A recent tentative survey by the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP) doesn't make promising reading.

"It is very disheartening that over 71 per cent of those who replied are earning under £25,000 and that a mere 2 per cent are earning £40,000 and above," says Lyndsay Rees-Jones, CILIP's workplace and solos adviser and the author of the report.

"Given the levels of responsibility, and the skills which are required and which exist, this is not acceptable."

Despite its limitations - the survey was not comprehensive - it paints a discouraging picture. So is it representative, and what needs to be done?

CILIP publishes a fortnightly jobs bulletin for its members, and it runs its own recruitment consultancy INFOmatch. One suggestion is that we should refuse to handle jobs offered at less than the going rate. INFOmatch's boss Susan Baillie disagrees.

"I think it is very unwise to ban any ads for jobs. Many times a job that starts at low pay does in fact have to be increased when they can't find anyone," she says.

"If we say we can't take the job because of the money they usually manage to find more money or reduce the hours."

Actual pay negotiation in this profession is often a trade union matter - and CILIP members are represented by a dozen or more.

CILIP's role as an institute is to support its own members with the evidence and arguments they need in their union negotiations, and it does this through pay guidelines, advocacy support, casework by advisers and constant monitoring of pay levels.

So we produce guidelines on effective pay negotiation for individuals, and suggest further sources of help, in our leaflet Negotiating for Pay.

We suggest arguments that members can deploy. We're about to publish a self-empowerment pack for school librarians, which will focus directly on pay and status and will use research and case studies to suggest strategies that they can use.

And we're starting work on a similar advocacy toolkit covering the profession as a whole. CILIP also publish salary guides - an ongoing task taking each sector of the profession in turn.

We've just revised the one on public libraries, quoting recommended minimum rates for each post. We remind negotiators that, following the single status agreement of 1997, local authorities should now be grading all posts to ensure equal treatment in employment terms for all staff.

Yes, but is it getting any better? Depends where you look. "Law and pharmacy have definitely kept ahead of inflation," says Mark Field, CILIP's information and knowledge management adviser.

"The same applies to the City in general; head of service type roles are getting £50,000-plus. Health is all over the place - professional posts on clerical scales, professional posts on high management scales, some support staff on senior officer rates.

"We've moved to aggregated bands in the salary guide to cope with the variations in scales and systems."

Sectors like the construction industry, with a long tradition of freelancing, are OK, he says.

These views are born out by Baillie. "The legal sector is desperate to know what others are paying and is afraid to be left behind, especially on higher levels - £30,000-plus," she says.

At the other extreme, legal pre-course experience salaries currently seem to be static at about £14,500 to £16,000, with inflation-only rises over the last three years.

"The highest in this category is £18,000 and this was marvelled at, but it is a sign of the times; graduates are demanding that sort of level."

With large employers, set pay scales and across-the-board negotiations, the public, academic and government sectors can be assumed to keep pace with inflation.

The not-for-profit organisations vary wildly. Baillie says: "Charities can pay quite well, as they are on set scales, and are, on the whole, equal opportunities employers."

Increasingly, INFOmatch finds itself dealing with outsourcing agencies, working for large companies, which tend not to pay very well.

"They may need educating, as they probably feel that the library is a facility and not another essential professional resource," Baillie concludes.

The outsourcing agency recharges the major company, so keeping its rates down means more profit. Permanent staff in this situation do tend to benefit from bonuses - perhaps as much as 10 per cent of salary - but, they are used in lieu of an inflation increase.

There is a need for a long-term approach to gathering data on the state of work and CILIP's Workplace Information Services member panel has recommended that the survey is developed and conducted annually via the web.

Tim Buckley Owen is head of external relations at CILIP.