Author: Hailley Fargo

Emerging from the Interim

I always found something comforting about the rhythms of the academic year. After each semester, there’s time to pause, reflect, and think about what’s next. As we make our way through June, heading towards a new fiscal year, I’m doing a lot of reflection. 

Since July 1, 2024, I’ve been in an Interim Associate Dean role. I took on this interim work alongside my day-to-day responsibilities as a teaching and learning department head. The interim role appealed to me for many reasons; the type of work, the ability to work alongside an Interim Dean I had a strong working relationship with, and my own career desires. While it felt daunting to be doing two jobs, I knew my department was in a strong spot; we were successfully onboarding two new colleagues and had a clear vision of the work ahead of us. It also felt slightly less daunting because the interim was a one-year appointment, so I had a clear end in sight. 

As I think about the last year, “difficult” comes to mind, but not necessarily in a negative way. I felt stretched and pulled and challenged in new ways. I felt like I was learning and growing constantly, my brain shifting and changing as I got further into the administrative headspace. I had to be more honest about my bandwidth, capacity, and time available during the day. Simply put, I just couldn’t do it all. I was more honest with my department, trying to let them into my workload while also still trying to be present and available for what they needed from me to be successful. There were days when I felt overwhelmed and underwater and other days where I felt like everything was clicking.  

As the interim appointment went on, I started to find my footing. I started to build the infrastructure, the processes, and the buy-in. I got chances to work with folks across the library, to support their work and also help to showcase it to campus colleagues and other audiences. 

The spring semester felt most stressful. It was a semester where I had to dig in and just get through. This semester, of course, was happening within the larger context of a new federal administration, a state legislative session, and all the uncertainty we faced each day. I’m appreciative of the many great blog posts from ACRLog colleagues who spoke about book bans and book removals, how to continue moving forward when things are not normal, balancing the forest and the trees, and how to center community now, more than ever. Throughout the spring, I went day by day. I would ask myself what work needed to get done and how could I ensure I had enough energy and bandwidth outside of work to commit to my relationship, my friendships, and myself. Ultimately, this meant things fell off my plate of work. I had to recognize what I could do in the time I had and let everything else be on pause. 

Upon entering May, I started to feel like I was emerging from this interim space. I felt like I had time to read, think, and engage more deeply in projects, instead of just punching through a to-do list. I got new chances to connect with colleagues, like when two co-workers and I drove down to the University of Kentucky for a Scholarly Communications workshop. The end of the interim appointment was in sight and the next steps about the possibility of being in the permanent role became clear.  

On July 1, I will permanently move into the Associate Dean role. A colleague within the unit will become the new department head, and I know the department is in good hands. I am grateful for the last four years of being department head. This role was my first major management role, and I was able to bring my student-centered, community-based, collaborative, participatory approach to this work. Together, we built infrastructure, expanded our capacity, and cultivated a caring collaborative community. We laughed together, discussed big ideas, and helped one another be better librarians and educators. I can’t put into words how proud I am of the department and how thankful I am I got a chance to lead this group.  

I’m really excited about this next chapter. I’m excited to spend the next year focusing just on one role and really digging into it. I’m excited to keep working with our amazing department heads and supporting them and their teams. I’m excited to work with our Dean. I’m looking forward to learning and stretching.  

As I wrap this post up, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention and thank my incredible support system. I couldn’t have done this interim role without them. I feel fortunate to have so many big friendships, near and far. They cheered me on throughout the whole interim appointment. They talked me through stressful times, provided advice, and gave me space to relax and unwind. This work isn’t done alone and I’m so glad to have such a good support network around me. 

Okay, now I’ll wrap up with a bit of a shameless plug…did you enjoy this post and want to hear more about interim leadership? If yes, considering joining us on July 10 from 2-3 PM ET for an ACRL LDG webinar about navigating interim leadership. Hear from myself, Jen Jarson, Brianna Marshall and Ariana Santiago. We’ll talk about interim leadership and provide a space for some small group discussions. This presentation won’t be recorded, so don’t miss it. Register today! 

I would love to hear from you; have you been in an interim role? What did you learn? How did you grow? 

LibParlor Online Learning is live(!) & takeaways from launching a big project

This post serves two purposes – promotion of a new curriculum that launched this fall aimed at supporting LIS professionals in developing their research skills and a chance for me to reflect on some takeaways I had from launching a big (IMLS funded) project. 

In 2017, I helped start The Librarian Parlor, LibParlor for short. It started as a blog on WordPress where folks could share stories, tips, strategies, and lessons on doing research in LIS. As the blog grew, we heard from the community that they wanted more. As we thought about what that more could look like, the idea of an openly available curriculum arose. Long story short, we spent a lot of time in Google Docs putting together a proposal for an IMLS grant. We were fortunate to be awarded a Laura Bush 21st Century Grant in 2021. Over the last three years, we’ve collaborated with so many wonderful folks in the field to put together LibParlor Online Learning (LPOL). We launched the curriculum this fall and are working to get the word out!

What is LPOL? 

LPOL is a free, openly-available “living” curriculum for library workers who want to develop their research skills. The curriculum in its entirety is six courses, each with lessons, readings, and activities. LPOL starts with reflecting on who we are as researchers, moves into the LIS research process, our methodologies, planning for a project, the writing and editing, the publication and review process, and wraps it up with having you compile a final research plan. We envision that learners might complete the whole curriculum from start to finish, or pick up pieces of the curriculum, depending on what they need. 

Our curriculum is guided by the following learning outcomes:

  • Develop and articulate a personal understanding of their research identity and values in order to create short- and long-term research goals
  • Identify and navigate the institutional and professional systems that intersect with LIS research in their given context
  • Describe the LIS research process and articulate disciplinary norms in order to make informed decisions about their own research projects
  • Assess various LIS research methodologies in order to choose an appropriate approach for their own projects 
  • Apply project planning skills and strategies in order to develop a research proposal and timeline 
  • Critically evaluate the field of LIS research in order to advocate for change and promote an inclusive, supportive, and rigorous research community

One of the many things I love about this curriculum is how it was co-created. During the grant, we hosted an in-person and virtual forum to get ideas and shape the curriculum. We then recruited a group of incredible colleagues who took these big ideas and wrote the lessons, identified readings, and designed activities. Before we formally launched LPOL, we also had a group of pilot participants test the curriculum out and provided actionable feedback we could implement. What you see today is a culmination of teamwork and collaboration that we hope makes the curriculum meaningfully and useful to library workers. 

Okay, LPOL sounds cool/useful. How do I get started? 

It’s really easy to get started. We’ve distilled it down into three steps:

  1. Register for an account. While you don’t need an account to access the curriculum, we recommend creating one, as this allows you to track your progress and also helps us assess the curriculum’s impact and efficacy. 
  2. Download our LPOL Workbook. This workbook contains all of the activities throughout the curriculum. Once you download the workbook, you can use it however it’s most useful to you.
  3. Dive into the curriculum. Our curriculum home page has additional information on our courses and lessons and or you can explore our full curriculum to decide what you’ll do first!

Lessons Learned

As this IMLS grant wraps up at the end of the year, I’ve also been thinking a lot about what I’ve learned from this experience. Being a part of this grant has been my largest, long-term project I’ve worked on in my professional life. Here are some of my takeaways: 

  • Things don’t always go as planned so build in flex time and be okay with making revisions: When you’re building a timeline for the future, you truly don’t know what will happen. For us, we had to navigate a pandemic, support one another through job and life changes, and work with our collaborators to move things forward like hiring folks and paying people (ahh bureaucracy). Even though we thought we built a flexible timeline, we still made additional revisions. We got better as the grant went on with building in even more flex time and recognizing when we needed to extend something. In order to do our best work, we needed more time and that’s okay!
  • Co-creating takes time and is so worth it: LibParlor has always been about co-creation, but it was wonderful to see this co-creation play out in creating the curriculum. One of my favorite parts of the grant was helping to facilitate conversations about what should be put in the curriculum. We had all of these wonderful ideas and perspectives and that shaped what you see today in LPOL. I really feel like the curriculum pulls together so many themes and ideas from our community. And while we couldn’t use all the ideas (because then the curriculum would never end), we have some really good ideas for the future! Which leads nicely to my last takeaway…
  • Even when the grant ends, the work continues: Even though we wrote about the sustainability of the project in our IMLS application, it’s one thing to write about it and another thing to actually do it! As the grant winds down, we are talking a lot about what’s next. What edits to the curriculum will we make? How will we continue to promote it? How do we keep building a community from those who participate in LPOL? These are all important questions that we don’t have all the answers to. As we get ready to transition into life post grant, we know there’s still a lot of exciting work ahead.

In many ways, these takeaways have also benefited my day-to-day work life. Leading a teaching and learning department is a long-term project and so participating in LPOL has shaped how I approach this kind of work with my team.

Final thoughts

I’m grateful for the chance to be a part of this grant. I’m proud of the work we did and excited to see how others might use LPOL. I’d love to hear from you, our readers. What excites you about the curriculum? Do you see ways you might use LPOL? I’d love to hear from you in the comments!

Lessons learned from onboarding new colleagues

Back in March, I wrote about my experiences chairing a double search committee. I ended that blog post with questions around onboarding and what happens after a hire is successful. I’m happy to report our two searches were successful and our new folks started this summer. Now that our new departmental colleagues are settled, I thought I would write a bit about how we approached onboarding and things I’ve learned in that process. 

What influenced our onboarding? 

My personal experience with onboarding and the department’s desire to successfully onboard our new colleagues really informed how we approached this work. 

My personal experience with onboarding: When I think about onboarding, I think about my first professional library job at Penn State. In this first role, I had two supervisors, who both did a great job onboarding me. My immediate supervisor created a schedule for my first six weeks and was intentional about setting up meetings with colleagues across the organization. My dotted line supervisor found a campus committee for me to join almost immediately, and that committee also had a project I could tackle right away. Even though this role eventually had me working Sunday to Thursday, from 1-10 PM, I was onboarded in a way where I felt really connected to a lot of different people. This experience informed and influenced how I think about onboarding new colleagues, especially now that I am in a department head role. 

Department’s desire to successfully onboard new colleagues: The department has known for a long time that we would be bringing on new colleagues in 2024. In January, as we developed our departmental goals for the year, we decided to have an onboarding specific goal. This meant everyone had a vested interest in creating this experience and we all wanted to ensure the people we brought onto the team would feel the sense of community we value in our unit (see my past post about the ways I appreciate the laughter on our team). It was really great to see the department come together around this and personally, it helped me to feel that this onboarding would be less daunting because I wouldn’t do it alone. 

How did we prepare to onboard?

As we did Zoom interviews and on-campus interviews with our finalists, I found that I got clarity on where these two roles needed to go, once a successful candidate was hired. I am so appreciative of all the questions our candidates asked, because it helped me think through some elements of the roles I hadn’t gotten to quite yet. Over the course of the interviews, I accumulated dozens of sticky notes with ideas and questions and potential projects. Once the hires were made and start dates were set, I could turn my focus to preparing onboarding materials. I ended up drafting four documents for each role:

  • Drafted goals for the new employee to work on during their first six months (after which their annual performance review would occur and they would then draft their own goals for 2025)
  • Scoped project work (connected to their drafted goals and job description) providing a series of big and small projects that would allow them to collaborate with department colleagues and learn more about the library and campus
  • First day schedule where most meetings (such as getting their ID card, getting their computer setup, meeting with their supervisor, etc.) are set up by our library’s admin team to ensure consistency for all our new colleagues
  • First four weeks schedule, which ended with a one-month check-in meeting with me as their supervisor

I shared these drafted documents with the department in May, right before we had a departmental “Mega Meeting” which focused on onboarding preparation. We met for most of the day (10 AM – 4 PM) and about three hours of this meeting was dedicated to onboarding discussions. Two goals helped to scope these conversations:

  1. Determine how members of Education & Outreach Services will support the on-boarding of our two new departmental colleagues. 
  2. Discuss the values and expectations we have for each other in the department.

In the Mega Meeting, the department had the opportunity to reflect on and share with the group their positive and negative onboarding experiences, provide feedback on the drafted goals and project work to ensure alignment across the department, and helped brainstorm the various meetings and connections we might want to facilitate for our incoming colleagues. We also did some collaborative work around co-creating expectations for the department, something we had discussed when I started three years ago but nothing we had formally documented or returned to. We talked about how it was important to make implicit things explicit in order to create an environment that was welcoming and accessible. By the end of the meeting, I had enough information and insight from the department to finalize our documentation. 

How did onboarding go?

I’m obviously biased, but I felt like onboarding was smooth. Because the department reviewed and provided feedback on the onboarding documentation, everyone knew the priorities for the new colleagues and how everyone played a role in supporting this process. It felt like we all had ownership in the work and we all cared about onboarding being successful. Our new colleagues could jump right in and I think they felt supported by the whole department.

As a supervisor, it was great to have drafted goals and scoped projects that I could immediately give our two new colleagues. Throughout their first month, we regularly checked in about their goals and projects, and adjusted as needed. I heard from both new colleagues that having this direction was beneficial because they knew where to focus their energies as they got settled. And the scoped project template was so useful, our library adopted it as a standard for onboarding colleagues!

What did I learn about onboarding?

As I reflect on this onboarding work, there are a few things I’m taking away from the whole experience:

  • Involving the whole department in onboarding is a worthwhile endeavor. It allows you as a supervisor not to do it all alone and ensures that your team understands the priorities of the role. It was also a way for everyone on the team to find ways to collaborate with our new colleagues, which helped to bring them into the departmental fold. 
  • Even if you think you’ve done enough to make the implicit explicit, there’s still more you can do! Joining a new organization (and new dictionary of acronyms) is daunting and as you onboard, you’re going to miss things. Having a department support onboarding means your new colleagues have lots of folks to go to and ask questions when they need that insight/translation/context.
  • Onboarding is labor! As the department head, I spent many hours thinking about job descriptions, developing scoped projects, identifying role priorities, setting up introductory meetings, and reflecting on what success could look like in year one. Onboarding that is full of care and intention is not something you can whip up in a few hours. It takes time, reflection, and revision. It’s worthwhile labor but you have to account for it. 

I’m pleased that our new departmental colleagues are moving and grooving. I’m proud that our department made onboarding a goal and priority for the year and I’m happy that we could deliver on that goal. I would love to hear from you about onboarding practices you either experienced or do that show care and intention to bring someone into your organization! 

Seeking First Year Academic Librarian (FYAL) Bloggers

As we enter a new academic year, we’re looking to bring on a few new first year academic librarian (FYAL) bloggers here at ACRLog. We’d like to thank our 2023-2024 FYAL bloggers Nery Alcivar-Estrella and Katie Kuipers for their terrific posts this past year in our First Year Academic Librarian Experience series. We’d also like to encourage new academic librarians — those who are just beginning in their first full-time position at an academic library in 2024 — to blog with us during their first year.

We see the FYAL program having two key goals:

  • Provide space and opportunities for new career academic librarians to share their perspective and join the ongoing scholarly conversation.
  • Diversify the current writing on ACRLog by bringing in perspectives that cover areas of librarianship we don’t currently discuss.

FYAL bloggers typically publish posts monthly during the academic year (October – June). If you’re interested in applying to be a FYAL blogger here at ACRLog, applications are due by Friday, September 20. Please submit an application through this Google form. 

Proposals are evaluated by the ACRLog blog team. When selecting FYAL bloggers we consider:

  • Diversity of race/ethnicity/sexual orientation/ability
  • Voices from a range of academic institutions (for example, community colleges, research universities, etc.) and job responsibilities within academic libraries (for example, instruction, cataloging, scholarly communications, etc.)
  • Clear and compelling writing style
  • Connection between day-to-day work and bigger conversations around theory, practice, criticism, LIS education, and other issues
  • Alignment with FYAL program goals (interest in joining the ongoing scholarly conversation, interest in sharing their experiences, provides perspectives not as well represented on ACRLog)

    Please send any questions to ACRLog’s Technical Coordinator and Interim First Year Academic Librarian Experience Coordinator Hailley Fargo at fargoh1@nku.edu. We’re looking forward to hearing from you!

    Thoughts From A Search Committee Chair Running Two Searches

    This spring, I’m chairing concurrent searches for two new librarians role in my department. I’m thrilled to lead these search committees and bring new colleagues to the team. These roles opened up due to faculty retirements and gave the department and I a chance to reflect on what our institution needs right now. 

    For weeks, I’ve been thinking about how to write a blog post about this experience. At my past institution, I didn’t get too close to faculty librarian searches. I was at a large organization and had a supervisor who had me focus on other work priorities. I hired student interns and research assistants, but I was relatively removed from other searches. At my current institution, we are a smaller shop and as a department head, I have a different responsibility and focus on things like searches. While these two searches aren’t my first time chairing a search at my current institution, I feel a different search chair pressure since these are colleagues joining our department. This pressure is probably mostly internal pressure I’m putting on myself, but with every search, I feel there’s pressure for it to go well and find a successful candidate. 

    Instead of continuing to spin my proverbial wheels about how to write this post, I’m going to share a few highlights. These are big ideas or themes that continue to stay top of mind. As always, I’m curious if these ideas and themes resonate with others! 

    The Library Job Search + Emotions

    In 2018-19, I collaborated with former ACRLogger Dylan Burns on a research project around emotions in the library job search. Dylan and I met in graduate school and noticed that during the second year of our on-campus program, there was a new energy in the air. A competitive and sometimes secretive energy as we all went on the job search. Our research was inspired by that experience and the emotions we felt as we went on the job market. We sent a survey out and had over 1,000 people start our survey! The paper we eventually wrote explored the themes we saw along with focus groups we conducted with survey participants. This research project was informative in so many ways, beyond learning so much about survey design, this research really solidified for me the challenges and struggles librarians experience. There’s such a black box when you apply for a job; you put your materials out there, invest time and energy in crafting a compelling cover letter and thinking about a potential institute that might employ you, and hope you hear something. As I navigate this search from the position of search chair, this paper is top of mind. I do what I can to communicate and move things along as quickly as I can. But I’ve also seen the various ways the systems and structures (or lack of those structures) slow a search down and rely on the chair and hiring manager to be organized. 

    Not everyone is invested or as tuned into the search as you are

    Everyone has different capacity levels to think about these searches. As the chair, I feel like I’m really in it but that’s not the same for everyone around me. I continue to remind myself that it is my responsibility to pave the way and make it easy for folks to engage with our candidates. And part of that means I have to keep articulating what these jobs will do, and how the folks in the room might interact/collaborate/rely on these roles.    

    Searching for new people means less time to think about your current people

    Something I’ve thought a lot about is how I’m refocusing my energy into bringing new folks into the department. That means something has to give and that has been some of the energy I’ve been able to put into the people on the current team. I feel fortunate these searches are happening almost three years into my time as a department head; I have a better sense of what folks need and they have a better sense of how to get feedback/support from me, especially when my time is in high demand. This also means when the searches wrap up, I can refocus my energy on the current department. Ultimately, just because I’m running a search doesn’t mean I have double the emotional energy. I’m still working through this, but try to be aware of what I can give and where I need to pull back. 

    Bottom line: searches take time and energy

    For the past three months, I feel like I’ve been thinking about these searches constantly. I might be brainstorming questions, finalizing finalist interview schedules, noting strengths and opportunities for growth, or scheduling meetings. I’m pouring a lot of energy to prepare for finalist interviews and t once that interview week comes, I’m tuned in to running smooth interview days. I keep thinking of the comment my high school band director told us in the pit orchestra – the best pit orchestra is the one where people don’t even realize there’s a pit orchestra right in front of them. To me, a good search feels like that; it’s running and people are comfortable and supported but don’t necessarily see all the work spinning in the background. But that of course, takes time and energy, and weeks of planning and coordinating!

    What happens after the search

    I also think frequently about what happens after the search – a successful candidate joins the team. That naturally spurs a bunch of follow up questions: What will onboarding look like? How is the department involved? What are scoped projects I can give these folks to get acclimated to the organization and feel a sense of progress within the first six to eight months on the job? I keep reminding myself to finish the searches and then worry about what’s next. One step at a time. 

    At the end of the day, I’m really excited for what’s ahead. I feel like I’m learning and I’m growing in this double search chair role. I’m also going to be very thankful for when these searches wrap up!