where does the money go, NYPL?

Posted in librarians | Sunday, November 19th, 2006 | Trackback
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The president of NYPL makes over $800,000 a year even as NYPL is selling assets to raise needed funds and NYPL has some of the lowest starting salaries of any urban library system. For shame. [juice]

5 Responses to “where does the money go, NYPL?”

  1. jenn graham Says:
    November 20th, 2006 at 3:20

    oh my! for shame shame shame! a few of my friends, new grads, have landed jobs at NYPL recently. they have sacrificed a lot (after just sacrificing to attend grad school!) to live in NYC on low wages to pursue dreams of working at such a place of honor. when I think about how much it costs to live in NYC, and all these enthusiastic young librarians struggling to do what they love and provide good service. $800,000???? I can’t believe it…

  2. Library Girl Says:
    November 21st, 2006 at 8:50

    I went through an extremely frustrating interview process w/ NYPL for an entry level librarian position. Not only did the extremely rude HR woman have no patience when I expressed my concerns of being placed in a branch near Harlem, but their starting salary of $35K was laughable. Deduct the mandatory union dues, retirement fund, city, state & federal taxes, and you are left w/ a lifestyle of a college student…after having forked over how many thousands to obtain that MLIS?!

  3. Shame on You, NYPL « The Misadventures of Library Guy Says:
    November 21st, 2006 at 8:12

    […] Let me just add my voice to the other blogispherians who are booing the New York Public Library this week.  In case you hadn’t heard, the top execs at the NYPL are making six-figure salaries…pretty significant ones, at that.  In fact, the  library’s president makes over $400, 000 a year.  This does not include his housing allowance of $136, 000…an allowance that is moot since he owns his apartment in Manhattan.  (His total compensation package brings the total to over $800,000.) Now, let’s look at the people who actually make the NYPL operate on a day-to-day basis…the librarians.  NYPL librarians, according to this salary study, have the lowest starting salary of all major large library systems in the country.  In fact, with cost of living adjustment taken into consideration, NYPL librarians just starting with the system, make just under $13,000 a year.  No doubt, this would entitle these librarians to receive any number of welfare benefits.  Librarians on welfare…not a good thing in my book.  The board of the NYPL ought to consider giving its front-line staff some raises, instead of inflating the already over-inflated salaries of its top execs. Explore posts in the same categories: Uncategorized […]

  4. Stephanie Chase Says:
    November 27th, 2006 at 9:44

    And, hence, why NYPL has absolutely atrocious turnover and unhappy staff members that go out for drinks every pay day.

    When I was working at NYPL, had I been single, I would have been able to qualify for low-income housing in the city. It’s sad to see that hasn’t changed.

  5. Summer dispatch « booktruck.org Says:
    July 11th, 2007 at 10:30

    […] And, I hate to even bring this up, Hip shushers. Sheesh! I’m not going to try to track the wide and varied, over-serious and goofy reactions to this. But I’m gonna give in and spill mine. The article seemed to deal first and foremost with NYC area LIS grad students, and not working librarians. I bristle at the idea of trying to live anywhere in America, much less in gentrified Brooklyn, on what NYPL and BPL pay their entry-level librarians. But what I haven’t seen addressed is that the newfound preciousness of going to library school isn’t about anything job or education related- it’s about a mass of college graduates, mostly female, with both real and percieved lack of career options casting their lot onto an arcanely feminized public serivice sector with a lot of inherent problems. I think that any enthusiasm or momentum coming to libraries and archives is ultimately good, but I also think that we should be talking about these things really critically. […]