I started my academic librarian position in August 2025. During the first few weeks of my role, before most of the on-campus students returned and the school year started, fellow librarians told me two (main) things: that I should enjoy the calm before things got busy again, and that the first year in my role would be a learning year.
I took both of those pieces of advice to heart and I can say now that both of them were very true. There was so much that I didn’t know back in August, and I learned a ton over the course of the year that will help me when the next school year starts. (I still have lots, lots more to learn.) I also made sure to soak in the quiet before orientation started and the students returned. My library is on the side of campus that has all the first-year student dorms, so we had a lot of students stop by with questions (library related and not) over the first few weeks of the fall semester.
I also heard from many librarians that things tend to slow down over the summer. Fewer students are on campus, many faculty members are taking time away, and the pace just tends to move more sedately. I’ve been looking forward to some time to reflect on the school year and work on the list of long-term summer projects that I’ve been compiling throughout the past year.
A month after graduation, however, I’m still waiting for this supposed summer slowdown to start.
Non-Traditional Program Support
In my role, I support nine programs, all of which are master’s or doctoral programs. Some of the programs follow a traditional schedule and enroll students on-campus full-time, but others are set up so that students can work full-time while completing their degrees part-time, often almost completely online.
I love working with all the students that I support. Fellow librarians have told me that it can be hard to engage online students, but I actually work the most with students in the part-time, online programs, especially the doctor of education program. I’m lucky to have support from a lot of faculty members and program leaders to help make this happen. I speak at orientation sessions for each cohort of Ed.D. students, and a new cohort starts three times a year. Although it’s primarily an online program, the students come to campus for their initial orientation and for several weekends throughout the three-year program.
The week after graduation in May, I taught my regular library session for the new Ed.D. students, and chatted with many of the students after my presentation. This was a Saturday, and the students were in orientation sessions for the rest of the day. I’m used to a couple of students booking appointments after a session, but on Sunday morning, I was surprised to see four or five students who had booked research appointments for the upcoming week. I had hoped to get started on my long term projects that week, but clearly they would need to be pushed to the following week. I figured that the students who reached out had wanted to go ahead and meet with me to get the recommended meeting with a librarian out of the way, and that my schedule would get back to the slow, standard summer I’d been told about after that first week.
However, I also remembered something that the education librarian at another institution had told me when I first started in this position. She also supports Ed.D. students who start three times a year. She told me that often, we don’t get the same summer break that other academic librarians do, because with a new (and large) cohort of students starting for the summer semester, they need a lot of library support just like any students do – except that they need support in May and June and even July, unlike many other students who are only taking classes from August through early May. I was now watching my colleague’s caution play out in real time in my own job.
Adjusting Expectations for a Different Type of Summer
It’s been four weeks since graduation and three weeks since this new cohort of students started. The research appointments haven’t slowed down – in fact, they’ve picked up. Working directly with students is my favorite part of my job, and I’m thrilled that so many of them want to meet with me for research help. But what I’m also starting to realize is that I may not be able to save my big, long-term projects for the summer slowdown like some of my other colleagues – because I don’t have a summer slowdown. For this summer, I’ll need to find a way to complete at least some projects that need to be done before the fall. But for the next school year, I’ll need to think back to this past year when I had slower months, and plan to complete other projects then. Spreading them out throughout the year is probably going to be more effective for me than saving them for a few “slower” months.
The advice I was given early on – that this year would be a learning year – is still true. Until this coming August, it’s still my first year as an academic librarian, and I’m still learning something new every day. But I love to learn, and it’s one reason I became a librarian. I know I’ll continue learning in my second year in academic libraries and beyond.