Since 2008, ACRLog’s “First Year Academic Librarian (FYAL) Experience” series has annually featured 1-2 academic librarians in their first year on the job in an academic library. This new series, “Where Are They Now? Former FYALs Reflect,” features posts from past FYAL bloggers as they look back on their trajectories since their first year. This month, we welcome a post from Nisha Mody, Associate Director of the Network of the National Library of Medicine, Pacific Southwest Region at UCLA.
The question “Where am I now?” seems heavier that it might have felt a month ago, and way heavier had this been a year ago in the “before times.”
I have stayed true to my interest and commitment to social justice in libraries and in the world, which has made the past year, and this month, especially challenging in terms of doing the work and in terms of emotional regulation. Since I was an FYAL, I went to many conferences, presented, worked on great projects, and have had a chance to lead teams, but, in the end, so much of of my “progress” comes back to meeting myself where I’m at and allowing myself to (1) not know everything (2) take a break from being a “professional” when the world is overwhelming me and (3) ask for help.
With that being said, a few notable things have changed for me since I started at UCLA Library in 2017. I had the opportunity to become Team Lead of the Teaching and Learning Functional Team, and as of June 2020, I became the Associate Director of the Network of the National Library of Medicine, Pacific Southwest Region at UCLA. I feel like this all happened so quickly. However, I know that my pre-library experience in multiple settings equipped me with the tools to be in this position.
Being in administration has helped me examine how it feels to be someone who is in middle management, someone who has transitioned from being a librarian to a manager, and how to best embody my values as a leader and a person. While it has been exciting to be a leader, I miss engaging with students during teaching and research consultations. But I’m still glad to have the opportunity to teach a little bit in other venues.
In my post “I Liked, I Wished, I Wondered: A One-Year Review” from March 2018, a year after I started at UCLA, I closed with:
What Now?
I have always disliked the idea of having a 5-year or 10-year plan. I believe in intention, serendipitous moments, and blending that with your personal drive and abilities. I did not come to librarianship through a straight path, and, while I don’t want to change my career again, I am open to different possibilities that can harness and enhance my skill set. Writing this out has definitely forced me to reflect upon the past year, see how far I have come and what the future might hold. One year down and many more to go!
I still dislike a 5-year or 10-year plan, but I have come to a place where I can create goals based upon my values instead of quantitative outcomes. I recently wrote about creating values-oriented goals. While I still don’t care for 5- or 10-year plans, I do care about embodying my values in different areas of my life including my professional trajectory.
As I mentioned in the article, my core values are community, compassion, vulnerability, equity, curiosity, humility, creativity, and unlearning. In the context of my work, here are some ways I’d like to lead with these values.
- Examine my biases toward my team, my institution, and the people I serve.
- Imagine more community-based partnerships to serve marginalized communities.
- Share my mistakes and hopes with people in all levels of my organization, especially when it comes to anti-racist work.
- Unlearn traditional ways of leading when working with others as a leader or as a contributor.
I think these goals are useful regardless of my position. On the practical side, I had to truly take charge when it came to project management as I transitioned into leadership. I had no idea that I would be in my current position when I wrote about leadership and project management. And even though I had experience in the corporate world, it took a significant mental shift for me to implement project management concepts. But I’m glad that I was able to set up these structures because I noticed it created a lot of ease with my team, and for myself! Before I entered this role, I also had the opportunity to take DeEtta Jones’ Inclusive Manager Toolkit which was also very supportive for my values and my work.
This is definitely a journey, and I’m glad to have had so many opportunities to grow within one institution. With that being said, I started my career at the beginning of a problematic U.S. Presidency which shifted to COVID-19 and then to the events at the beginning of 2021. And I think this is important to name because the world still keeps going while we are working. And the beliefs that are projected on a global scale also exist on a local scale.
These are opportunities to take a look inward on an institutional level, on a work relationship level, and on a personal level. Some questions I have pondered are:
- How does my positionality in terms of identity and hierarchy denote my privilege(s)?
- When should I speak up? When should I stand down?
- What does equity mean when everyone has different ways of working, needs, and professional goals?
- How am I unintentionally speaking for others?
- What am I being transparent about? What am I not being transparent about? What am I afraid of when I’m being transparent or not transparent?
- Am I meeting the expectations others have of me? Do I need to meet those expectations? How do I acknowledge and/or reset expectations?
These questions come up a lot, and I think they are important to write about and discuss at different points in time during your career. The answers to these questions can help with setting your own expectations, communicating with people in your organization, and examining how your metaphorical and literal positions have changed over time.
If 2020 taught us anything, it is that time is relative and super weird. But it has also taught me to take a step back to reflect, reset, and rest. I hope that we can all find space to slow down, question urgency, and restore ourselves in the face of challenging times.