I was asked a few weeks ago to supply a college library with a cataloger who must be a library school graduate knowing French and German and the salary offered was $40 a month. If a woman ate poor food, she might be able to save enough out of $40 to pay for her washing—only she couldn't afford to buy any clothes to be washed. She could never see a play, hear an orchestra, or buy a book.
A good cook, on the other hand, would have no difficulty in getting $30 or $35 a month and maintenance, which would be equivalent to a salary of at least $50 or $55 a month. Moreover, the cook would not be expected to dress as well as the cataloger (though, as a matter of fact, her Sunday clothes would probably be more costly) or to attend conventions.
The case I have mentioned is by no means an isolated one. A good-looking girl with pleasant manners, who could understand French, German, Spanish and Italian over the telephone, was asked for by a large city library that proposed to pay about $45 a month. Another college library recently wanted a college and library school graduate with experience and various other qualifications for $720 a year. Now if an experienced woman with such an education can't get more than $720 a year in library work, the sooner she leaves it for something else the better. A special library belonging to a leading institution in a large city was looking for a woman to reclassify and catalog its collection, but seemed unwilling to pay even $50 a month.
This is not intended as a diatribe against the librarian employer. The trustees and the taxpayers need education along the line of library salaries. Libraries need larger appropriations for salaries. We have passed through a period where method was exalted, we seem to be passing through a period where a fine building is the prime necessity. But after all, a library means primarily plenty of books that are worth while and assistants that know enough to get them into the hands of the right people. And we can not cultivate efficient assistants on less than a living wage.
Do not misunderstand me. I do not mean to imply that a green library school graduate should leap at once into a high-salaried position. Yet the comparison sometimes made with the doctor or lawyer, who are so long in gaining a foot-hold, seems to me unfair. Lawyers and doctors who are good for much, make big money after a while. It is the exceptional librarian who ever gets a large salary. Therefore it is not fair to expect her to spend so many years earning little or nothing as does the doctor or lawyer.
I have spoken particularly of salaries for women. Salaries for men in library work are usually too low, but I have dwelt on the women's salaries because women are discriminated against, not alone in libraries, but in most kinds of work done by women.
The working-woman of today asks no favor because she is a woman. She does ask equal pay with men for equally good work.
I do not mean to over-emphasize the money side of library work, even though I think the "missionary" side of it has been over-emphasized. Why is a shelf-lister any more of a missionary than a bookkeeper in John Wanamaker's store? Why is any librarian any more of a missionary than the editor of a great daily, or than a busy surgeon, or many other folks that might be mentioned? We librarians serve those who know more than we, who are better than we—we are "just folks" like all the rest, equally worthy, if we give good measure in our work, of a living wage.
We of the schools ask of the libraries we try to serve that they send us criticisms of our graduates, that they try them out, and that they pay them, if found efficient, that living wage without which the best work is impossible.
Discussion of both papers followed, after which was read the