Librarian salaries by state and employer

What librarians earn at public libraries, universities and colleges: what full-year librarians actually earned, next to the official pay range where the employer publishes one, with library assistants ($68,589 on average in California) counted on their own. So far the site covers every California city and county library, library district, University of California and California State University campus, community college district and state department; in Utah, the city and county libraries, library districts, public universities and the state; in Kentucky, the Louisville Free Public Library; and in Georgia, school library media specialists in every school district and the Fulton County Library System. School librarians aren't included yet.

2025 dataCalifornia$108,032average total pay of full-year librarians15,154 librarians177 employer pagesCompare every California library employer2025 dataGeorgia$82,713average total pay of full-year librarians22,385 librarians100 employer pagesCompare every Georgia library employerfiscal years 2025 and 2026 dataUtah$67,576average total pay of full-year librarians3490 librarians20 employer pagesCompare every Utah library employer2025 dataKentucky$62,903average total pay of full-year librarians431 librarians1 employer pagesCompare every Kentucky library employer

Work in progress

Librarian pay in more states, as we collect the data

This page will compare librarian pay across states. For now it covers every California city and county library, library district, University of California and California State University campus, community college district and state department; in Utah, the city and county libraries, library districts, public universities and the state; in Kentucky, the Louisville Free Public Library; and in Georgia, school library media specialists in every school district and the Fulton County Library System. In New York, the city and county payroll files we use list almost no librarians (New York City's public libraries aren't on the city payroll), so New York isn't covered yet. Each state publishes public pay differently, so we add states one at a time, after checking their files.

Until then, each state's page has everything we've published so far.

Sources for the state figures

Total pay is gross wages before tax of librarians who worked roughly the full year. Each state's page explains its full-year rule.

  1. State Controller's Office, Government Compensation in California, 2025: wages of every librarian position.
  2. Georgia Department of Audits and Accounts, Open Georgia, salaries and travel, fiscal years 2024 and 2025; Fulton County Government (GA), Payroll Public Dataset, Share Fulton (CC BY 4.0), 2025 (the fiscal year from July 2024 for school districts, the calendar year for Fulton County): wages of every librarian position.
  3. Transparent Utah, Office of the Utah State Auditor, the newest year each employer has published (fiscal years 2025 and 2026): wages of every librarian position.
  4. Louisville Metro Government, Louisville Metro KY Employee Salary Data (Louisville Open Data), 2025: wages of every librarian position.

How we read the data