The 2000 Salary Survey Report is Coming Soon!

SLA's Salary Survey for the year 2000 is out of the field and we are in the process of getting it ready for publication. The salary report, which will be available from SLA in November, will include salary breakdown by industry, geographical region, budget size, primary responsibility, job title, years of experience, as well as summaries of average salary data. I'm very pleased to say that this year's survey had an overall response rate of nearly 52%, a dramatic increase over the response rate of recent salary surveys and a testament to SLA's members. We are grateful for your cooperation.

While there were only a few very minor changes to the questionnaire this year, there are a number of changes to the upcoming publication itself:

First, the data has been reorganized for ease-of-use, including:

• Separation of U.S. and Canadian data
• Introduction of "chapters" based on job descriptions, so that it is more likely all data relevant to an individual is gathered in one place
• Aggregation of demographic, job-related and institutional-related data into separate sections within each chapter
• Bulleted highlights of the most important data for each table.

In addition to the printed version, SLA is exploring options for the online delivery of the Salary Survey data and the creation of an online "salary calculator." Although the final format is yet to be determined, the association hopes to have the data tables and text available directly from the Members Only area of SLA's web site for downloading or printing, so members can quickly and simply purchase the Salary Survey and instantly access the data that they need in a timely fashion.

While the salary calculator is also in the developmental stage, our hope is to create an online form that asks members for a few vital pieces of information (for example, geographic location, years of experience, job description, highest degree, etc.) and then analyze those responses using a sophisticated multiple-regression formula custom developed for SLA based on this year's data and back-tested using previous years' surveys. The user would then be shown the range of salaries they could reasonably expect based on the information they've provided.

The online information and salary calculator should be available late this year or early in 2001.

As in previous years, the Salary Survey publication will be available in November, with the prices remaining at $45.00 for members and $54.00 for non-members. Visit SLA'sVirtual Bookstore at www.sla.org or call the SLA publications department at 1-202-939-3673 for more information about the availability of the 2000 Salary Survey. Thank you again to everyone who completed the survey and for making the 2000 Salary Survey a valuable resource for all SLA members.

For more information, contact Douglas Newcomb(doug@sla.org).