from the attitude that we are lucky to make what we make,\” says Elizabeth Kenney, the law librarian at the Boston office of Philadelphia-based DechertMore from LAW.COM
\”Due to a number of factors — including the economy, law firm librarians\’ change in job scope to include more technology-related tasks, and a growing shortage of qualified information professionals — there might not be a better time to act. One librarian says that salary goals should not be any less than the super heated figures that first year associates are pulling down.
\”If they paid us that kind of money, it would not be a waste of money,\” says Jeanette Tracy, a law librarian at the Boston office of Pittsburgh\’s Kirkpatrick & Lockhart. \”If we can\’t raise the bar during the good times, it\’s not going to happen during a recession.\”
But while librarian salaries are clearly not keeping up with those of first years — which are as high as $125,000 per year at some firms — Kenney fears that they are also not keeping pace with the wages of the technology staffers that firm librarians work closely with. Increasingly, law librarians even mimic many roles of the technology experts as they take on more responsibilities for firm Internet sites, intranet projects and software.
\”The empirical evidence is that we need to catch up with the rest of the world,\” Kenney says.
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