Librarians Publish Open Letter to Jerome Conley, Dean of University Libraries
“We are writing to you today to ask you to add your voice to our own: to advocate for us and the resources we need, for the good of our students, our community, the University, and the Libraries.”
On November 20, 2024, twenty-five Miami librarians signed an open letter to Jerome Conley, Dean of University Libraries, asking him to advocate for a fair contract that would allow the extraordinary work of librarians on campus and in the community to continue.
The open letter was hand-delivered to Dean Conley in the morning. “We urge you to ask [University leadership] to listen to our problems and work with us on potential solutions, instead of continuing to force us down a path that is damaging to both our librarians and the community we serve.”
Read the complete open letter below:
November 20, 2024
Dear Dean Conley,
You have often described your role as Dean as one coming with a responsibility to advocate for library staff and ensure we have the resources we need to succeed. You have spoken about your desire for the Miami University Libraries to be seen as a leader on campus, in the community, and in the profession. We are writing to you today to ask you to add your voice to our own: to advocate for us and the resources we need, for the good of our students, our community, the University, and the Libraries.
The University’s proposals for the Librarian unit contract suggest that the upper administration of both the University and Libraries understands neither the value that librarians bring to Miami University nor our needs. What we are asking for should not be contentious, yet administration continues to combat our reasonable proposals to better our workplace.
We have proposed limits and guidelines around total weekly working hours for librarians, as well as potential solutions to alleviate chronic overwork. These proposals have been met with harsh resistance. We cannot provide exceptional support to our students, staff, and faculty with continually unreasonable workloads and excessive working hours. And it cannot be that our only solution to these workload issues is to leave Miami, as the University’s lawyer suggested on November 13, 2024.
We have also requested clear expectations around promotion and continuing contract. Despite some willingness from the administration to address issues related to the promotion process as a whole, the administration’s team continues to expend effort on non-issues such as revamping the annual review process and limiting the number of pages allowed in our promotion dossiers. We need the administration’s team to focus on clear criteria, not the format and procedures that have served the Libraries well for years.
Another important priority for the librarians is academic freedom. Academic freedom is crucial to our work as scholars, our ability to support the mission of the University, and to so many aspects of inclusive excellence. We have been repeatedly told in bargaining that librarians have no need for academic freedom, and the University has refused to engage with proposals addressing it. How can we support the academic freedom of our faculty colleagues without academic freedom for ourselves? How can we teach and support our students? How can we continue to be leaders in equity and inclusion without an assurance by the University that we have the same protections as faculty? Librarians were included in the AAUP’s 1940 Statement on Academic Freedom and its 1970 Interpretive Comments, and we need those protections codified in our contract.
The University has said at bargaining that they want to limit librarians to a maximum of 20% of working hours dedicated to service and scholarship. They have also stated that teaching courses for credit or for the community should not be any part of our jobs, despite the fact that the University has long relied
on librarians to teach courses in areas such as University Studies and Interactive Media Studies (now ETBD), and through the Institute for Learning in Retirement. These short-sighted efforts by the University—in part to make us artificially look less like classroom faculty—diminishes the contributions of librarians and makes us less impactful campus partners. These positions are not compatible with your stated goal of having our librarians be seen as leaders in the profession, they do not align with the Libraries’ Catalyst Strategic Plan for this upcoming year, and they are not consistent with the expectations for promotion and continuing contract. All we are asking for is the flexibility for librarians to allocate time for service and scholarship commensurate with our professional goals, but the University’s position would mean we would have to drastically cut back on many initiatives that are important to the campus and surrounding community. Does that accord with your vision and the Libraries’ core values?
Perhaps most egregiously, the University has proposed annual pay raises of a mere 1.5% for librarians, which entirely fails to keep up with inflation and falls below the raises offered to faculty. The University has also proposed significantly reducing the dollar amounts of promotional raises for librarians, demonstrating a lack of respect for librarians’ considerable contributions to the University. Administration furthermore refuses to offer salary floors for each rank of librarianship, which would ensure fair pay for all librarians. Indeed, our librarians’ average salary at each rank is below the minimum salaries at other Ohio universities. These proposals from University administration are not ones that will attract and retain the skilled library staff that both you and we want. Miami can afford to do better, and its refusal to engage seriously with us on minimum salaries and pay raises is truly insulting.
Despite all of this, we are not completely without hope. We have seen how the Union and University can work together to address issues that have a major impact on our librarians. We have worked side by side to create much needed guidelines for promotion and continuing contract. Together, we can create a fair contract — but we need your help. We need both teams to work together. As such, we urge you to help University leadership understand our value. We urge you to ask them to listen to our problems and work with us on potential solutions, instead of continuing to force us down a path that is damaging to both our librarians and the community we serve. We urge you to provide your unique perspective as our libraries’ leader so the University’s proposals do not continue to undermine your ability to lead a library of excellence. Our goal is a fair contract that works for us all, with which we can jointly create win-win solutions that benefit our librarians, the university, and the community we serve.
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