Findings from the most recent Medical Library Association salary survey

The objective is to provide information on basic issues in library management identified by the Medical Library Association's (MLA's) seventh triennial salary survey.

The survey was a Web-based questionnaire. A nonrandom sample of persons was obtained by posting messages to MLA's membership and to the MEDLIB-L e-mail discussion list. Employed MLA members and nonmembers employed in medical library settings filled out a Web-based form designed using common gateway interface (CGI) programming.

Six hundred forty-five usable responses were analyzed by the Hay Group and presented in the MLA publication, Hay Group/MLA 2001 Compensation and Benefits Survey. Results from the 2001 survey in this article focus on pay and job satisfaction. Salary survey results since 1983 were analyzed to review trends in seniority, diversity, and pay equity.

Given the age progression of respondents from 1983 to 2001, it is clear that succession planning is a core issue for medical libraries. Although efforts to create more diversity in medical libraries in member organizations have started to yield results, pay for white respondents has increased at a higher rate than for other racial categories. The authors found that the pay-for-performance system in the organizations of approximately two-thirds of the respondents is suboptimized and that most of the reasons medical librarians cite for leaving their organization can be addressed and potentially changed by management. Results from the eighth salary survey, slated to be conducted in the fall of 2004, will further track these trends and issues.