The Age Demographics of Academic Librarians : A Profession Apart

Since 1990 the average age of academic librarians dramatically increased. How will this trend affect your library? What are the possible repercussions when the aging library staff begin to retire? The Age Demographics of Academic Librarians: A Profession Apart will provide you with insights on this important demographic issue and what you can do to make its effects positive.

The Age Demographics of Academic Librarians: A Profession Apart discusses the current demographics of librarianship in North America and examines how a huge retiree rate will affect the profession. With the average age of librarians increasing dramatically since 1990, this book examines the changes that will have to take place in your library, such as recruiting, training, and working with a smaller staff. The Age Demographics of Academic Librarians provides you with insights on how to make your library’s transition easier when several of your colleagues leave your library.

Valuable and intelligent, The Age Demographics of Academic Librarians discusses trends through easy-to-read charts, tables, and comprehensive data analysis. Exploring possible reasons for the anomalies of this trend, this book explores several surprising facts, such as:

• 16 percent of the 1995 American Research Libraries population of librarians will retire by the year 2000, another 16 percent between 2000 and 2005, 24 percent between 2005 and 2010, and 27 percent between 2010 and 2030, leaving the ARL lacking seasoned librarians
• the number of ARL cataloging librarians are decreasing, but the number of reference librarians seems to be increasing
• 54 percent of all ARL librarians who have twenty or more years of professional experience have worked at only one library in the course of their careers
• Canadian ARL librarians are older than their United States counterparts
• in 1990, 48 percent of ARL librarians were 45 years old or older; in 1994, the number increased to 58 percent
  
  The Age Demographics of Academic Librarians provides you with valuable insight into the unusual shape and movement of the academic librarian age profile as well as some speculation on its possible effects so you can predict how it will affect your library in the future and help you prepare to take preventative actions.