The Effect of Economic Recession on Institutional Support for Tenure-Track Librarians in ARL Institutions

The objective of this study was to reveal how the national economic recession has affected the nature and extent of support for tenure track librarians at Association of Research Libraries (ARL) member institutions. The authors surveyed 43 ARL Deans and University Librarians to discover the criteria for achieving tenure and the current institutional support for tenure-related activities. All of the responding libraries reported experiencing at least moderate reductions in their overall budgets, with the majority indicating increased workloads for faculty and reductions to monetary support for professional development. Despite this adversity, the survey indicated that the expectations for achieving tenure for librarians in the areas of research and service have not changed.