Women Administrators in Academic Libraries: Three Decades of Change

Abstract

From the 1960s until the 1990s, gender equity was a topic of great interest in library workforce studies. In the almost forty years since affirmative action law was made applicable to institutions of higher education, efforts have been made to increase the number of women administrators in academic libraries, and it is now assumed that women have achieved parity. However, there is little hard evidence available about their representation in all types and levels of academic libraries. A follow-up study was done to two earlier studies of the status of women in academic libraries. Using the American Library Directory as a source, the gender of individuals holding the positions of director, associate or assistant director, or department head in ARL and Liberal Arts I libraries in 1972Arts I libraries in , 1982Arts I libraries in , 1994Arts I libraries in , and 2004 were studied. Although women have not yet achieved parity at all levels, the percentage of women administrators has increased significantly over the years. There is still a substantial gap at the director's level in the Liberal Arts I and a smaller one at ARL libraries, however, the results show that since the 1970s, women have succeeded in almost erasing the gender gap in academic library administration.

From Women-Staffed to Women-Led: Gender and Leadership in Academic Libraries, 1974-2018

“…The introduction of federal laws and regulations prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex allowed women librarians to begin to gain a foothold at the top (DeLong, 2013; Deyrup, 2004). A number of studies looked at the impact of the groundbreaking legislation to assess the progress women have made (Moran, 1985;Moran, Leonard, & Zellers, 2009) or identify the persistent inequalities, most notably the lack of diversity among women directors (Epps 2008;Hollis 1999;Simpson Darden & Turock, 2005). After describing in more detail the policies that resulted in more women advancing to academic library leadership roles, this section of the article moves on to review shifts in women's representation among academic library directors since the mid-1970s, including the unremedied racial imbalance among leaders.…”

“…Once put in practice, Title IX "made it possible for women who worked within academic librarianship to be promoted and gain leadership status" (Deyrup, 2004, p. 244). Importantly, the Educational Amendment of 1972 also extended the Equal Pay Act of 1963, to cover executive, administrative, and professional employees, thus including academic librarians (Moran, 1985;Moran, Leonard, & Zellers, 2009). The suite of anti-bias legislations was complemented by Affirmative Action.…”

“…When Anita R. Schiller's groundbreaking study "Women in librarianship" was published forty five years ago in 1974, in the midst of the women's movement and in the aftermath of key federal laws and regulations prohibiting discrimination based on sex, it was the first-ever systematic review of gender parity in American librarianship (Moran, Leonard, & Zellers, 2009). In many of the earlier sources she was consulting, Schiller was able to find some information about the status of women in the profession, but she observed that "the subject is rarely the primary focus of investigation" (1974, p. 104).…”

Career Advancement and Writing about Women Librarians: A Literature Review

“…Deprivation behavior, which Kirkland defined as a subtle form of gender bias, discourages female ambition and supports the glass ceiling many women experience in their career progression. Moran, Leonard, and Zellers (2009), who analyzed the academic library workforce, concluded parity between men and women administrators had not been accomplished, but women holding directorships increased from 2% in 1972 to almost 61% in 2004. They attributed the change to the high turnover of director positions over the period between 1994 and 2004 and the number of women who replaced men as they vacated the director role.…”

Negotiating career progression and parenthood: family-adaptiveness in an Australian university

“…The vertical segregation among general staff depicted earlier can also be identified both in library and computing professions. While libraries are feminised, gender inequalities exist, with men continuing to dominate in the highest level positions (Moran, Leonard, & Zellers, 2009;Record & Green, 2008). Where women are employed in the computing sector, they have generally been restricted to lower paid, low status and low skilled occupations .…”