14 The pattern of relationships between rank and salary seen in past years continues, where higher rank is associated with higher average years of experience and a higher salary. 6,048 of the 9,655 librarians in ARL university member libraries occupy a rank within these three most commonly found ranking systems, and the largest number of professionals (3,349) occupies a rank in a four-step rank structure. Figure 4 AVERAGE SALARIES AND AVERAGE YEARS OF EXPERIENCE OF LIBRARY PROFESSIONALS IN LIBRARIES WITH THREE, FOUR, AND FIVE STEP RANK STRUCTURES FY 2005-06 Three-Step Four-Step Five-Step Salary Experience Salary Experience Salary Experience Librarian 1 $46,740 7.4 $46,073 8.4 $45,509 9.0 Librarian 2 57,795 17.4 50,902 11.8 53,954 12.3 Librarian 3 75,831 25.2 61,982 19.8 61,259 19.2 Librarian 4 75,283 25.4 74,349 23.6 Librarian 5 89,628 28.5 No. of Staff 1,363 3,349 1,336 INFLATION EFFECT Tables 2 and 6 reveal changes in beginning professional and median salaries, as well as changes in the U.S. Bureau of Labor’s Cost of Living Index (CPI-U) for university and nonuniversity research libraries. Table 3 is similar to Table 2, but reports data only on U.S. libraries. Table 4 shows trend data for Canadian libraries and compares them to the Canadian Consumer Price Index changes. Tables 2, 3, and 4 include law and medical library staff in ARL university libraries. All tables indicate that the purchasing power of professionals working in ARL libraries is keeping up with inflation. The median salary for all ARL university libraries was $57,074 in 2005-06 for only U.S. ARL libraries it was $57,173 and for Canadian ARL libraries converted into U.S. dollars it was $56,474, or a median of $70,576 Canadian dollars. Table 6 reveals that the median salary for nonuniversity staff has increased about 2.8% in the last year. The median salary for combined U.S. and Canadian university libraries increased 3.3% (Table 2) U.S. salaries alone increased 2.8% (Table 3). Although Canadian salaries in U.S. dollars increased sharply due to changes in the currency exchange rate, Canadian salaries denominated in Canadian dollars actually dropped 0.3% (Table 4). At the same time, the U.S. Consumer Price Index increased 3.2% in the last year and the Canadian Consumer Price Index increased 2.0%. Beginning salaries in the university sector continue to increase at a steady rate. The median beginning salary in ARL university libraries increased to $37,920 this 2.5% increase is slightly less than the increase reported in 2004-05. After three consecutive years of increasing by 1% or less, the median beginning salary for ARL nonuniversity research libraries jumped by 11.2% to $38,673.