Just Thinking

The forest and / or / versus the trees

I was chatting with a friend the other day when she made a comment about an administrator at her institution with whom she’d had a difficult exchange: he was a “trees person,” not a “forest person.” As in, he couldn’t see the forest for the trees. I’ve been thinking a lot about this comment — about what it means to be one or the other, about what it means to strike a balance between both.

Since the start of my library career, my work has centered around teaching and learning. In this domain, I can see many ways that a “trees” and / or / versus a “forest” vantage point might play out. In a one-shot library instruction session, for example, a trees orientation might mean laboring over each filter, each click in a database at the expense of more forest-like work conceptualizing a research question and operationalizing it with effective keywords. A trees perspective could mean strictly adhering to every component of the lesson plan at all costs whereas a forest perspective could mean veering off-script to take advantage of a student’s unexpected question and have a meaningful conversation about the research process. Yet ignoring the trees altogether could mean that students walk out of class without the practical means to apply the important concepts under discussion to their own next steps. A skilled instructor aims to strike a balance, no? And that balance is ever-shifting, requiring an instructor to zoom in on technical details and zoom out to big picture concepts, to be attuned to the needs of individual students while also moving the class as a whole forward, to be responsive in the moment yet not lose sight of the process and the larger goals.

In more recent years, my library work has included a healthy dose of middle-manager administrative responsibilities, too. In this domain, I can also see the trees and / or / versus forest metaphor playing out. We middle managers are at the intersection of our communities: providing direct service to our users while supervising, supporting, and advocating for our colleagues on the teams we lead while receiving, interpreting, and implementing directives from higher level leaders. Every day, in ways small and large, we need to zoom in and zoom out, be attuned to our users and our colleagues while moving our teams forward, be responsive in the moment yet not lose sight of larger organizational goals.

It’s no secret that my institution is going through some pretty serious turmoil, as are most higher ed institutions right now and for multiple reasons–maybe yours, too. I started this post with the hope of arriving at some larger realization to help me navigate this tumultuous moment, to guide me through these intersections and balance my thinking and my approach. Because, with significant change already underway at my institution and still more serious change expected in the near future, it feels like the stakes are higher than ever, that my ability to see both the forest and the trees at the same time is all the more important.

In many ways, I would say that I approach my day-to-day life with a trees perspective. My focus on getting through my to-do list can sometimes mean that I forget to look up, to widen my gaze, to think big. I work to make space for forest thinking but that vantage point sometimes doesn’t come easily. So I find myself wanting to try to articulate items I can add to my to-do list, steps I can practice — the trees, if you will — to cultivate my forest perspective in this uncertain landscape. It strikes me now that by reflecting on my work in the teaching and learning domain over all these years, I can indeed see how my ability to navigate between a trees and a forest mindset and praxis has grown, how I’ve been able to strike a careful balance, usually to good effect. And when I think about my daily practice, I recognize skills, habits, and attitudes that have been essential to that growth and the balance in and out of the classroom, especially those related to supporting communication, promoting transparency, and employing emotional intelligence. It’s not quite the lightning bolt, a-ha moment I was hoping for perhaps, but it is a reminder about the relevant skills and attitudes already available to me — to us — and the habits to practice. I feel bolstered by their broader relevance and their transferability to the here and now.

How do you cultivate a balance between “forest” and “trees” thinking? What does your experience in teaching and learning (or your domain of choice) teach you about middle management? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

Some Thoughts on Showing Up for Students and Overcoming Discouragement

I returned to library instruction this week bearing mixed emotions. On the one hand, I was excited to return to teaching after a pause between December and February that was replaced by other work priorities. I missed building connections in instruction sessions and individual consultations with first-year students and course instructors and navigating the library’s many materials and resources as a new employee. On the other hand, I returned with a great weight on my soul. The same December-February period has seen a series of assaults on information access that are too many to describe in just one post but include the scrubbing of data and resources from federal department and agency websites without notice and the downstream effect that government funding cuts will have on potentially impactful research. I mention this example not to revisit everything that has happened in Washington over the past several weeks but to say that I carried what was happening nationally in my mind and body.

The conflicted state I felt is one that many academic librarians across the country are very likely feeling. In these uncertain times, how we can best show up for our students and guide them toward becoming critical and responsible information users is a question that is more important and complex than ever. As a Black librarian, these questions are amplified by my concern for other students of color at my institution and my professional aim of creating a library space that is safe and inclusive—both now threatened by the undermining of DEI efforts on the federal level and increasingly in higher education nationwide.

As challenging as it will be with the brevity of one-shot instruction, consultations, and reference interactions, here are some ways I want to show up for my students this year:

Listen with intention and empathy: Having the patience to pay attention to what students are saying and the struggles they might face that are difficult to communicate.
Reinforce that I am a resource for different kinds of information: Remind students during classes, consultations, and more extended reference interactions that I can help them find things they need that are not just research-related.
Employ principles of trauma-informed teaching: Constantly be aware of stressful events and issues on campus and beyond that are potentially impacting my students and create a learning environment of safety, trust, autonomy, and support where appropriate and possible.
Model vulnerability and authenticity: Be honest with students about my struggles with research and library use and emphasize that I am growing like them.
Meet students where they are: Remember that, to borrow the focus of Dr. Carol Kuhlthau’s seminal research, the information search process will be different for each student and necessitates me working with them at the place they are at rather than pushing them to the “right” way of finding information first.

Whether I can meet even one of these goals remains as unclear as the direction of this administration. But even beyond the stress and nerves of teaching, two feelings I will likely struggle with this year are discouragement and disillusionment triggered by the state of the country and the fracturing of truth and fact due to mis and disinformation primarily online but also increasingly from unregulated artificial intelligence. In moments like these, it is vital to remind myself of the purpose of my role as a librarian–to support students in finding the information they need and equipping them with research skills they can use in college and life.

A few years ago, amid a challenging season of loss, a close artist friend of my partner and I named Soyoung Kim gifted us a watercolor sketch that we keep in our office. The sketch depicts a sailboat bobbing over blue waves with the following words on the bottom center: Advice for Discouraged Sailors 1. Stop 2. Steady Your Boat 3. Study Your Compass 4. Seek The Wind.

Image Credit: Soyoung Kim, 2023. See more of Soyoung’s work here!

As we journey into the deeper, busier waters of this semester and the uncertainty of this year, as we meet discouragements, disappointments, and failures, may we remember to pause, refocus, return to what inspired us to work in academic libraries, and pay attention what this work is calling us to do in these times.

No Librarian is an Island

If you were to walk into any university library during the last week of finals, some things are slowing down, while others remain. The thick air of stress, anxiety, and dread is slowly dissipating as more and more students depart for the winter break. Outside the reading rooms and study spaces, however, things are barely slowing down for academic library staff as systems and workflows continue to be maintained or, in some instances, ramp up. For my instruction team, our library workshops and summative assessments are complete. And yet, we are still busy completing postponed projects and pushing to prepare for the Spring semester as much as possible before the break, including planning for upcoming events, staff trainings, and library sessions in the near future.

Even though this slowdown is busy, there are still moments when I can pause and continue my reflection on the past semester. As I have written about in past posts, this first semester has been one of learning and discovery. I got more acquainted with the university where I work; I learned about the complexities of bringing politics into the classrooms; I learned that I could be honest about the limits of my knowledge when interacting with students. But the other thing I have started to learn is how my role connects with other departments in the library.

Over the last few months, I have tried to meet with as many department heads and managers as possible to lift the hood of their units and see how they operate. This effort has been challenging due to schedule constraints and an initial worry that I was imposing on their work. However, now that the semester is winding down, I have had more space to do this again.

Recently, I met with one of the heads of our Resource and Acquisition Management (RAM) Department and received some valuable insights into how it works. I learned how funds are allocated to purchase print books, ebooks, and journals, how academic database subscriptions like JSTOR are purchased and maintained, and how contracts for special circulating items like films are negotiated. On the one hand, I left the meeting with a slight headache as I thought about the amount of work being done behind the scenes to ensure students, faculty, and staff across the campus could access the resources and materials they needed. On the other hand, I gained a fuller picture of how the work that cataloging, acquisitions, metadata, and other staff within RAM did inform the research resources I introduced and demonstrated to students in library workshops and one-on-one consults throughout the semester.

Similar to my meeting with RAM, I met with each of our subject librarians in my first month at the library. The initial aim of these meetings was to compile a list of the most useful subject-specific resources I could share with students during reference interactions. However, it became much more than that. I gained names that I could refer students to for further assistance during and at the end of my research consults. Like RAM, I now had a better understanding of how a different team intersected with me and how we complimented each other’s work.

Much like poet John Donne’s well-known phrase “no man is an island,” no academic librarian is an island, a library of themselves. There is an interconnectedness in the work we do with staff whose roles and responsibilities are different from ours. These connections might not be immediately obvious at first but emerge as time passes. Even though I’m still new in the field, one piece of advice I want to share with any new or aspiring academic librarian is to go beyond just meeting peer coworkers; in your first weeks and months, meet with department heads and managers, find out what their department’s work entails and how it overlaps with yours. If there are not any immediately clear points of connection, perhaps this could be an opportunity for you and your department to start discussions around collaboration. Doing this will not only help you understand your Library better but can potentially unlock exciting professional opportunities as well.

For any academic librarian, regardless of tenure, the upcoming holiday break is a good moment to pause, reflect on your role and department, and ask: “Who are the colleagues I do not know?” “What could intentionally collaborating with them look like?” “What barriers might there be to collaborating.” Depending on the size and workplace culture of the library you work in, acting on these reflections might be easier for some than others, but you shouldn’t be afraid to try it out. Use 2025 to get off your island.

Home For a Rest

It’s time for a break, to be—as Spirit of the West sings—home for a rest! I’m in the final week of our Fall term, with a two-week break to look forward to. I don’t know about you, but I always feel ready for an extended time off at this time of year.

With my collections ordering finished for the year, all of my in-class and library workshops done and dusted for Fall, and with not a creature stirring, not even a mouse, at the reference desk, we’re ready to wrap things up for 2024.

2025 looks to be a year of change at my library. Our library system is currently grappling with a potential move of a portion of our physical collection to a storage facility outside our province, the potential reorganization of our librarian complement, and the announced retirement at the end of 2025 of our University Librarian, bringing in new library leadership.

There will be a lot of work to be done by not only library administrators, but also librarians with each of these changes. I’m eagerly and anxiously looking to how each changes and shapes our library.

For now, I plan to rest and relax on my break. I will be spending my holidays with my family and friends, watching and listening to endless entertainment, playing shinny at the outdoor rink, and cat-sitting our friends’ cat.

What am I currently reading?

Oracle Night by Paul Auster

“A Mindfulness-Based Information Literacy Framework for the Current Information Environment” (Matthew N. Hannah, Jennifer Hoewe, Hanna Sistek, Taeik Kim, & Dan Goldwasser) – Journal of Information Literacy (2024)

What am I currently watching?

HBO’s The Penguin, starring Colin Farrell and Cristin Milioti

We Live in Time, starring Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield

What am I currently listening to?

Hovvdy’s 2024 self-titled album

Dehd’s Poetry,

and an audiobook version of The Art Thief by Michael Finkel.

I’ll see you all in 2025! I hope everyone finds time for themselves and with those they care about in the last few weeks of 2024.

A Tough Semester’s Reflection

It’s finals week at my university, and naturally that leads to reflection on the semester that has just passed us by. I have learned, time and time again, that I do some of my best processing by writing about it. So let’s just come right out and say it: this has been an incredibly hard fall semester for me. This is my third go-around as an academic librarian, and there’s some sense of knowing what to expect at this point; perhaps that was my fatal error, because I couldn’t have predicted where this semester went.

I had a lot of energy at the beginning. I think a lot of us do come August, because we’ve got library instruction sessions lined up and the campus suddenly comes back alive when the students either arrive or return. We had a new librarian on our team and that in itself was exciting. September was relatively normal – things progressed just as they typically do. October is where everything fell off the rails.

Without going too deeply into the details, I lost someone that I considered a parental figure mid-October. My job was beautifully supportive of me during this time, because I had to be in Michigan (I work in Maryland) for about two and a half weeks. They entered hospice on October 3^rd, and they were gone on October 14^th – a mere 11 days. As instruction librarians will already note, this is often peak library session time. No one but myself made me feel this way, but I felt guilty about cancelling classes or shifting them to some of my coworkers. I wouldn’t call myself type A, but I do tend to hold myself to a high level (subsequently leading to burnout, though I’ve gotten much better at avoiding this as the years pass). I was prematurely thinking about the dip in my number of classes for my annual review, the responsibilities and writing I was putting off, and how that might affect my application for promotion next year.

Which is all scary to admit out loud (in blog format, anyway). While I was in the deepest throes of grief, barely able to comprehend eating on a regular basis, I worried about my job. Sounds incredibly American, doesn’t it? I rattled off an email to my dean and chair about an hour after it happened telling them that this person was gone, and in the same breath I wrote “I’ll be mostly out this week.” Reading it back, I 1) don’t really even remember sending this and 2) have an immediate reaction of, duh, you’ll be out; Emily, you didn’t need to update them so soon. I also am so, so grateful for the grace in their responses back to me, and throughout the time I was away. I won’t be sharing them because they never wrote them thinking they’d be in a blog post someday.

The funeral came and went, and the next day I was on a plane back to Maryland. I went back to work the following day, to an overflowing email inbox, to meetings, to a hybrid instruction session. I wore a hoodie previously owned by the person that I lost; having it around me felt like a lifeline while I tried to keep a game face for that entire Thursday. I could have easily just come back that following Monday, but I think at that point I really needed some semblance of my regular routine. Both things can be true at once, that it was one of the hardest days of work I’ve ever had and that it was needed for me to continue processing my loss by getting back to my life.

Not long after my first day back, we had the U.S. presidential election as well as a harrowing (alleged) situation at my university announced that same day, November 5^th. We all know how that election went, and the aftershocks of that event are still being felt at the university. I was in my lowest of lows, and unsure of where to direct the frustrated, scared energy that felt like it overflowed from me. One place was my previous post here on ACRLog; it honestly felt like I couldn’t do anything else until that was written and published. I have the platform, and I wanted to use it. I also ended up finishing a crochet blanket that my lost person had begun, which is the cover photo of this post. My pace is just simply slower right now, and I’m doing my best to be okay with it.

I know that this post is certainly not as library-related some of the absolutely stellar posts lately by our first-year academic librarians and other bloggers, but I just wanted to say: if this fall semester also sucked for you, I see you, and solidarity. Being an academic librarian is not the only, or even the primary, aspect of my personhood. It would be disingenuous to try and write a post focused solely on some issue within that realm in this season of my life. I hope the end of December and the coming new year brings you all rest, relaxation, and maybe even some bits of hope.