ARLIS/NA JobList Adopts Salary Transparency Requirement

The Art Libraries Society of North America is pleased to announce that the Executive Board has approved a motion to require salary transparency for all postings on its job opportunity board, ARLIS/NA JobList, effective as of its 50th Annual Conference in April 2022. The move to require that all JobList postings include salary information follows the recommendations of the JobList Task Force, which convened in June 2021 to align the JobList with the society’s Best Practices in Art Information Job Recruitment Report.

As stated in the Best Practices Report, “The ability of the art information profession to thrive relies on the diversity and well-being of its workers, which begins with recruitment through job postings. It has been widely established that transparency regarding wages and salary ranges in job postings is essential for equitable hiring practices and mitigating wage gaps.” ARLIS/NA JobList is an important resource for job seekers in our field and empowers the many students, new professionals, paraprofessionals, and others in our membership to make informed decisions about their professional futures.

In addition to recommending salary transparency, the JobList Task Force developed educational materials for hiring institutions on writing equitable job postings, which are accessible via the job submission form. The educational materials comprise recommendations for recruiting a diverse candidate pool such as including gender-inclusive language, specifying the terms of employment and work location, and providing information about the interview format and how to inquire about accommodations for access needs. The group arrived at these recommendations via focus groups with ARLIS/NA members, a comprehensive environmental scan of related job boards, and analysis of the financial and membership implications of changes to the JobList.

ARLIS/NA joins peer organizations such as the Society of American Archivists, Association of Canadian Archivists, Association of Moving Image Archivists, and Archivists’ Round Table in requiring salary transparency in all postings on their job opportunity boards. In addition, seventeen U.S. states have enacted some form of salary transparency law, as have U.S. municipalities such as New York City and Cincinnati, Ohio. ARLIS/NA is proud to take this small but important step to ensure that our profession represents and elevates people of all races, classes, gender identities, abilities and nationalities.