Informal Consumer Health Librarian Salary Survey
Feb-Mar. 2001
by: Jennifer Friedman, MLS
Consumer Health Librarian
John and Nettie Mooney Health Resource Center
Gundersen Lutheran Medical Center
1836 South Ave., La Crosse, WI 54601-5494
(608) 775-5995
jlfriedm@gundluth.org
An informal salary survey for Consumer Health Information librarians in medical centers, with data collected during February and March, 2001. I got a real range of responses in almost every area--it was very interesting to see. I separated locations and library names from the respondents' individual salary information, so as to avoid the possibility of inadvertently revealing someone's salary information.
One caveat: I am not a professional statistician or surveyor, and this is in no way a comprehensive sample. Use these statistics at your own risk. Don't forget to read to the bottom; that's where the list of library names is, and it's a hoot. Can we EVER agree on what to call our libraries?
My sample was taken from members of the CAPHIS listserv who decided to write back to my request for certain types of information. These were librarians who work at medical centers, not public or academic librarians, except for one person who is employed by an academic medical center but works in a consumer health library. I eliminated two respondents who did not qualify as primarily consumer health librarians (in both cases, they were supervisors of medical libraries who supervised some CHI but did not directly provide CHI services).
In case you are reading this solely to find out how your salary measures up, here is that nugget of information:
- Average salary of 11 salaried Consumer Health librarians who responded:$41,721
- Average hourly pay of 9 hourly Consumer Health librarians who responded: $18.30 (or $38,064 yearly)
And now, without further ado, the results:
Summary of Results, Informal Consumer Health Librarian Salary Survey, Feb-Mar. 2001
Number of participants: 20
Titles represented in sample:
- Reference Librarian (2)
- Medical Librarian (3)
- Community Education Librarian
- Program Coordinator
- Library Coordinator
- Coordinator (4)
- Patient Education/Consumer Education Librarian
- Hospital Librarian
- Consumer Health Librarian/Office Manager
- Consumer Librarian
- Consumer Health Librarian (2)
- Librarian
- Patient Education Librarian
FTE breakdown:
- Employed full-time: 12
- Employed part-time: 8
- Average hours per week for part-time: 25.875
- Of those who worked part time, here was the breakdown in amount of hours:
- 20: 3
- 24: 1
- 27: 1
- 32: 3
- Salaried: 11
- Average yearly salary, excluding one Canadian respondent: $42,309
- With Canadian salary converted to USD (3/8/01) and averaged in: $41,721
- Hourly employees: 9
- Average hourly pay: $18.30
- ($18.30 x 2080, standard number of working hours in year, yields yearly salary of $38,064)
- Average years in present position: 4.26
- Average years of experience post-masters'-degree (one masters'-degreed nurse with no MLS was included): 11.9
Locations represented (some did not give a location):
- Kalamazoo, MI
- Petaluma, CA
- Portland, OR
- Location withheld (northern midwest U.S.)
- Wallingford, CT
- Kansas City, MO
- Green Bay, WI
- Norway, ME
- Asheville, NC
- Houston, TX
- Vancouver, BC
- Hershey, PA
- Lexington, KY
- Enid, OK
- Eugene, OR
- MI
- IL
- Omaha, NE
- La Crosse, WI
Types of organizations hosting/supporting these libraries (some surveys did not state this):
- Medical center (2)
- Standalone; owned by medical center
- Medical system
- Rehabilitation hospital
- Hospital (4)
- State government agency
- Community medical center
- Academic medical center
- Clinic
- Clinic/Hospital
For your amusement, the names of the libraries (identifying names removed; some surveys did not state this):
- Patient Resource Room
- Health Library
- Information Center (this particular library has 3 sites)
- Patient Education Resource Center
- Consumer Health Library (2)
- Resource Center
- Health Sciences Library
- Consumer Health Library
- Provincial cancer agency library
- Community Health Information Library
- Health Information Library
- Children's Health Resource Center
- Family Resource Library
- Health Resource Center
Yes, you really CAN just put the words "family", "health", "resource", "information", "library", "patient", "education", "community", "center", "room", and "consumer" on slips of paper in a hat to name your facility.
I hope this information is helpful to you. I have some hope that it will be helpful to me and to our HR department when my position comes up for salary re-evaluation. Thanks so much to all who sent in information for this survey.