Total Paid FTE Staff per 25,000 Population, 1991-2002

Abstract

Total staff per population in the legal service area shows an inverse relationship between the quartiles where the smaller libraries have more staff per population served--almost twice as many as the 95% libraries although this number has fallen in 2002 and is below the 1990 level. In the last year, all the other groups increased by this measure. For them, not only did total staff go up but it went up at a greater rate than population. However, the First Quartile numbers seem suspicious in 1996 and there are anomalous values as discussed in the ratio of librarians to population served.

There is a Rank Order Table for this variable in 2002 and a summary table of the ranks by state from 1992-2002.

Chart

This chart of the mean number of total paid staff in FTE by the libraries grouped into the four quartiles by the population of the legal service area with a fifth group that is also a part of the fourth quartile. On this chart, the means by year show the libraries in population served employ more people as the size of the population served increases. Further conclusions are below.

Data

The chart summarizes these values:

Note: The value for the Town of Ulster Public Library, Kinston, New York (newkey = NY0259) for POPU_UND for 1992 was 8,478, 1993 was 1, and 1994 was 11,507. In this analysis, the value for 1993 was changed to 9,993, the mean of the 1992 and 1994 figures.

Conclusions

As was shown in the analysis of total staff, the number employed by each of the groups rose over the period. This analysis shows that the smaller libraries had a higher staff per population served--more than twice that of the largest libraries--and while this smaller group's ratio fell, it still remained above the libraries in the larger groups which increased over the period. If more staff mean better service--devoutly to be wished--it would seem reasonable to conclude that the smaller public libraries offer better service but that service of libraries over the period increased. The dip in 1993 is similar to dips created by anomalous values but a quick look did not disclose any unusual values such as that mentioned in the note above about the Town of Ulster Public Library.

The NCES published E.D. Tabs for the 1990 data reports similar numbers. The breakdowns by size of population served are different but the smallest libraries--those serving between 1 and 999 (N=951) have 1.1 per 1,000 population of the legal service area, the next largest group, those between 1,000-2,499 (N=1,620) have 0.6 per 1,000. The largest group, those over 1,000,000 (N=20) have 0.4. There are no comparable figures for 2001 and the 2002 E.D. Tabs has not been published.

Notes

¹ U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics Public Libraries in the US.: 1990. E.D. Tabs, June 1992. p. 27.

October 20, 2004