Three Pieces of Advice for First-Year Academic Librarians

I thought my first year at Vanderbilt had flown by, but as it turns out, the first semester of my second year seems like it’s moving even more quickly! As I finish up the first five weeks of the semester, I’ve been thinking a lot about how different this year feels from last year, and how I wish I could go back and tell myself not to be stressed because before long, I would have plenty of outreach from students and faculty! If there were three things I could tell myself a year ago, they would be:

Spend time on relationships

One thing that I didn’t expect about librarianship is how important it would be to build relationships with the department that I support – and that although the relationship building may take time to pay off, it’s important not to give up on it. For example, I started holding in-person office hours in the Spring 2026 semester, setting up a two-hour mobile office once a week in my department’s building. In that entire semester, only one person came to office hours. Most faculty and students who walked by didn’t give me a second glance, not knowing who I was. I wondered if I should even continue with office hours this fall, but the department assistant was excited about setting them up, so I decided to give it another try.

This semester, my department has moved back into their permanent building (which was being renovated last year), and there’s a central seating area where I can hold office hours. Understanding that faculty might not know who I was, I also made signage saying, “Library Office Hours Happening Now!” with my name and other information, and I put up the signage during the two hours, so students and faculty who pass by would understand who I am and why I’m sitting there.

Now, when students and faculty walk by, they smile and often introduce themselves or say hello. I have twice as many classes scheduled this semester as I did last fall, because as faculty have gotten to know me and put a face to a name, they’ve started responding to my outreach. I spent so much time last year lamenting how no one knew who I was, but it turns out that I just needed to be persistent and give it a little time.

Don’t panic if you don’t know the answer

When I started this job, I jumped into a lot of aspects of librarianship that I didn’t know a lot about. For example, the collection development course that I took in grad school didn’t prepare me at all for the realities of managing an actual budget, so I learned that on the job with help from colleagues (and am still learning!). I also try to say “yes, and” instead of “no” whenever I can – and even sometimes when I maybe shouldn’t. Late last fall, a faculty member reached out to ask if I could help her set up Perusall for a class. I confidently said yes, then spent the remainder of the day teaching myself how to use Perusall so that I could teach it to her later that week (for anyone else who’s never heard of it, it’s a tool that integrates with a course management system like Brightspace or Canvas so students can annotate readings). And so forth.

Sometimes I’m surprised when faculty members act like I know everything and have all the answers. Is it just an aspect of librarians being seen as knowledgeable people, or do they actually think I can do it all? I got a piece of the answer to these questions in a conversation with a faculty member a few weeks ago. She asked if I could come and teach her class, stating that since I had taught the class before and I had been in my role for several years, she hoped it wouldn’t be a problem to teach on short notice (neither of those were accurate).

I agreed to teach the class and didn’t let on that I had never taught it before and that I had only been in my position for a year, but I learned a lot from that conversation. No matter how uncertain or new I feel, people likely won’t even notice unless I draw attention to it. My faculty and students aren’t counting how many months I’ve been in this job, they just know that they know me and I’m here to help. In situations where I don’t know the answer, I’m learning to take a deep breath, not panic, and that I’ll likely be able to figure things out.

Enjoy the moment

Through my first year as an academic librarian, and even in the first few months of my second year, there have been both highs and lows. I would also remind myself to enjoy all the moments – the good moments, because they’re great, the bad moments, because they’re learning experiences, and everything in between, because the time will go by so quickly. Volunteer, get involved on campus, and enjoy being where I am and doing the work that I do every day. I hope this helps academic librarians who are starting their first years this semester. You’ve got this!

Making the Cross-Border Jump as an Academic Librarian

Moving to the United States, especially at this sociopolitical moment was not something I was expecting (re: see Violet’s most recent post here), however, a dream position came up that I couldn’t turn down! I wanted to take this first post as a regular contributor to ACRLog and mark this turn in my career in hopes to help anyone else who might be going through similar changes.  

Applying

Interviewing and applying to positions in other countries is straightforward, like other types of interviewing, but reading the fine print may be necessary. Some positions say visa sponsorship is not available but may be open to Canadian applicants through the TN visa process. Sending an inquiry to HR before applying just to ensure that the institution and search committee is aware that you are a Canadian applicant might be a good idea as well. The academic library interviews were more intense than the Canadian interviews I have had, where the process was sometimes one and a half or two full days. The long interviews were personally appreciated as I tend to warm up over time and enjoy getting to visit the different campuses, cities, and have more time to get to know everyone at the library.

Moving  

Moving away from home is definitely not easy but is unfortunately something that one needs to be open to in order to secure a job in academic librarianship. To make things easier for myself, I have adopted a sort of minimalist lifestyle (emphasis on sort of) and living away from home since high school has helped me become better at packing and moving (although it is cumbersome and physically draining). Many institutions already offer this, but during the in-person interview, taking advantage of all the opportunities to look around the city and neighbourhoods such as tours and lunches to ask questions, really opened my eyes in envisioning myself fitting into the city. The job is important, but a fit between the city’s lifestyle, food scene, cinemas, and bike/running trails were equally important for me.  

Mental hurdle 

I definitely think that the biggest obstacle to accepting a position in another country was in my head. Just the thought of working in another country was pretty daunting, but here are some strategies that helped me make the transition easier. First, identifying anyone at my current institution who has ever worked in the US, or moved from US to Canada, or other countries was really helpful. Getting to know their experiences and personal anecdotes really helped me prep myself and to know which questions to ask to which person. Second, asking if there were other Canadian librarians at the institution I was interviewing at was critical. This showed me that they had an HR team, an international office, and a department who knew how to support Canadian applicants as well as a network of librarians who had gone through the same or similar process that I could rely on in the future and during the transition period.  

Logistical Things  

This was/is still my least favourite part. From learning about the TN visa process, getting a new phone number, applying for a social security number, making a bank account, finding a place, thinking about taxes, and much more that I am probably forgetting, there are many steps that need to take place when you are moving countries! Surprisingly, there are a lot of other people who had also gone through a similar move (especially for tech, engineering, post-graduate degrees, etc.) that I could reach out to in my own life and read about online. Something that I had trouble doing was asking for help when I needed it, especially things like rides and their time, but I am actively working on it and trying to put myself in their shoes and thinking about how happy I would be if someone reached out asking to share my time and experiences.  

The main message that I wanted this post to show is the transparency of the process and encourage others who may be on the fence about it, especially early-career librarians! There really are no boundaries, and these paper processes can be annoying, but there are entire teams at the library from human resources to managers who can really make the whole move less stressful and burdening. I also wanted to take this post to thank everyone who helped me during this transition and to those who shared their experiences, knowledge, and time with me!  

Library of Congress: “POTUS pawns”

In March 2025, I wrote about anticipatory obedience at the Library of Congress, describing how LC fast tracked changes to the Library of Congress Subject Headings relating to the Gulf of Mexico and Mount Denali. When Trump issued an executive order on August 27th directing federal agencies to change Lake Ontario to Lake America, catalogers around the world waited to see how LC would handle the changes. Well, we didn’t have to wait long.

On September 3rd, LC scheduled a proposal to change the subject heading Ontario, Lake (N.Y. and Ont.) to America, Lake (N.Y. and Ont.). On September 4th, LC published an announcement that the tentative changes would have no comment period. On September 11th, the change to “Lake America” was approved and is now the valid heading for LCSH. 

As I mentioned in my post last year, the speed with which this happened is astounding—just eight days! The division at LC that makes these decisions, the Policy, Training, and Cooperative Programs Division (PTCP), moves notoriously slowly, which has been a frustration for the library profession for decades. Over the years, they have deferred or declined to take on much-needed projects because of short staffing. But it turns out they can move very quickly when they want to.

While for decades the practice for LCSH changes has included a period of public comment, these most recent changes were approved with no comments allowed—even more drastic than the perfunctory 24 hours of public comment that was provided for Gulf of Mexico and Mount Denali. The Lake Ontario announcement was made with this language: 

This tentative list is published without comment period. The proposed changes are made in accordance with Public Law 242-80th Congress, approved July 25, 1947, “to provide a central authority for standardizing geographic names for the purpose of eliminating duplication in standardizing names among the Federal departments, and for other purposes.”

It’s certainly striking to change procedure suddenly after decades and justify it by pointing to a law from 1947!

As Matthew Haugen, Rare Book Cataloger at Columbia, points out in a post on the Cataloging Lab, the head of the PTCP division justified the changes to Gulf of Mexico and Mount Denali in February 2025 by saying “The Library of Congress defers to the United States Board on Geographic Names (BGN) for place names contained within our controlled vocabularies and classification. For more information, please see our Subject Headings Manual sheet H 690 Formulating Geographic Headings and visit the BGN webpage.” Haugen notes that if you actually look at that instruction sheet, it says: “Although the BGN decision, when it is obtained, is preferred over any other name forms for all names other than those of New Zealand, catalogers should also consult other standard authorities.” There are multiple places where LCSH deviates from BGN standards, including using Great Britain instead of United Kingdom. LC could always change their policies to provide more flexibility in their geographic name policies. There’s no reason that LC can’t choose to deviate from BGN in the case of Lake Ontario, except, presumably, fear of retribution. 

This week I received a copy of a letter from Sandy Berman (still at his typewriter and sharing out news at age 92) imploring LC, “DON’T DO IT.” Well, they did it, and they certainly stepped with unprecedented energy to fall in line.

A letter from radical librarian Sandy Berman featuring a photocopy of an August 28th Associated Press article titled "Trump: Lake Ontario now Lake America in U.S.". Berman's letter is dated August 28th and addressed to LC. The text of the letter reads "Dear colleagues, DON'T DO IT. You are NOT Potus pawns nor MAGA minions. With warmest regards, Sanford Berman."

The Allegory of the Meniscus or Accepting the Reality of Middle Management in Higher Education

Editor’s note: We welcome a guest blog post from Dustin Fife, College Librarian at Colorado College Library.

As with so many people who have recently completed a dissertation, I worry/assume that it will not find a broad audience, which is okay. However, there was one aspect of my study that felt so essential to the daily life of higher education that I translated it into this format and have focused on what I believe is a particularly important and illuminating illustration. I spent time with academic library administrators (deans and directors) exploring their experiences with DEIA work and had a key framework reinforced throughout the interviews for better understanding almost everything they do. It will not sound monumental at first, but the lived experiences of the people with whom I worked, along with my own experiences leading libraries and observing campuses, tells me that we have not accepted this reality within our many academic communities. In the shortest terms possible, department chairs, deans, directors, and academic library administrators are institutional middle managers. 

Throughout my research project, one quote more than any other captured this sentiment and the reality that the work of these positions is shaped and constrained by positionality. This quote was given by a library dean using the alias Justice, and I began colloquially referring to it as, The Allegory of the Meniscus. 

So, one of the vice presidents here…she used to have this great metaphor that she used. She said department chairs, deans in particular, are in what she called meniscus positions. So, you picture the meniscus in the knee, right? It is subject to constant pressure from above and constant pressure from below. And the meniscus’s job is to try to keep things aligned so that the knee doesn’t blow out. And one of the things that you have to ask yourself when you’re a dean is, do I see myself primarily as a representative of the people organizationally below me up to the university administration, or do I see myself primarily as a representative of the administration down to the people organizationally below me? And of course, the reality is you’re both. You’re always both. (p. 25-26)

So, if you do not always accept that the people in these roles are middle managers, or you do not believe that your chair or dean are constrained by their positionality, spend an afternoon thinking of them as a meniscus. Feel that knee grinding and twisting and balancing. Maybe even try to hop around on one leg. This reframing can change how we all conceptualize what is possible in colleges and universities from these positions and lead to more realistic conversations about DEIA work and a bevy of other topics.

Now, before the organizational scholars scoff, I want to say that I know this is not an earthshaking concept. I know that anyone who looks at an organizational chart should realize that these folks are institutional middle managers. But our daily expectations at colleges and universities do not seem to align with this reality and neither did the lived experiences of my interviewees. Interestingly, the library administrators with whom I worked reported having to convince people within their teams that they were middle managers, with all the obligations and constraints that come with that positionality. When one of the interviewees, Quinn, was discussing the frustrations of middle management and being stuck in the middle with her colleagues, she said, “and I’m like, I know, I feel that way too. And they’re like, no, you’re not, you’re the director. And I’m like, no, I have a boss. We’re all in the middle of something” (p. 27). 

I asked library administrators what their role is, or should be, in DEIA work and so much of our conversations revolved around the concepts of middle management that I concluded, 

Without this middle management framework in mind, it would be hard to truly understand the experiences of the interviewees. Their structural positionality created the opportunities and constraints by which they experience DEIA work…In short, to better understand the experiences of these library administrators with DEIA work and the choices that they make, we must understand that they are institutional middle managers. Accepting this reality, along with the constraints and opportunities provided by this positionality, should create more realistic conversations within libraries about what is and is not possible within DEIA work. (p. 77) 

And while this is not a naked attempt to garner sympathy for people who serve in positions like my own, I think it does provide a pathway to greater understanding within educational organizations.

This concept was further reified by the ways that these library leaders comprehended their roles within DEIA work. “The interviewees emphatically conceptualize their role as facilitators, modelers, prioritizers, strategic emphasizers, and allocators. Their narratives focused heavily on actions that enabled or empowered DEIA work through facilitation and modeling” (p. 77-78) and not on controlling DEIA work. This is emblematic of middle management. The most successful middle managers make things happen for other people by removing barriers and communicating vision. 

While this research study was not intended to focus entirely on middle management and DEIA work among library administrators, middle management was a key factor once the stories were collected and analyzed. However, this dissertation also relays so much more about the experiences of these library leaders. They believe that DEIA work is inherently library work and that it is their job to prioritize, enable, and fund it. They believe that hiring processes and policies are one of the best ways for them to influence the culture of DEIA work and the general culture of the institution. They also identified that DEIA work is culture work. Shay summed this up well when they said, “the [DEIA] work is culture work, and it’s always been culture work” and culture work just takes time (p. 45). These voices were paramount to the study and add so much to our understanding of how library leaders experience DEIA work, especially as a phenomenology during the upheaval of 2025 as the Trump Administration worked to nullify and undo diversity, equity, and inclusion work from generations of people.  

Regardless, the purpose of this discussion is not to minimize the role of these leaders or diminish their importance. Another thing that was made utterly clear by the interviewees was that for DEIA initiatives to be successful, they needed intentional support from people in these positions, which is true of many types of initiatives in my experience and should not come as a surprise. These constraints do not make leaders any less responsible; however, it is much easier to run an obstacle course with a map of the obstacles. Accepting that chairs, directors, deans, and library administrators are institutional middle managers and do sit in “meniscus positions” helps to chart a map of some of the most important obstacles.  

Fife, D. (2026). Diversity, equity, inclusion & access, middle management, and facilitating change in academic libraries during a time of disruption: A phenomenological study of the experience of academic library administrators (Order No. 32788361). Available from Publicly Available Content Database. (3366955209). Retrieved from https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/diversity-equity-inclusion-amp-access-middle/docview/3366955209/se-2

A sensory room in the library

As the new semester gets ready to kick off, among other things, I’m getting ready for a new Project SEARCH intern. In preparation, we’re thinking about the work they might do at the library, including working on our sensory room.

Which brings me to the topic of this post: the sensory room itself. Before I get too deep into things, I want to add the disclaimer that I’ve only tangentially worked on the sensory room; it’s really my boss who’s done the bulk of the work, and all credit really should go to her. Now onto the post!

First of all, what is a sensory room? You can read the Wikipedia article on sensory rooms for yourself to learn more about some of the theory. The goals for our sensory room were to provide a place for library visitors to find stress relief, relax and work through emotions, and use items related to different sensory experiences.

To get this project going, we needed a combination of administrative buy-in, funding, and direction. Again, my supervisor was responsible for all of this while I mainly just looked on from afar. We luckily had a donor interested in funding a sensory room, so the preliminary phase of the project largely involved researching sensory rooms elsewhere to develop a plan for how ours would work. This included drawing up a set of guidelines for use of the room and a list of items to purchase.

You can find a complete list of what our sensory room includes online, but I’ll say here that it covers a wide range of items. There are different sorts of seating options, including a bean bug chair and the very popular egg chair (very similar to the Oberlin College Library womb chairs). There are also all sorts of lighting options, including a dimmer switch for the overhead lights, a light therapy lamp, and a hanging fiber optic light that changes colors. There are then all different kinds of sensory tools and toys, ranging from a weighted shoulder wrap to coloring books to a meditation tool in the shape of a sloth to a Bop It.

The room is decorated with sensory artwork—designs with different textures and colors. My boss also recently added a mosaic-like piece where visitors can follow numbers (in a paint-by-numbers style) and use different colored stickers to create a design together. We also have another space on the wall where visitors can provide feedback with sticky notes—people usually leave nice messages, which are fun to read.

As for how the room runs, we specifically have left it unlocked and without a reservation system, with the idea being that you won’t be able to predict when you’ll need a moment to regroup and therefore won’t be able to make a reservation ahead of time. The room allows for use by multiple people at a time, but there’s also the option to lock the door for thirty minutes. There are also sanitizing wipes available to sanitize anything that gets used.

In terms of maintenance, student workers or our Project SEARCH intern also sanitize high-touch items in the room. They are also responsible for completing an inventory of the room and noting down anything that’s missing or broken. In general, things going missing or breaking have been the biggest challenges we’ve had. We keep the room locked during the late-night hours to try to counteract this.

Overall, the sensory room has been a success. We’ve seen a lot of use just walking by and noting whether or not the door is closed. The feedback left by visitors has been nice to receive. We also have an online feedback form for those who don’t want to leave a sticky note. This feedback can be used to make changes to the room and to know what’s working well. Again, mostly from the sidelines, it’s been a project to get the sensory room up and running, but it has been worth it and does appear to be meeting a need.

As an aside, we also have sensory kits available for check out that work on similar principles. They include things like noise cancelling headphones, fidgets, and meditation tools. These are also inventoried and charged by student workers or interns, sometimes at the same time as they’re sanitizing and reorganizing the sensory room.

Do you have any unique or innovative spaces in your library? How were they set up? How have they been received? What challenges have you dealt with?