Jennifer Jarson

Navigating Hard Times in the Higher Ed Landscape

We’ve been experiencing some staffing issues on my team in recent months. While these issues have been difficult to navigate, they are (fingers crossed) temporary and the end is in sight. (Maybe I’ll knock on wood, too, for good measure.) At the same time, though, we’re confronting broader and more lasting budget, staffing, and workload issues across my organization. While the particulars of these challenges might be specific to my institution, it seems that we’re all dealing with related barriers, delays, and diversions (or full-on road closures, perhaps, to take this metaphor further) across higher ed. It’s my turn to coordinate a collaborative post and I’m curious to hear from my fellow ACRLoggers about how they’re working through some of the questions and dilemmas inherent in this difficult landscape. Readers, we’d love to hear about your thoughts and experiences, too, in the comments.

How does communication around budget and staffing challenges happen at your institution? What about those communication practices works well? What changes to communication practices do you think would be helpful?

Angie: I think greater transparency and assessment is needed around the question of whether to invest in new hires or improve compensation for existing staff. Offers for new hires present certain challenges to compensation equity. But for lots of reasons I can imagine this a path of least resistance compared to a process of examining the inequities across existing staff compensation–nevermind the additional workload distributed to staff as a result of turnover. It’s also tricky, though, when transparency is intertwined with needs for confidentiality. And conversely, when transparency of that inequity can exacerbate morale issues inherent in this. Practices that could be helpful might focus transparency around the factors influencing both ends of these decisions. I also think it will be imperative to address those factors through the more diverse and complex lens of individual equitability over systemic (in)equality.

Hailley: Our institution is facing budget challenges so it has been a topic of conversation in just about every group I’m a part of. Our Dean has been good about providing budget updates to the Leadership Team (which I’m a part of) and through regular email updates to the entire library. Even if the news is “There is no new news” it’s good to feel like we know as much as we can, at a moment where things are constantly changing and shifting. I think a challenge that exists in these situations is finding the right balance; you want folks to feel like they are “in the know” but you also don’t want to overwhelm with information or constant updates. Finding that sweet spot with frequency is a challenge and I think so much of it depends on the situation, the organization, and the trust a leader (or leaders) have with their people.

Jen: I agree with Angie and Hailley that transparency and frequency of communication are key considerations here. I’m happy to say that leaders in my library system are practicing both; they’re regularly providing information on what’s happening within the library organization and across the university. My institution is huge and I think size, as Hailley alluded to, can be a complicating factor in all this. Despite any leader’s best efforts, there are bound to be gaps and oversights in communication. Inevitably, some of us won’t be privy to the details and confidences of those top-level or nitty gritty conversations yet we still feel the effects of them–budget cuts or staffing shortages or what have you–on a regular basis, even daily. That contrast can make it easy to feel overlooked and undervalued. I think it’s important to remember how important it is for us to speak up. I, for one, know I can sometimes get tunnel vision in my middle management position (that also includes daily service desk responsibilities and instruction), just trying to uphold our team’s responsibilities and meet users’ needs. I sometimes forget that administrators aren’t seeing what I’m seeing and that the on-the-ground perspectives I can offer are essential. And administrators, even those with the best intentions, may sometimes assume or forget to ask how their difficult decisions are playing out in the day-to-day reality of our work. It’s up to us to tell them.

Justin: Agreed with everyone else for the need for transparency and communication. Our University Librarian and other members of the library admin team regularly present to our Librarians’ Council on current and upcoming staffing changes and challenges. This gives librarians context and a chance to ask questions about any staffing issues coming up in our library system. As well, every winter our University Librarian shares her budget presentation with all library staff. This gives us a great look into the direction of the library and any budget constraints that present challenges. Again, this gives library staff the opportunity to ask questions and get greater clarity on the library’s budget.

Is your organization experimenting with any new models or practices to address staffing issues? What ideas would you like to try if you could?

Angie: In addition to an increase in staff turnover, my library (and probably yours) is finding fewer candidates applying for the positions that we can advertise. At the convergence of these two realities, effects on staff workload and hiring practices certainly require rethinking. In hiring, I’ve been asked to consider what experience and skills I can realistically expect to attract, for example. What represents a full time need, and how do we address that need when it is not? What at a given moment do I have the resources to train for, or train quickly enough? And that answer may be different at different times. Current approaches to developing position advertisements as well and how we maintain current position descriptions has involved a lot of rethinking and re-translating skills, and seeking experience that might fall outside of the traditional library contexts. I recently advertised and hired a license specialist position, in which for the first time we explicitly sought legal expertise in the requirements. Also a first, I included my general counsel in the interview process, and learned that it is not uncommon across the University to find professionals with law degrees not working as lawyers. As librarians, with many diverse credentials and career backgrounds, this should not surprise us. Take advantage of (in the best sense, and equitably compensating for) the fact that many people may seek to leverage their careers and expertise in different ways.

Hailley: One of the hats I wear in my role is helping to coordinate our reference services. One commitment we as coordinators made this spring was if we lose librarians, we won’t try to stretch ourselves thin by covering desk and consultation gaps. We got to put this promise into action at the end of February when one of our colleagues left for another job. We reviewed the schedule, used our reference data to identify the popular times at the desk, and made the decision to cut back on hours. We worked with folks to rearrange a few schedules, with an eye towards creating a consistent experience for our users and student employees. It felt good to have the data to make an informed decision and also to not ask folks to do even more with less (a phrase I’m never really a fan of).

Jen: Managing the multiple long-term absences on my team these past few months has meant that I’ve needed to take over primary responsibility for many key circulation workflows. Historically, I’ve done these jobs rarely, if at all, so I’ve had to learn or re-learn a number of procedures — and make room for them in my schedule. Thankfully, as I mentioned, my small library is part of a huge system so I’ve been able to ask my colleagues at other locations who are already skilled in these areas for guidance when needed. This is a clear advantage of a large organization like mine. While each of our locations and populations is unique, there are certainly similarities in positions and responsibilities, making it easier to get help. It makes sense, then, that there’s talk about how we might share work and positions across locations–whether as a way to fill a gap while someone is away or as a nature of the position itself (and a cost-saving measure). Still, though, as long as we have physical spaces and students on site, we need people here, too. And with such lean staffing already, I struggle to think about new ways to reorganize our team. There’s a limit to what we can do with only so many hours in the day and so much on our plates already. I think we need to be realistic, as Angie and Hailley are also suggesting, about reducing hours or programming or what have you. At the same time, though, I’m thinking about ways to better recognize and reward the range of responsibilities my colleagues have, at both individual and structural levels. How can I show my appreciation better? How can I support their work better? What can I do to enhance their decision-making power?

Justin: At the University of Manitoba Libraries, we’re moving to more centralized and universal positions, both with library technicians and librarians; there’s less emphasis on specialization. This allows library services to be spread among a greater pool of staff and while subject specialty and expertise still plays a role, for certain services it’s easier to spread the load among the full complement of our librarians. One issue we’ve had with librarians is with leaves – both research and parental leaves – and retirements. These create holes throughout our library system, which other librarians have to cover, which is especially problematic if specific libraries or departments have fewer librarians. We’ve begun hiring leave/vacancy replacement librarians who are hired on terms, with the intent to cover for positions which are temporarily vacant due to leaves or retirements. As an entry-level librarian, these term positions are great to get experience, but you always have an eye to getting a permanent position. Regardless, it’s a good ‘stop-gap’ to not only get more entry-level librarian positions, but also to help continuing librarians manage their workload.

Veronica: Staffing issues were one of the major drivers of the dissolution of our liaison program and department in 2021. People were retiring or moving and we weren’t getting those positions back. We didn’t have a 1:1 ratio of liaisons to colleges, much less departments, and workload imbalance among librarians was a huge area of concern. Our liaison program was unsustainable so we dissolved that department in favor of 3 functional departments: Research Services, Teaching and Learning (which I oversee), and Collections Strategies and Services. This gave librarians the opportunity to focus on a functional area of expertise and allowed for more consistency around services.

When staffing issues mean workload issues or budget issues call for hard decisions, how do you, your team, or your organization adjust expectations and/or (re-)prioritize?

Hailley: I’ve been thinking about this a lot as a department head. When I meet one-on-one with folks in the department, I continue to ask them about their workload and where they are placing their time and energy. This gives me a pulse on the unit and I have a better sense of what we as a team can do (both in the short and long term). I’ve also been better about extending timelines and deadlines. Everything doesn’t have to be done immediately. I’m trying to be better about thinking through the semester rhythms and the larger priorities for the library and assign work accordingly. Finally, I think talking about workload and uncertainty as a team is so important. We have to acknowledge that things are difficult and the team might need to make difficult decisions in the upcoming months. If we are able to come together as a team and set our sights on what is important, I think that helps make prioritization clearer.

Jen: Hailley’s comments about getting a sense of the big picture and practicing open communication for shared understanding about priorities in order to make these challenging decisions resonate with me, as well. I’m reflecting on the kinds of questions I’ve used to inform this kind of prioritization and it seems that they center around considering the stakes involved… Who will be impacted? How and to what degree? Is this central to our mission? What are the trade-offs? What is lost and what is gained?

Justin: Being in a liaison librarian position, I’m not typically involved in high-level decision-making regarding system-wide priorities due to staffing or budget challenges. I would hope that decision makers from all levels of academic libraries weigh and measure priorities and make a short- and long-term plan to address the questions that Jen poses. I really appreciate the times when I have the chance to provide input and feedback into addressing our library’s overarching mission, goals, and priorities,—and especially when there’s internal and external pressures, whether that’s staffing or budget—it feels rewarding to help guide the direction of your library.

Veronica: I have a colleague who introduced me to the idea of “right-sizing,” as in, when you lose people to new career opportunities, retirements, or budget cuts, you need to right-size your department. There is literally no way that 3 people can accomplish the same level of work as that done by 10 people. This is when departmental work has to change. Certain things will just not get done, and that is an indicator to the greater campus community that the budget sacrifices made by a library or university have an impact on library services and resources. As Hailley mentioned, it’s important to stay informed on the status of workload for the librarians you supervise (if you supervise) and ensure that they are doing the job they were hired to do, rather than the job of 2-3 people without additional compensation.

We’d love to hear how things are going at your institution and how you’re navigating budget, staffing, and workload challenges. We hope you’ll share your thoughts in the comments.

Story Swap

“If a picture is worth a thousand words,
then a metaphor is worth a thousand pictures.”
-George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By

In this collaborative post from our ACRLog team, we’re sharing some of the “stories”–allegories, analogies, anecdotes, images, memes, metaphors, and more–that we use across the domains of our work to make abstract concepts more concrete, prompt meaning making, demonstrate relevance, communicate impact, bring a dry concept to life, or simply connect with our colleagues, users, and stakeholders.

What stories do you use (or have you heard) to help illustrate concepts related to information literacy and research skills?

[Jen] I’ve recently become very interested in using stories as a pedagogical technique. I don’t have a large repository of stories to call on yet, but a few examples I’ve been using to good effect come to mind:

Source integration – Images of a container ship and a cargo train help me illustrate the goal of synthesizing sources in a literature review versus stringing them together one-by-one. I start with the train photo and ask students to imagine that each container on the train is a source. I describe how the train illustrates a style of writing where the author treats each source individually–the author might summarize, analyze, or otherwise comment on each source one by one in a long string of paragraphs. By contrast, I note that the ship is full of the same containers (i.e., sources) as the train but draw students’ attention to how the containers are instead stacked in groups, that each column is made up of many containers. In this image, I suggest that each container still represents a source but a paragraph is this time represented by a column of containers illustrating the goal of weaving sources together for more skillful analysis and writing around themes across sources.
Source evaluation – Wineburg and McGrew’s study serves as an anecdote regarding approaches to source evaluation (as well as the idea of relative, or domain, expertise on occasion). The researchers observed 45 people evaluating websites: historians with PhDs, Stanford University undergraduates, and professional fact checkers. When I ask students to guess which group was best at evaluating information, they typically vote for the historians with PhDs. Yet findings showed that the “fact checkers arrived at more warranted conclusions in a fraction of the time.” A primary difference in their approach? Fact checkers read laterally, not vertically. Because lateral reading is a departure from the kinds of information evaluation that are commonly taught to high school students, this story helps illustrate the effectiveness of an unfamiliar approach.

I’m motivated to use stories more (and to better effect) in my classes because I think it can be so powerful; the sense of clarity and connection these stories can offer for students is incredibly productive and gratifying.

[Alex] I have referred to truncation as “my favorite library magic trick” when demonstrating searches in databases, and it’s true! It’s such a simple thing to do but can really change the list of results you get back. I also refer to it as advanced… I don’t normally go into the details of truncation until the learners I’m addressing have mastered some of the other concepts like Boolean operators and selecting keywords. But when I do introduce truncation, I love to tell this story. I was working with someone who needed information on radiation and adjuvant chemotherapy. Looking at my list of search terms, I saw radiation, radiotherapy, radiation therapy, etc… so I thought, truncation time! Radi*, easy. Because of the complexity of the rest of the search, there were about two pages of results so I looked through all of them and behold, one of them was about… radishes. You can’t anticipate every possibility when you truncate, but that one was a real surprise. Truncate responsibly, everyone!

[Justin] I like to use the metaphor of gardening for the research process:

Prep your garden: determine a topic and a focused research statement or question, along with background research.
Care for your garden as it grows: identify keywords, makes a list of databases and sites to find information, create search strings, and save sources.
Inspect your produce: evaluate your sources for relevance and credibility.
Cook! Use your sources in your writing to make something new.
Modify your approach if nothing is growing.

What stories do you use (or have you heard) to help illustrate concepts related to teaching and learning more broadly?

[Alex] This is so common it hardly feels like a story or metaphor but teachers as coaches is such a great framework. I can run you through practicing a skill, I can tell you the plays, but I can’t make the shot for you from the sidelines. You have to be able to apply what we did in practice while you’re on the court.

I’ve also used my experience as a DM for Dungeons & Dragons to explain outlining activities and learning objectives for a class. (Not to students, to other educators.) If you tell your players “you’re going to go here and do this, then go here and do this, ad nauseum” that’s called railroading and it isn’t as much fun as letting the players make decisions for themselves. Giving them multiple threads to follow and seeing what they value and decide to do is part of the game! Same goes for the classroom: here are all the objectives we need to meet, but you can help me decide which one we’re going to address next, and exactly how that’s going to look.

[Justin] I’ve used the example of Joseph Campbell’s “hero’s journey”. One of my favourite ways to illustrate the hero’s journey is using Luke Skywalker from Star Wars. I find it relates to learning quite well: there’s a problem, you set out on your journey with help from mentors, there’s transformation and atonement (and learning a lesson?!) and finally return.

[Jen] I’ve gotten a lot of mileage over the past few years out of an anecdote I’ve drawn from Carrie Brownstein’s memoir in which she reflected on some of the key experiences of her adolescence that helped shape her as a musician. In short, Brownstein first described how enthralled she felt watching pop music giants perform in stadium-sized venues. The spectacle of those huge performances entranced and inspired her but they felt opaque and unattainable. “I had no idea how it [the music] had been assembled or how to break it apart,” she wrote. “I remained merely a fan …with no means of claiming the sounds as my own.” Brownstein went on to describe her experiences a few years later, this time at shows in small clubs. Here, Brownstein could get close to the musicians and observe their techniques and interactions. This is my favorite quote about her realization: “It seems obvious, but it was the first time I realized that music was playable, not just performable—that it had a process.” To me, her story showcases the power of uncovering process. At huge, heavily produced shows, she was an onlooker with no discernible entry point for her own participation. When the making of the music and the performances’ component parts were made visible at smaller shows, the performances felt more accessible and attainable; Brownstein could imagine doing it for herself. I’ve used this story time and again– when consulting with faculty on the design of research assignments, for example–to illustrate the power of uncovering the process of scholarly and creative work rather than focusing on polished products.

What stories do you use (or have you heard) to help illustrate concepts related to library services, procedures, workflows?

[Maura] As a director I often find myself having to explain our work in the library to faculty and administrators on campus in a range of contexts: as library faculty progress through the tenure track, when sharing the institutional questions we get at our service desks in the library with Student Affairs staff, and especially when advocating to fill vacant faculty and staff lines in the library. The analogy I’ve found most useful is from the restaurant world: front of the house for Public Services, and back of the house for Technical Services/Technology. In my previous position I worked at a college that offered Hospitality Management degrees and this analogy was widely understood across campus. But with greater visibility in the media into food and restaurant services over the past few decades I think it could be a useful analogy for anyone trying to make visible the often invisible work that keeps the library functioning.

[Justin] I’ve heard an interesting comparison from a friend of a librarian’s role to What We Do In The Shadows: there’s so much intellectual work happening behind the scenes, that not all of our students and faculty know about or are aware of.

[Jen] I just started a new book and was struck by the proverb that the author used as an epigraph: “For want of a nail the shoe was lost. For want of a shoe the horse was lost. For want of a horse the rider was lost. For want of a rider the message was lost. For want of a message the battle was lost. For want of a battle the kingdom was lost. And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.” I’ve never personally used this proverb although I’m sure I’ve heard it before. But I’m thinking about it with fresh eyes through the lens of this post’s theme. It seems to me that it might serve as a “story” to illustrate the interconnectedness of different domains within library work not to mention the value and importance of the many small details in our day-to-day work.

What stories do you use (or have you heard) to help illustrate library impact and value?

[Justin] My friend mentioned the metaphor of weight of books to me recently. He’s interested in knowing how much our library collection weighs – why? I have no clue. But he’s right: it makes for an interesting metaphor of the weight of information.

[Hailley] I’ve been recently working on updating our library’s mission and vision statement. In our revision, we did a lot of looking at other library mission and vision statements and the idea that kept coming up is how the library is the “heart of the university.” I don’t have any brilliant thoughts on this at the moment, but it’s definitely a phrase I’ve been thinking about and thinking about if this phrase is useful in defining the impact, value, and place the library has at an institution.

What stories do you use? To what effect? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

Uncovering Expectations and Opportunities, Opening Doors

It’s hard to believe, but we’re already wrapping up week two of the fall semester at my campus. This means that my information literacy instruction responsibilities are starting to ramp up. Teaching has been a big part of every library job I’ve had since grad school. So it naturally follows that teaching dominates a lot of my time and thinking, not to mention my posts here–from reflections on experimenting with specific activities or strategies in the classroom to the evolution of my teaching practice over the years and attempting to uncover the research process. It’s that last bit in particular that I want to pick up on here, with fresh eyes.

For many years now, transparency has been a guiding principle of my approach to teaching and all information literacy-related work, in and out of the classroom. I aim to expose embedded–and often invisible–information literacy concepts, skills, strategies, and expectations in order to make the mysteries and complexities of the research process more accessible to students and engage them in it.

A few weeks ago, I attended the faculty development series my campus offers just before the start of each semester. My colleague led a session about strategies that instructors can use to support neurodivergent students. Her recommendations included providing explicit and intentional directions about academic and behavioral expectations and providing options for student participation to give students some control. Her suggestions made sense to me–I could imagine how such clarity, as well as choice, might support neurodivergent students’ engagement, and neurotypical students’ engagement, too.

I’ve tried incorporating some of her recommendations in the few classes I’ve worked with so far this semester. More specifically, I’ve tried to make clear at the beginning of each class how students might choose to engage in the session. I provided, for example, a list of what engaging might look like including participating in the in-class activities, asking questions, and contributing comments, as well as avoiding distractions in order to focus, actively taking notes, reflecting on how the day’s content relates or applies to their own experience, etc. I also articulated how students might accomplish these things: vocally in class, in the online platforms as part of our day’s activities (e.g., Padlet, Jamboard), or after class by emailing me or stopping by my office. I provided these expectations in writing on a slide and described them during class. I have always articulated how I hope students will participate in class, suggesting that they ask questions or share their thoughts. This new level of intentionality and detail at the outset, though, brought a more focused spotlight than I have been in the habit of offering. To be honest, it felt a bit awkward to me. I was concerned that it might feel forced or be perceived as juvenile or even didactic. So I’ve attempted to frame these introductory remarks as an invitation to students rather than a patronizing prescription, explaining that I understand students might be uncertain about how to participate given that I’m an unfamiliar guest instructor and I want to be clear that I hope they’ll actively engage in the class. To me, that framing feels more comfortable and authentic.

I’ve only tried this in three classes so far this semester. It’s a limited sample, but I have to say that I’ve been struck by how engaged many of the students in these three classes have been. Of course, that could have nothing to do with this tweak! But maybe…

What strikes me now is how this new, small change is, in fact, so closely aligned with the transparency I’ve been cultivating around information literacy. This intentionality in being explicit about class engagement options is just another kind of unveiling, another way to increase clarity, accessibility, and inclusion.

It makes me wonder what else I could be working to uncover and clarify for students in and out of the classroom. Where else might I be making assumptions? What other paths and processes– established and expected to me but invisible to students–could be unveiled? How and where do you practice transparency in your teaching?

Things I Didn’t Know I Needed to Know

Hindsight is 20/20, right? In this collaborative post from our ACRLog team, we’re reflecting on the lessons and truths about libraries, librarianship, and higher ed that we wish we had come to understand sooner — the stuff we didn’t know to ask about earlier on in our careers, the stuff we didn’t know that we needed to know — and how our current understanding can perhaps help us to more clearly see the things we need to do differently.

What’s something you wish someone had told you or that you wish you had asked in a job interview in order to get a clearer picture of the work, institution, or culture?

[Alex] I wish I had the foresight to ask for more detail about what the tenure process looks like for a librarian, as this was not something I had encountered before. I had the rare opportunity to choose tenure-track or fixed-term when I was hired, and I assumed tenure-track was inherently the “better” choice and did not give it much critical consideration.

[Hailley] A colleague and I were just talking about this recently – we wished we had asked about what the culture is around start and end times. At my current institution, we have a pretty standard 8:15-4:30 workday (university-wide). Knowing this might not change your mind to take or not to take a job, it is helpful to know what the general rule of thumb is before entering a new institution.

[Veronica] It’s incredibly important to ask what the organization is doing to ensure their workplace is equitable, inclusive, and accessible. Both the answer, and the way that it is answered are especially important for librarians with marginalized identities, but should be a concern for all librarians. You can usually get a sense of a place by how the people you are talking to react to that question.

What’s an unwritten rule at your current or past institution(s) or within your area of librarianship that you had to learn as you go?

[Alex] At each institution I’ve worked at, the unwritten rules are mostly workplace culture, processes for the way things are done. My best example is that I have had scheduled reference shifts at both of my librarian jobs, and it is done very differently at each: on a weekly basis vs. six months at a time; in hourly shifts vs. 90-minute shifts; all open hours vs. a six-hour period of the day on weekdays only. It demonstrated to me that not only are types of libraries very different, but so are individual locations.

[Maura] When I started at my current institution as Instruction Coordinator 14 years ago, I also noted a few things about workplace culture that were perhaps a bit more formal than I expected. Most of my library colleagues dressed up a bit for reference shifts and teaching, and across the college when faculty referred to each other in front of students they tended to use “Professor So and so” rather than first names. The former has definitely changed somewhat since the pandemic though I’m not sure if the latter has.

[Jen] When I moved to my current institution to take on this job almost five years ago, it was my first time in a faculty position. I had already worked in libraries for a long time by that point but always in positions classified as staff. I didn’t take this job because it was classified as faculty; I saw it as a plus, but certainly not the deciding factor. It’s taken me some time to fully grasp what it means to have faculty status in terms of planning my work and organizing my time, as well as in terms of my opportunities and responsibilities–not only of the position itself, but also as a faculty member. Of course, faculty classification while working in a public service-oriented unit and also being an administrator and manager is different from a typical faculty role. But I think this vantage point has given me new perspective on what a position’s classification can mean with respect to autonomy, advocacy, and the like. Having worked from both sides of this coin now, though, I still believe that it is up to us to not only practice and embody the full potential of our roles, but to also challenge it (or, perhaps more accurately, to challenge others’ assumptions and expectations of our roles). Whether because or in spite of classifications, we can play a significant part in making our places in our library and institutional landscapes what we want them to be.

What’s something simple or fundamental about higher ed, libraries, or your current/past job(s) that you wish you’d understood sooner?

[Hailley] Something I’ve been thinking about a lot is how decisions are made. Overtime, and especially as a current middle manager, I can more clearly see the many people above me who might influence, inform, or make a decision. Even if I don’t love a decision, I try to keep in mind the bigger picture and context for that specific decision.

[Angie] Absolutely what Hailey points out. I try to share this perspective with others as well. Another reality I wish I knew sooner is how people in higher ed – from students to faculty to administrators – understand so little about the work of libraries, and how even those who communicate well, it remains a constant endeavor. I am starting to accept this as work that is never done.

[Jen] I decided to go to library school without much library work experience, really. I had a job at the circulation desk in my college library, but my experience doing research for my senior thesis played a much bigger part in prompting me to take this path. While in grad school, I worked at the reference desk in one of my university’s libraries. This was a valuable experience that helped me solidify my grad school (and job search) focus on reference, instruction, and outreach work in academic libraries, but I don’t think I gave other areas of librarianship as much thought as I should have. All that to say, I didn’t come to this field with much pre-existing foundational knowledge about libraries. I feel particularly lucky, then, to have had a supervisor in my first professional position (a one-year stint) who took great pains to connect me with colleagues and projects in a wide range of areas and departments to help expand my awareness and skill set. And I feel very lucky, too, to have spent a significant chunk of my career early on at a small liberal arts college library. Because our library team was relatively small, collegial, and collaborative (read: everyone wore a lot of hats), I had many opportunities to get involved in projects outside the scope of my specific position. Moreover, the daily work of each person and department was literally visible to me. As such, I feel like I got a broad view of how libraries work. My current position at a small branch of an enormous university library system still requires me to wear a lot of hats and also still regularly offers me new insight into how libraries–and higher ed–work, too. But had I started my career in a system of this size, I don’t think I would have had occasion to participate in or observe so many aspects of academic library work so closely. I would have very little understanding, for example, of the technical work of my cataloging, serials, and licensing colleagues or of what’s involved in implementing a new discovery system. I regularly rely and expand on the broader, foundational understanding those early positions afforded. I’m grateful for the opportunities I had to build it.

[Veronica] Like Jen, I also spent a significant chunk of my career at a small liberal arts college library. What that time taught me, and what I wish I’d realized sooner, is that everyone in higher ed–staff, faculty (tenure track, adjuncts, lecturers), librarians–is trying to do their best with the limited time, bandwidth, and resources that we have. There can be this tendency in larger institutions to feel like it’s us versus them, or fall into victim-villain thinking, when in reality everyone is trying their best and no one is ignoring you on purpose. Yes, there will always be people who are rude, but the vast majority of folks are really just trying to get by as best as they can. I think the more that we can listen to our colleagues and get to know them and their wants, needs, worries, and hopes, the better we can support one another and show solidarity in higher education.

What’s something in higher ed, libraries, or your area of librarianship that everyone just does but doesn’t work well or should be re-thought?

[Angie] I truly don’t understand how, especially as information scientists, we haven’t prioritized the problem that is email. When I first moved into my own place after college, I remember the internet offerings advertised “up to 5 email accounts!”, and I thought why would anyone need that many? In my work within technical services, we have more than that; I know their purpose, and still wonder why these systems can’t serve us better. Many band-aids out there endeavor to help us “manage” email, but not a lot of solutions recognize the problematic level of reliance on email in the workplace. I don’t want to manage email. As ubiquitous as email is, it ought to more effortlessly help or at least get out of the way.

[Maura] I am so grateful to my colleagues that we are a well-functioning, kind, and thoughtful team. Not that we don’t have challenges, because every workplace has challenges, but we’re committed to asking questions and taking responsibility for our inevitable mistakes (because everyone makes mistakes). I was in academia right after college and then took some time in the publishing industry before returning to academia as a librarian, and I’d forgotten about the conflict avoidance that seems endemic to so many academic settings. I wish that institutions offered more support for doing the necessary work of moving through conflict thoughtfully and respectfully.

[Jen] We need to increase transparency around salaries. To withhold salary information from position descriptions and during the interview process can make what is already a difficult undertaking even more uncertain and fraught–not to mention a waste of time for everyone involved if candidates drop out late in the process after finally learning that salaries don’t meet their needs. And then, once hired, the lack of communication within and across institutions about salary data leaves library workers siloed and in the dark about potential earnings equity issues and missing key information with which to advocate for themselves. On a related note, we need to create more internal advancement opportunities in libraries. It seems that the general thinking is that in order to move up, one has to move out. I agree with that approach to some degree–transition is typically healthy for an organization and individuals (fresh perspectives and new horizons!). However, the lack of growth potential for folks within an institution can result in stagnancy, frustration, and low morale. While an organizational culture that supports experimentation and innovation can keep motivated library workers interested and invested, the lack of structural elements to support such folks to move into new positions (with real salary growth) is hurting us on both individual and organizational levels.

[Veronica] Like Jen, I definitely feel as though pipelines to leadership are something that need to be addressed within libraries with equity in mind. There is a strong push towards diversifying the profession, but it often stops with the hiring and onboarding process. What happens after that? Why do people leave the organization or the profession? At my library we are looking into how to help all librarians access professional development and support that will help them advance their careers within our library or elsewhere. Some things we need to ask ourselves are: Who are we sharing leadership opportunities with and why? Who within the organization has access to training, mentoring, and coaching? Who is missing from conversations about leadership potential and career advancement? If we, as a profession, spent time on these ideas we might be able to ensure that people stay within librarianship.

What are some of the lessons and truths that hindsight has helped you to see better? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

Apply to join the ACRLog Blog Team!

Interested in writing for ACRLog? We’re looking for a few new bloggers to join our team!

We aim to have a group of bloggers who represent diverse perspectives on and career stages in academic librarianship. We are especially seeking librarians interested in writing about technical services, scholarly communication, technology, and related areas and/or those working at small colleges, community colleges, or private institutions, to balance the strengths of our other bloggers.

Members of the ACRLog blog team write on any issue or idea that impacts academic librarianship, from current news items to workflow and procedural topics to upcoming changes in the profession and more.

ACRLog blog team members typically publish individual posts every 6-8 weeks and sometimes collaborate with other blog team members on co-authored posts. Blog team members also contribute to the work of blog promotion and management (e.g., participate in 2-3 blog team meetings every year).

If you’re interested in joining the ACRLog blog team, please complete our application form. Applications are due January 31, 2022.

Proposals will be evaluated by the existing ACRLog blog team. We will strive to consider:

Diversity of race/ethnicity/sexual orientation/ability
Voices from a range of academic institutions (for example, community colleges, small colleges) and job responsibilities within academic libraries (for example, 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

Please send any questions to Jen Jarson at jmj12@psu.edu. We’re looking forward to hearing from you!