This marks the last collaborative post as First Year Academic Librarians, and we wanted to take a chance to share some of our most memorable experiences – learning directly from students. From instruction to outreach, none of the activities and events we do would be possible without an audience, and we often found that we learned more from them, even when we were instructors.
Eleanor: Trust Your Inner Student
When I began working as a librarian, I was twenty-four years old. I had just finished six straight years of higher education, and I felt that one of my biggest strengths as a research librarian was my closeness in age and experience to our students. I was immediately familiar with the experience of being a student: zoning out during my Zoom night classes, drowning in busy work, debating whether I could afford eggs at Aldi that week. But although it’s only been a year, I can already sense a growing distance between me and my students.
I have two instincts: a librarian instinct and a student instinct. Sometimes they align; sometimes they don’t. (For example, the librarian instinct says Copyright is the bedrock of our profession. The student instinct says Copyright? I just put back eggs because they were too expensive. I am not paying for this textbook.) Over the last year, it’s become harder to recall my life as a student. I find myself relying more often on my librarian knowledge and skills when making decisions.
When a faculty member recently asked me to teach her senior seminar how to use microfilm, I was skeptical. As an undergraduate student, I would have loved learning about microfilm. But my brand-new librarian instinct said: Students in 2026 do not want to use microfilm. They always want things to be digital and fast. I will show them how to use NewspaperArchive, which they will obviously prefer, and then we can browse microfilm with the leftover time.
Boy, was I wrong.
The students were bored and listless during my valiant NewspaperArchive demo. But when we ventured down into the basement and I dusted off the microfilm machine, their eyes lit up. They were so excited to search the microfilm drawers for articles about Pearl Harbor, the JFK assassination, and 9/11. Even when they spent twenty minutes scrolling through a film strip and didn’t find what they wanted, they were not deterred. They simply sprinted back into the stacks to find another record.
After class, I walked back to my office in a daze.
My assumptions would probably have been true about some students, but I realized I hadn’t allowed myself to be surprised by the students I was working with that afternoon. I had to (re-)learn to trust students to lead their own learning journeys. After all, a passion for learning is more important than precisely following procedure; though sometimes, I think our focus on database search mechanics can obscure that truth, both to ourselves and our students. Most importantly, I (re-)learned that I shouldn’t think I know students better than they know themselves just because I’ve acquired new professional expertise. After all, when I was a student, isn’t that what frustrated me the most about my instructors?
M: Letting Go of Assumptions
In library school, my assumption was that I would be working with undergraduate students as a librarian. Many of my more practical classes talked about the undergrad student experience, teaching first-year writing seminars, and more. In my work as a Graduate Assistant in an on-campus library, I also worked primarily with undergrad students, both for instruction and reference appointments. It seemed like a foregone conclusion that I’d be serving undergrads in my first full-time librarian job as well.
That conclusion was upended when I accepted my current role and learned that the opposite would actually be happening – I wouldn’t be working with undergrads at all. In my position, I only work with master’s and doctoral students. When I started a year ago, I really didn’t know what to expect from those students. Would they all already know about library resources? Would I not be able to wow them with Boolean? Would they be totally unimpressed that we have 800+ databases and multiple AI tools?
Looking back now, I think my lack of expectations and assumptions actually helped me. While some of my grad students do know about databases, other library resources, and Boolean searching, most of them don’t. Many of my students have been out of school for anywhere from 5 to 15 or 20 years – some have even talked to me about remembering card catalogs. The same things that I would show first-year students are the same things that I need to show master’s students. My Ph.D. students tend to be more familiar with library resources, often because they’ve been working with them for a few years, but my Ed.D. students also benefit from general overviews as well as more individual and detailed material, like subject heading searches.
I also realized over the last year that some students I’ve worked with are hesitant to say that they could benefit from going over some library basics. I’ve started leaning into discussing my own experience meeting with librarians and getting help from them as a library science student, which I think has helped to make them feel more relaxed. I also say things in appointments like, “seven years went by between when I graduated from undergrad and went back to school for my master’s, so I totally understand feeling lost!” and “the most common answer I hear from students is that they don’t know what Boolean is! That’s totally okay!” For my students, hearing that they’re not alone and that it’s okay to be unsure about what they’re doing makes a huge difference in encouraging them to reach out.
I guess in all of this, the number one thing I’ve learned from my students in the last year is to let go of any assumptions I have. Meeting them where they are, and being supportive and encouraging, is a much better approach than assuming I have all the answers and already know what they need. I’m really excited to be starting this second year with this lesson in mind and to see what more I learn from the students I meet this year.
Lisa: Growing Alongside Students
I remember the first consultation I shadowed was with a graduate student who I actually knew from back in high school. As excited as I was to see a familiar face, I was a bit worried about the blurring of personal and professional boundaries and the professional, competent image I wanted to present to students and researchers, even as a first-year academic librarian. The relationship between a librarian and a student though, is unlike no other. There are no elements of power and no grades assigned (unless the student is in a class that the librarian is teaching), and thus, an environment of a relationship that is open and transparent can occur.
The close age between me and students was something I originally thought was a barrier and an obstacle, similar to what Eleanor had experienced. It turned out to be a way to create relationships faster, using my past and current experiences as an early career researcher fresh out of school and navigating the academic world. Actively expressing interest in the different avenues of information consumption and where students find out about different AI tools were some personal agendas of mine that I tried to incorporate into each research consultation when the conversation dried up. Questions about starting in academia ranged from how to make a conference poster to how to write a rejection email to a conference a student couldn’t attend anymore, allowed me to explore the grey areas of academia with students and help them navigate relationships with mentors and the greater academic community beyond the university. Being asked if I wanted to grab coffee or lunch together with PhD students was a great way for me to build connections outside the library and develop relationships for further collaboration and library outreach beyond my office and the classroom.
In the classroom, often being focused on the topics at hand on what slides I needed to cover was important, but so was actively looking for collaborators within the room and recognizing what students wanted to learn. In research consultations, being able to take in the complicated research topic without being overwhelmed and drawing links and connections between resources while cultivating relationships and creating a two-way street of learning is something I continue to strive for. As I look back on September until now, I am grateful to have had the trust of so many students, and I hope that my intentions have reflected in my approach as an academic librarian.
Looking Ahead
We are excited to keep growing and sharing our stories as academic librarians and wanted to thank you all for reading our posts through ACRLog. This year has reaffirmed to all of us on how amazing this community and profession is, and the daily work that makes up the incredible profession.