23 Association of Research Libraries Research Library Issues 295 2018 example, we still find a steep reduction in hiring, from 26% of new hires in 1986, to just 8% in 2015. Such is the long, steep decline in cataloger hiring that we may be relieved to find that, as of 2015, it appears to have leveled off. Throughout the data series, hiring of catalogers lagged below the percent of catalogers in the larger population, meaning that vacancies in cataloging positions were not being filled with new hires on a one-to-one basis. This changed in 2015, when these two percentages matched exactly. And yet the future of cataloging feels as tenuous as ever: As Figure 6 attests, 13% of ARL catalogers were aged 65+ in 2015, and, as Figure 8 shows, 30% were aged 60+. Figure 6 For the one-to-one replacement in 2015 to continue, unusually high levels of retirements will mean that libraries are likely to have difficulty replacing cataloging expertise in the near term. Present and Near-Term Demand for Job Categories The case of cataloging presented above is an illustration of how the demographic data can help estimate current and near-term demand for each of the ARL job categories. The strength of current demand
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