2003 SLA Salary Survey
2003 SLA Salary Survey Index

Ordering Information
2003 Basic Annual Salaries
Survey Administration
Organization of the 2003 Report
Summary of Contents
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salarysurvey2003


2003 Basic Annual Salaries: Canada and the United States

Salary
Percent
Change
10th Percentile
First Quartile
25%
Median
50%
Third Quartile
75%
90th Percentile
Number
Mean
Mean
Percent Change
All Canadian Respondents*
43,100
50,000
60,000
72,475
83,475
274
61,959
3.3%
All U.S. Respondents
37,000
45,000
57,000
73,720
92,000
1,366
61,522
3.7%

*All salaries in Canadian tables are reported in Canadian dollars. The exchange rate on April 1, 2003 was $1.47 Canadian = $1 US

Special Libraries Association's (SLA) 2003 Salary Survey indicates an overall increase in earnings since 2002. As indicated in the table above:

• The median pay (the salary in the middle of the distribution) for full-time information professionals in Canada as of April 1, 2003 was $60,000; the average, or mean, was $61,959;
• The US median pay for full-time information professionals as of April 1, 2003 was $57,000; the average, or mean, was $61,522;
• The increase in median salary for information professionals in Canada was 5.9%, with a much smaller increase of 0.9% being reported in the United States. The overall inflation rate for Canada, measured by the Consumer Price Index, was 3.6%, compared with 2.5% in the United States.
• SLA's US respondents' median salary exceeds the earnings of all librarians as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics by more than $17,000 over an 18 year period. Comparable figures from Statistics Canada for all librarians have not been reported since 1996.
• Canadian respondents in the same positions between April 1, 2002, and April 1, 2003, reported a mean percent change in earnings of 3.3%. The Mean Percent Change reported for respondents in the same positions is the US was 3.7%. Importantly, the Mean Percent Changes in this report are calculated only for respondents in the same job and at the same organization in the 2003 that they were in 2002 and does not represent the Mean Percent Change from the data in the 2002 survey.

Survey Administration
For the 2003 survey, SLA adopted a different method of data collection. Prior surveys had been based on hard-copy survey instruments that were mailed to members. This year, the entire survey was conducted online. In early May, an e-mail was sent to a random sample of half of SLA's US members and all of the regular and associate Canadian members. After a reminder sent out later in the month, members returned a total of 1,999 usable surveys to Association Research, Inc. (ARI). As in prior years, data from the 2003 salary survey were entered and tabulated by ARI to ensure respondent confidentiality. A member in good standing of the Council of American Survey Research Organizations (CASRO), ARI has extensive experience in both designing, tabulating, and interpreting surveys and also in working with the greater association community. The completion rate for the 2003 salary survey is 37%.

Organization of the 2003 Salary Survey Report
The 2003 SLA Salary Survey report is organized so that information likely to be of use to a single user is more likely to be grouped together.
• Data on the United States and Canada have been separated so that all tables relevant to each country are now grouped together. Chapters one through five include Canadian data, while chapters six through ten are comprised of US data.
•Each chapter represents the data for a specific job description. Chapters one and six are for all Canadian and US respondents, respectively; chapters two and seven refer to data for those serving primarily in an administrative or managerial capacity; chapters three and eight relate to data for reference librarians and professionals; chapters four and nine are for those with "general responsibilities" and chapters five and ten report data for those performing technical services. Approximately 65% of all respondents fit into one of the four job-descriptions above, with the other 35% of respondents fragmented among the remaining twenty or so descriptions.
• The data within each chapter is divided into three sections: demographic, institutional and job-specific. Demographic data relates to personal characteristics of the respondent, institutional data relates to characteristics of the respondent's employer and job-specific data is that which relates to the particular job held by the respondent.

Summary of Contents

Chapters
Canada
Chapter One: All Canadian Respondents
Chapter Two: Primary Responsibility - Administrative/Management
Chapter Three: Primary Responsibility - Reference
Chapter Four: Primary Responsibility - General Responsibilities
Chapter Five: Primary Responsibility - Technical Services
United States
Chapter Six: All United States Respondents
Chapter Seven: Primary Responsibility - Administrative/Management
Chapter Eight: Primary Responsibility - Reference
Chapter Nine: Primary Responsibility - General Responsibilities
Chapter Ten: Primary Responsibility - Technical Services

Tables within Each Chapter
Demographic Data
Table 1 - Salary Distribution by Region/Census Division
Table 2 - Salary Distribution by Metropolitan Areas
Table 3 - Salary Distribution by Subject Degree Field
Table 4 - Salary Distribution by Library/Information Science Degree
Table 5 - Salary Distribution by Degree Held
Table 6 - Salary Distribution by Years of Library Experience
Table 7 - Salary Distribution by Years of Total Work Experience
Table 8 - Salary Distribution by Gender
Table 9 - Salary Distribution by Ethnicity/Race
Institutional Data
Table 10 - Salary Distribution by Number of Employee
Table 11 - Salary Distribution by Non-profit Status
Table 12 - Salary Distribution by Business Sector
Table 13 - Salary Distribution by Institution/Industry
Table 14 - Salary Distribution by Union v. Non-union
Job-specific Data
Table 15 - Salary Distribution by Number of Years with Present Employer
Table 16 - Salary Distribution by Number of Employees Supervised or Managed
Table 17 - Salary Distribution by Primary Job Responsibility
Table 18 - Salary Distribution by Primary Job Title
Table 19 - Salary Distribution by Library or Information Resource Center Setting
Table 20 - Salary Distribution by Library/Information Center Annual Budget
Table 21 - Salary Distribution by Full-time Equivalent Employees in Library/Information Center
Table 22 - Number and Percentage of Employees by Type of Benefits Provided by Institution Group
Table 23 - Salary Distribution by Self-Employed Status
Table 24 - Salary Distribution by Contract Basis at Primary Job
Table 25 - Salary Distribution by Number of Part-time Jobs Held
Table 26 - Salary Distribution by Number of Part-time Hours Worked per Week
Table 27 - Salary Distribution by Reasons for Working Part-time
Table 28 - Average Hourly Rate for Part-time Employees by Census Division

Also available are Executive Summaries of SLA's annual salary surveys for earlier years included in the Salary Surveys Information Portal.

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