Category: Where Are They Now? Former FYALs Reflect

For posts in the Where Are They Now: Former FYALs Reflect series

Reflecting on Seven Years of Librarianship

Since 2008, ACRLog’s “First Year Academic Librarian (FYAL) Experience” series has annually featured 1-2 academic librarians in their first year on the job in an academic library. This new series, “Where Are They Now?: Former FYALs Reflect,” features posts from past FYAL bloggers as they look back on their trajectories since their first year. This month, we welcome a post from Ariana Santiago, Open Educational Resources Coordinator at the University of Houston.

Just over seven years ago, I began my career as an academic librarian. I also had the opportunity to write for the ACRLog First Year Academic Librarian Experience series. I’m so glad I did, because writing a monthly post motivated me to assess and reflect, and now I’m thankful that my old posts capture the unique experience of my first year on the job. So what have I been up to since then? And how have things changed?

Let’s start at the beginning

I started as the Residency Librarian for Undergraduate Services at the University of Iowa in August 2013. In my undergraduate services role, I focused on library outreach and information literacy instruction, and had a lot of flexibility to try things out so that I could make the most of my residency program. I got involved in campus committees, collaborated on outreach and programming events, was introduced to critical librarianship, and dove into learning about instructional design. I participated in professional development programs that had long lasting impacts on me, specifically ACRL Immersion: Intentional Teaching and the Minnesota Institute for Early Career Librarians from Traditionally Underrepresented Groups. I also dealt with uncertainty, knowing that I didn’t yet understand the full picture – of the library and university where I worked, and academia more broadly. I struggled with imposter syndrome, especially when it came to teaching, and hadn’t yet figured out how to ask for the help that I needed. I definitely didn’t have a long-term plan for my career, but I knew I wanted to improve and excel at what I was doing. 

Finding my niche with a side of burnout

After my residency, I moved to the University of Houston where I started as the Instruction Librarian in 2015. By this time I had gotten a lot more comfortable and confident with instruction, and really enjoyed not just being in the classroom and working with students, but the problem-solving nature of figuring out how to teach and engage students in different learning contexts. It was around this time that I started to realize my facilitation skills and that I really wanted to facilitate others’ success, whether through IL instruction, working with colleagues on their teaching, or leading a library project or committee. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize I was headed towards burnout. I got increasingly involved in professional service, started presenting and publishing as I prepared for eventual promotion, and was working on a second master’s degree (M.A. in Applied Learning and Instruction, which I completed in 2017), all the while maintaining a heavy teaching load. I think it’s safe to say I still hadn’t figured out how to ask for help, or even admit when I was struggling and needed help. 

Then in 2018, I got the opportunity to move into a new position at the University of Houston, and started as the Open Educational Resources (OER) Coordinator. I’ve read my fellow former FYAL’s posts and they all speak of the inspirations that shaped their career paths and landed them where they are today. For me, this part of my career trajectory was far less intentional. I had the opportunity to take on this position, though to be completely honest, at the time I wasn’t sure if I wanted to. But I took a chance, and I’m definitely glad that I did. 

Although an OER position wasn’t something I had been purposefully working towards, I’m now 2+ years into it and clearly see how this work builds on my previous experience and strengths. I’m contributing to improving teaching and learning by helping instructors incorporate OER into their courses, allowing students to have free and immediate access to course materials. I get to incorporate elements of instructional design and campus outreach, and there’s no shortage of problem-solving on a regular basis. I enjoy working closely with instructors to support them in reaching their instructional goals, and further facilitating student success. 

However, because I didn’t start with a strong background in OER, I often went back to feelings of imposter syndrome. When I transitioned into this new area, I was reminded of how it feels to truly step outside of your comfort zone and became painfully aware of how much I didn’t know or understand yet. Fortunately, by this time (or perhaps because of this experience) I had gotten a lot better at identifying when I needed help and asking for it. In recent years, I’ve also practiced my ability to say “no” to things. Earlier on, my eagerness to get involved and help out wherever help was needed led to burnout from taking on too much. Now I know the value of my time and to be more selective about the commitments I take on. 

Still figuring it out

In my very last FYAL post, I gave the following advice: don’t take on too much, ask for help, and keep the big picture in mind. Turns out this was pretty good advice for me to listen to throughout the years! To add on to that advice now: it’s okay to not have things all figured out. I admire people who know exactly where they’re headed and what they want out of their careers, but I’m not that person (at least not right now), and I think it’s okay to figure things out as you go. 

Along with everyone else right now, I don’t know what the future holds. I know that I’m about to submit my portfolio for promotion, and that I’ll continue to work from home for the immediate future, but that’s about it. I don’t know what the next seven years will bring, but I’m excited to find out!

Where Are They Now? A FYAL Update

Since 2008, ACRLog’s “First Year Academic Librarian (FYAL) Experience” series has annually featured 1-2 academic librarians in their first year on the job in an academic library. This new series, “Where Are They Now? Former FYALs Reflect,” features posts from past FYAL bloggers as they look back on their trajectories since their first year. This month, we welcome a post from Rebecca Halpern, Undergraduate Engagement Team Leader at The Claremont Colleges Library.

Looking back at my posts from the days in my early career, I’m struck by how uncertain I seem. I definitely don’t remember feeling uncertain at the time, though I am known to stick to a strict “fake it till you make it” policy which results in an overinflation of confidence. In those early days, I grappled with what it means to be a do-it-yourself librarian and the bounds of jurisdiction, how to incorporate my critical politics into one-shots, the role of reference work in critical librarianship, and what the point of my MLIS even was. Underneath all this was that I was also grappling with part-time and precarious employment, much like many of my peers who entered librarianship during The Great Recession. I was worried and anxious, but also curious and (I’ll admit) idealistic. So much has changed in the last 7 (!!) years, but also really not that much.

What’s Changed, or Where Am I Now

The professional experience I gained while writing for FYALE gave me insight into how libraries work. As a member of 3-person library team, I was involved in collections, ILS and LMS management, interlibrary loan, reference, and instruction. I was fortunate to have a strong mentor who allowed me to try (and fail) a variety of projects, and ultimately I was able to identify the areas of librarianship I was best suited for. The combination of a supportive mentor and a platform like FYALE to explore the profession and learn from peers, aided in my search for my niche within the profession.

After leaving that position, I became the liaison librarian to the online Master of Social Work program at the University of Southern California. To say it was a complete change of pace from my previous job would be an incredible understatement. While my day-to-day work was largely the same (reference, instruction, collection development), working at a huge R-1 university where librarians were faculty and on a tenure-like system couldn’t have been a bigger culture shock. Suddenly I was faced with tenure and promotion schedules, publication and presentation requirements, and having to navigate a complex system of hierarchies and (sometimes unwritten) rules. More than anything, due to being part of a faculty system and serving on the library’s faculty council, I learned about power – how it works, how its distributed, how its sustained, and who doesn’t get any. I realized I wanted to move into a position that would allow me to have positional influence to be able to redistribute power to those least likely to get it.

With that realization, I changed positions and institutions to take on a role with positional authority and to continue to develop what were my burgeoning skills in facilitation and programmatic design and assessment. At The Claremont Colleges Library, I manage a team of two librarians and a handful of student staff members who do first-year instruction and non-curricular outreach, as well as overseeing our reference program. We’re a team that builds relationships and we especially look for ways to support students who are marginalized or historically underserved. It’s rewarding, but hard – and hoo boy do I still have a lot to learn about power.

What hasn’t changed, or How I’ll Always Be a Rabble Rouser

In one of my FYALE posts on critical librarianship (though I didn’t call it that at the time), I stated that my goal in instruction was for “my students to be rabble rousers.” While that statement shows my naivety to think that all students get a fair shake in their rabble-rousing opportunities, and obfuscates how the privileges I have allow me to a rabble rouse, I still kinda want to be around people who can shake things up, who are willing to confront and change harmful status quos. In addition to maintaining my, and developing a more complicated understanding of, critical library instruction practice, I’ve adopted anti-oppressive management techniques and seek out opportunities to identify ways to relinquish and redistribute power in my organization. I’m using the skills I’ve developed over the last 7 years – facilitation, lesson planning, program and outcomes assessment, qualitative methodology, and coalition building – for management, supervisory, and leadership roles in order to create more just and equitable processes in my workplace.

Moving Forward, or What Does the Future Hold

Like everyone else, I have no idea what the future will bring. I hope to move into more management and leadership positions, but what that will look like or where that will be is anyone’s guess. What I do know is that, in my experience, past is prelude. Since being an FYALE blogger, I’ve learned to do more listening than talking, more asking than answering. I try to attend at least one conference a year where I don’t present, so I can spend the time soaking up new knowledge rather than spending (at least part of it) obsessing over my slides and notes. And as I continue to find my way in this profession, as I take on more management and leadership roles, I know that deep and reflective listening will be my most-needed skill. I intend for the trajectory of my career to be one of inclusion and antiracist practice, and to continue the work of listening, problem-solving, and rabble rousing.

Burning with Your Own Passions

Since 2008, ACRLog’s “First Year Academic Librarian (FYAL) Experience” series has annually featured 1-2 academic librarians in their first year on the job in an academic library. This new series, “Where Are They Now? Former FYALs Reflect,” features posts from past FYAL bloggers as they look back on their trajectories since their first year. This month, we welcome a post from Kimberly Miller, Assessment Librarian and Liaison to Psychology at Towson University. 

“Where are they now?” 

Right now? Like many of you, right now I am at home seeking quiet and solitude away from the chaos of managing work, family, school, and self-care during a global health crisis. Thinking back to my first-year librarian experience, I can’t help but laugh and think, as our ALSC colleagues already reminded us, responding to a global pandemic was definitely not covered in library school.

What’s Happened?

In 2012, shortly before joining ACRLog as an First Year Academic Library Experience (FYALE) blogger, I was hired as Emerging Technologies Librarian & Liaison to Psychology at Towson University. In that role I provided technology leadership within the library’s Research and Instruction Department. I also taught information literacy workshops, provided student and faculty research help, and worked with the Psychology-related collection. While the open-ended nature of the role was sometimes daunting (what exactly “counts” as an “emerging technology” still remains a mystery to me), all-in-all it was a great first position because the diversity in my responsibilities provided a lot of areas for exploration and growth. And some of that growth, particularly around risk taking and experimentation, is captured in my FYALE blog posts. 

Over time, as I began to articulate my expertise and vision, I successfully advocated to narrow my position to focus specifically on “learning technologies” necessary to support formal and informal learning within the library. Other highlights between my first year and now include:

  • Changing my job description (twice)
  • Applying for, and achieving, rank promotion and permanent status
  • Participating in ACRL’s Immersion and the Institute for Research Design in Librarianship
  • Attending too many conferences and serving on too many committees
  • Starting an instructional technology doctoral program and, recently, transfering to the masters program (graduating May 2020!)
  • Becoming a parent
  • Serving in leadership positions within regional and national professional organizations
  • Collaborating with senior library leadership as librarian representative to the library’s Leadership Council

Turning Point

As I reflect on those experiences it’s clear to me that the month I had a child and was notified that I was awarded permanent status marked a significant turning point for me personally and professionally. When I returned to work, I realized I was spending more time managing projects and, indirectly, the people associated with those projects than I was exploring and creating technology-based instruction itself. And I was good at it. I loved my job and the people I worked with, and I had developed a talent for leading people to solve interesting problems. As a doctoral student, I also gained a deeper expertise in educational leadership and professional development necessary to take on new challenges. At the same time, I was growing tired of running into the same roadblocks and questioning whether what I did really mattered while seeing little opportunity to grow into new professional areas.

In my cubicle, a now-faded handwritten quote reminds me that “People who do not blaze with their own passions burn out.” This quote has been my guiding principle as I’ve made decisions, both small and large, about how I spend my time. Throughout my career, one of my driving forces has been a desire to deeply understand the rationale behind our work and the evidence needed to help make that work a success. With this in mind, I proposed that my experiences and interests made me a good fit for the new Assessment Librarian position our Dean of University Libraries announced in the Fall of 2018. After several conversations and some final job description editing, I transitioned into my new role as TU’s Assessment Librarian in January 2019.

Now and the Future

I’ll admit that, unlike technology, assessment initiatives are not high on the list of exciting or flashy library projects. But I would argue that’s because assessment is best when it is infused within all other work that we do on a day-to-day basis. Assessment is not just counting, number crunching, and correlating. The flashiest project will fizzle if we don’t know how or why it was successful. And that’s what assessment is about to me – it is being curious and asking questions about the way our services, systems, and collections support our community. Academic libraries make profound differences within and beyond our campuses, and the best way to continue doing so is to continually learn from our work. 

As an Assessment Librarian, I find meaning in dispelling myths about assessment while building our library staff and faculty’s capacity to apply evidence within their specific domains to provide excellent user support and services. While I help everyone learn about the nuts-and-bolts of assessment, I also get to tie assessment to how we explore new possibilities for serving our users. For example, in November I spoke to our staff as part of our library’s Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility (IDEA) Spark series about using assessment to dispel the “myth of average” when designing library services, spaces, and resources. I’m excited to explore how I can continue to support this work in the next stage of my career.

While the jump from instructional technology to assessment may seem strange to some, for me it was a chance to lean into new skills and solve new challenges while leveraging the talents I cultivated in my previous role. I also continue to learn a lot about navigating the politics of projects that require working both horizontally and vertically within the library’s organizational chart. As the first person in this new role, I have come full circle and once again find myself with an open-ended opportunity to shape our library’s path forward on key strategic initiatives. This time, I get the unique and exciting privilege of a front row seat to the amazing work happening in nearly every area of our library. I can’t wait to see what else I didn’t learn in library school!

A Wrinkle in Time

Since 2008, ACRLog’s “First Year Academic Librarian (FYAL) Experience” series has annually featured 1-2 academic librarians in their first year on the job in an academic library. This new series, “Where Are They Now? Former FYALs Reflect,” features posts from past FYAL bloggers as they look back on their trajectories since their first year. This month, we welcome a post from Susanna Smith, Acquisitions Librarian and Instructional Designer at Georgia Highlands College Library. 

Last time I wrote for ACRLog, back in June 2009, I was a librarian working as a Library Technical Assistant managing a one-person library at a small satellite community college campus in Alabama. Whew. Today … life is completely different, and not just because I’ve been working from home nearly a month! I’m currently the Acquisitions Librarian (who also wears a Reference and Instruction hat most days) at a medium-sized state college in Georgia. I received my M.Ed. in Instructional Design and Technology a couple of years ago so I also work as an Instructional Designer for our Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, developing workshops for faculty and consulting with them on course design. And boy, howdy, I’ve been busy. I’ve recently been working with a library team to revamp our student learning objectives, assessment tools, and our peer observation form. I was part of the group who successfully got the library faculty included in the promotion and tenure process. And in my acquisitions role I’ve helped us switch to a new LMS, started a major weeding project removing 20k plus monographs, learned to negotiate with vendors and manage database resources, and juggled what was for me a mind-boggling budget. That’s a long way from sitting for ten hours a day at a tiny library’s circulation desk!

So how did I get from there to here? As with most stories, it starts with an unexpected change in circumstances.

In 2011, I got a new job. When I started the paraprofessional position in 2007, I helped open a branch campus library and this new job was much the same, except I would actually be library faculty. WooHoo! So my husband and I packed up our bags, moved to northwest Georgia, and I set to work building a new library from the ground up. The physical space was already determined, but I designed the layout, chose the furniture, and built the collection (mostly with second copies culled from the main library). It was another one-person-library situation, but it became clear pretty quickly that we definitely needed a second person to hold down the fort because I was in the classroom so often. For three years I continued to teach 30-50 library sessions a semester on two satellite campuses, and spent the rest of my time at the reference desk. I even had the opportunity to attend ACRL Immersion, which was a life- and instruction- changing experience for me. (Quick plug: I highly recommend it, especially if you feel inadequate in front of a class full of students.)

But ultimately, I still felt the siren-call of technical services. In a past life I was a bookstore special orders and office manager so in 2015, when our beloved Acquisitions Librarian retired, I applied and moved to the main campus to take over. It was a dream come true! I ordered books, managed databases, worked with vendors, did some cataloging. I still spent time at the reference desk, but I was mostly involved with back-office technical services projects.

Until….

I realized I actually missed being in the classroom. Wait a minute … I’m an introvert … how was that possible? Those few classes I had to teach at my first job were always the least fun things I did. But after being in the classroom so much in my recent position, I’d come to enjoy the interaction and now I realized I wanted to continue that. Enter another unexpected opportunity: At about the same time as this surprising self-revelation, the college’s web-based course offerings expanded mightily. The library needed someone to become an “embedded librarian” and work with those online faculty and students. I volunteered, and discovered a whole new world. I worked with faculty directly to develop assignments and even, in a few cases, did some grading. I learned how to use technology in ways far beyond searching databases for information. I started working with assessment, and scaffolding instruction sessions which would lead to better student learning, and considering what a structured one-shot class should look like instead of the free-for-all “teach the students everything in an hour” that is still common practice.

That work led me, eventually, to an instructional design program in 2016 and to where I find myself now. As I’ve been considering what to write for this post, I realized how much has changed in my life over the past ten years. It didn’t seem like such a seismic shift when I was in the moment, but reflecting back I am in awe of how different I am today. And that brings me to another startling bit of self-reflection. What should I call myself? Librarian, certainly. But I also live a lot of my life now on the “teaching faculty” side of the house, wearing my instructional designer hat. I’ve had the opportunity recently to apply for a library managerial position as well as an instructional designer position. I decided against both because, as I told my husband, “I am a librarian at heart.” I never wanted to be an administrator, so that was easy. And I can connect students and faculty with the information they need when they need it using all my hats. In reference and instruction, I do it the old-fashioned way. In acquisitions, I listen to what they need and find the resources to meet that need. As an instructional designer, I work on a meta-level, through pedagogy and design and lay the groundwork for teaching BOTH faculty and students how to better meet their information needs.

If I’ve changed this much in ten years, I wonder what life will be like in 2030? Onward and upward!

Seven years later

Since 2008, ACRLog’s “First Year Academic Librarian (FYAL) Experience” series has annually featured 1-2 academic librarians in their first year on the job in an academic library. This new series, “Where Are They Now? Former FYALs Reflect,” features posts from past FYAL bloggers as they look back on their trajectories since their first year. This month, we welcome a post from Ian McCullough, Physical Sciences Librarian and Associate Professor of Bibliography at the University of Akron.

In 2012 I had the distinct pleasure of being a First Year Academic Librarian blogger for ACRLog. As part of this “where are they now” series, let’s talk about the years since I last blogged here.

One of the reasons I originally wanted to blog is I had absolutely no professional network as a new librarian. Librarianship was a second career and I worked in a lab while taking courses online at night. We had class meetups in Nashville, but the department was in Knoxville and things like collaboration, mentoring, and research opportunities were a step removed from campus. ACRLog got me the attention of people I still call friends. As a new and rootless academic librarian on the tenure trail, the blogging experience was incredibly helpful to me.

Since I stopped blogging in 2013, a lot of things have happened at University of Akron, many for the bad. Our enrollment has dropped by about 10,000 students total which caused predictable Survivor-style winnowing of the workforce via layoffs, not filling positions, and buyouts. There are about half the library faculty as when I arrived and a liaison system seems unrealistic given staffing levels that cannot support the number of subject librarians one would need to do the idea justice. I personally am liaison to nine departments, about 120 faculty and around 1,900 students. I remember being at a conference and someone saying they had 700 students they were liaison for and the room gasped. I was jealous.

I have had, as of now, five university presidents, three provosts, and two library deans. There were many retirements, one of which was my direct supervisor who retired at the end of 2015. I was asked if I would be interim head of the Science & Technology Library, which I agreed to and began in January 2016. A colleague who was more experienced turned down the opportunity, and I was the only other faculty in the branch at that moment. I took the job and had absolutely no reduction in my liaison librarian duties as physical sciences librarian.

I had more than five years of management experience going into the job, so the mechanical parts of management (budgeting and HR stuff) were pretty easy. But it was difficult to leave the faculty bargaining unit, my spot on Faculty Senate, and in general go over to “the other side”. I maintain that my most significant accomplishments as Interim head of the S&T Library are helping relocate the engineering tutoring program physically within the library and getting snack machines put outside the library entrance so students wouldn’t have to leave the building after hours for food. I believe students are more appreciative of the latter accomplishment. After a calm and relatively successful time in this position, another colleague left library management at University of Akron for library management at Harvard University – a career downgrade I still don’t understand. (Don’t send that email, it’s a joke.) Given the particular personal and professional dynamics of the workgroup, I was offered the opportunity to take over leadership of yet another unit. I accepted and became an assistant dean (“ass dean” of course) in December of 2017. If you are following along at home, this is lab rat to assistant dean in less than five and a half years. At the beginning of this position I had two staff, two contract professionals, and seven faculty librarians as direct reports.

When I took this new role, there was absolutely no reduction in my liaison librarian or interim department head duties. I was, quite simply, doing what had once been three jobs (actually more than three jobs, as the S&T Head had absorbed a third of a job before retirement). Also, I was on the tenure clock trying to produce an appropriate number of articles, presentations, and accomplishments in professional service to meet our promotion benchmarks. In this I was successful – I got tenure and promotion in July 2018. I would be curious to learn of other tenure track assistant deans who had the position without tenure yet. I gather it’s a very rare occurrence, but is also a sign of how much upheaval was happening at my place of work.

This is when burnout started to set in. I could do the job, or the three jobs, but I could not do the three jobs well. I was spinning plates, putting out fires, and other notable metaphors for spasmodic action. This period really sucked because working hard to be adequate is a poor trade. Department chairs had a group that met regularly and talked about common issues, not so with assistant deans. I felt my social world constrain at work, and being a manager is hard emotional labor. I learned about the fears, difficulties, illnesses, and family situations of my colleagues at a deeper level than I really wanted. Shouldering all that personal grief and pain for everyone was difficult, more so because the universe of people I could talk to about it was so, so small.

I also started having clashes with coworkers – sometimes about performance issues, sometimes about claims unbacked by facts, sometimes about the direction of the university and the library. It was honestly a miserable experience that I stayed in too long because of money (pro-tip – you make extra money in administration) and not wanting to abandon my dean who also has a huge workload. The final breaking point was an interim president seemingly hell-bent on making the worst decision possible, implemented and communicated in the worst and most aggressive way possible. I mulled it over for many months and asked to step down at the end of July 2019. When I told my wife about the decision, in part to apologize because we would be living leaner, she said, “Oh thank God.” The person who knows me best had been wishing for me to get out of the situation for months and was overjoyed.

The classic union song, “Which Side Are You On” was written by Florence Reece in 1931. My dad was an autoworker and union activist and I remember seeing Pete Seeger sing this evergreen tune live in Detroit. To say that unionism is part of my life is an understatement – it’s a bedrock element of my identity. Increasingly, while a dean, I felt that I was on the wrong side. The university response to economic crisis was, to me, authoritarian and inexplicable, explanations didn’t make sense and discussion was not welcome. The herky-jerky management led to a lot of wasted effort around the university as plans had to be discarded almost as fast as you could attempt implementation. If you do go into academic leadership, you are carrying water for the upper leadership and their decisions – you don’t get to hide when you disagree and leaving the position is the most honest thing you can do if you don’t like what’s happening. I think the only thing I really miss is the occasional (and very flattering) head hunter emails I used to get. Right after I left management, we hired a new university president who is, so far, “pinch yourself, am I dreaming” good. His wizardly move? Running the university like other institutions.

Since leaving management I have become union liaison for University Libraries and was then elected to the Akron-AAUP executive committee. Guess I just like being in the middle of things. I’ve been able to refocus on my librarianship, which I only had three years to figure out before taking on managerial duties, and reconnect with faculty friends. I’ve been able to refocus on previous projects I had to drop before – like learning more about data. I am happier and get more enjoyment from my job. Ultimately, my stint as an assistant dean didn’t suit my values and that internal conflict started leaking out in my disposition. I don’t think the state of Ohio or the university is well-served by eliminating traditional majors and steering students into class delivery modes, and possibly majors, they don’t really prefer. Right now there’s a risk of universities outsourcing their teaching to a cyborg nightmare of Pearson, Cengage, and Blackboard due to financial desperation. That is a future worth fighting against.

Which side are you on?