The Trap of Knowing

I knew this moment would come, but I didn’t expect it to come as soon as it did. Until that moment, I had begun to settle into my first semester as an instruction librarian, my ease growing as the content I taught introducing our library’s resources, databases, and basic research and information literacy strategies to first-year undergraduates became increasingly familiar in each one-shot instruction session. You could also say this expanding ease carried with it some overconfidence as the (very few) classes I taught became increasingly predictable and required only minor tweaks before each one. This caused me to prematurely discard what more experienced team members and other colleagues who did instruction advised me: your first several times doing instruction will be bumpy with mistakes that smooth out with time and practice. When things are going well, it’s hard to see where the bumps lie and it’s very easy to trip on them, as I did.  

In my second week of classes, a student asked me if I knew how to get to a resource our library had that they thought could be useful for their upcoming assignment. Though the resource sounded familiar and the path to find it likely was mentioned at some point during my busy, information-loaded first few weeks in the role, the answer was more hazy than clear at that moment. I voiced an answer to the student even as my brain was frantically catching up hoping I was right and wouldn’t be embarrassed to discover I was not. The rest of the class went smoothly, but at the end, when I debriefed with a colleague on my team who was observing me teach, they brought up my interaction with the student and noted that my answer was, in fact, incorrect and that my facial expressions exposed my uncertainty. They also reminded me that it was okay to say, “I don’t know, let me find an answer and get back to you,” and that such an answer helps maintain connections with students, whereas answering when I was unsure undermines the chance of a student’s connection with me and their confidence in my teaching. It was a humbling piece of advice that I have remembered and tried to follow in the weeks since. Even so, when situations similar to the one I had arise, so does the pressure to answer, even when I am not sure it is correct or not.

The Myth of the All-knowing Librarian

Situated close to the worn-out (and recently politically charged) stereotype of the cat-lady in a cardigan in the line of library bad takes is the myth that library workers can answer their patrons’ every need. This myth connects to another belief in our profession that library workers should be ready to sacrifice everything (including their physical and mental health) to serve our patrons. While I am not sure where these beliefs come from, I do know that they seem to creep into most of my role and are possibly influenced by my work background. Before I became an academic librarian, I worked as an underpaid office coordinator and administrative assistant at a different university. In this role, I was the knowledge hub for all matters related to office supplies, maintenance issues, office policies, and the schedules of the senior staff I supported. It was a job that required me to have an answer to any questions or issues within these areas at all times; moments when I could say, “I don’t know; let me find out,” were rare and always greeted with frustration and, depending on who I interacted with, the threat of escalation to my supervisor. 

It is likely, then, that I carried this pressure to know everything into my first full-time academic librarian role. The irony is that I quickly found that the myth of the all-knowing librarian is nonexistent in my library, where there is a work atmosphere of collegiality, collaboration, and seeking information rather than assuming to know. I also soon discovered that our work culture is replicated in how we instruct our students. We teach them that the goal of research is not to know everything about a topic, but enough to enter into conversation with others who have studied it and form individual ideas and conclusions based on what they uncover.

It’s Okay Not to Know

One of the main things I’ve had to work through this semester is the discomfort of uncertainty. I have learned that confessing what I do not know is not a sign that I am unprepared or incapable of teaching but conveys honesty and allows students to contribute their knowledge. As one of my colleagues reminded me recently, “We learn from our students as much as we teach them.” Whether it be an instruction session or a reference interview, academic library workers are responsible for cultivating an environment where knowledge and learning can flourish. While this responsibility might not be met 100% of the time, we can always work toward it. Working toward this environment requires the humility and willingness to recognize our boundaries of understanding and admit what we do not know.