Introduction
Historically, librarians and archivists were not universally accepted as members of their respective scholarly communities, often marginalized as members of a “feminine” profession,1 falling somewhere between support staff and the professoriate.2 A hierarchical administrative culture generally reflected this attitude, granting librarian and archivist members few professional or academic rights.
In recognition of librarians and archivists as academics, policies and collective agreements are being modernized toward parity with faculty, incrementally over successive rounds of bargaining.
Parity means that the “terms and conditions of employment” are “analogous to those of other academic staff,”3 including in the areas of rank, promotion, tenure, sabbatical/research leaves, and rights to engage in scholarship and service. Striving for parity with the professoriate is an integral part of the drive for full academic status for librarians and archivists, with the ultimate goal being a collective agreement with common language covering all areas where parity is possible.
This bargaining advisory, which was developed in close collaboration with the Canadian Association of University Teachers Librarians’ and Archivists’ Committee, reviews current collective agreement language that reflects the needs of librarian and archivists and promotes parity with other academics.
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Academic rights
One of the most pernicious barriers to librarians and archivists accessing their academic rights is their definitional separation from the rest of the academic staff. It is much easier for employers to block what they deem to be costly advancements in librarian and archivist academic rights if the collective agreement does not recognize them as full academics. However, as exemplified by Laurentian University Faculty Association’s collective agreement, some academic staff associations have negotiated language recognizing librarians and archivists as full academics; as members of the “faculty,” with all the rights granted to the professoriate by default, and where differences or exceptions are based on the nuances of their work:
Article 1.30 Definitions
1.30.1 (n) i. Full-time faculty Members shall mean academic Employees appointed through tenured, probationary, or limited-term appointments to perform duties of (a) Teaching, including supervision / Professional Librarianship / Archives Management, (b) Scholarly Activity, and (c) University Governance and Administrative Duties consistent with Article 5.15 – Rights, Responsibilities and Duties of Academics.4
Balancing academic duties & other workload
- Research and scholarship
- Unit standards
- Sabbatical & study leaves
- Research days
- Hours of work
- Self-directed duties and working off campus
- Evenings & weekends
- One unscheduled day a week
- Release time
- Individual job descriptions
- Temporary modifications to workload
Complement
Change in responsibilities
Conclusion
At the bargaining table, employers resist providing librarians and archivists parity with faculty because of possible cost increases, and the deprofessionalization and devaluation of the work of academic librarians and archivists in comparison to professors. However, as shown above, with support from their academic staff associations and their professoriate allies, advances toward parity are being made across the country.
Appendix I: Librarians and Archivists Guideline for Off-Site Work Arrangements
Notes
1 Harriet M. Sonne de Torrens, “Academic Librarianship: The Quest for Rights and Recognition at the University of Toronto,” in In Solildarity, ed. Jennifer Dekker and Mary Kandiuk (Sacramento, CA: Library Juice Press 2014), 83.
2 Leona Jacobs, “Academic Status for Canadian Academic Librarians: A Brief History”, in In Solildarity, ed. Jennifer Dekker and Mary Kandiuk (Sacramento, CA: Library Juice Press 2014), 23
3 CAUT Policy Statement on Academic Status and Governance for Librarians, November 2018.
4 Laurentian University Faculty Association, 2017-2020, Article 1.30, Definitions.