Status of the Profession: A 1989 National Survey of Tenure and Promotion Policies for Academic Librarians

A questionnaire surveying institutional tenure and promotion criteria sent to 469 academic libraries yielded 304 usable responses.Findings show that job performance continues to be the most widely recognized factor for evaluating academic librarians' performances, examined in virtually every institution.Research, publication, and service play significant roles, particularly at institutions where librarians hold faculty status.Graduate degrees in addition to the M.L.S. are frequently necessary for promotion in academic rank.Approximately half of the responding institutions judge academic librarians by the same tenure and promotion criteria as other faculty.