Just Thinking

Communication & Leaving Things Behind

In March, I attended ACRL. The first session I attended was a morning panel entitled “Academic Library Leaders Discuss Difficult Topics.” The panelists (Jee Davis, Trevor Dawes, and Violete Illik) covered a range of topics and shared their insights with a full house. I took away many tidbits however, one insight stood out. The panel was discussing communication and how a common refrain from folks is that communication is just not transparent enough from leadership. In working through what this means, Trevor said, “Communication goes both ways.”

A simple idea but for me, an insight that stood out. As both a current department head and someone who aspires to continue in administrator roles, I’m constantly trying to think about how to communicate information, at what level, and how frequently. But I think Trevor’s point serves as a good reminder; if you have the expectation for leaders to communicate, they also need you to communicate. Leaders can’t be expected to know everything, especially if the people who have that information aren’t sharing it up. Now granted, sometimes sharing up is hard because of the structures and or culture in place. However, this can be worked around. It requires folks to understand the structures and empower people to share, both good news and more challenging news.

I’ve been thinking a lot about sharing up recently because of a situation I found myself in. A colleague left the institution and in an attempt to try to solve a problem at the reference desk, I opened a can of worms on a service I didn’t know much about. The colleague left behind some information but it wasn’t robust. They also hadn’t alerted the partners in this service about their departure so when I checked in to gain some more information, the partners were surprised to hear about me.

Now I know that when folks leave institutions, it’s not always on the best terms or with the most generous timeline. I even wrote about the impossibility of tying up loose ends when I left my last institution a few years ago. There’s a lot procedurally to do to leave an institution and consequently, messes will get left for those still at the institution to clean up. However, what are ways to prevent messes, even before someone considers leaving? How do we encourage folks to lay the groundwork, document it along the way, and share that knowledge with more than just one person? This kind of structural work isn’t the most exciting but I think it can be some of the most important work.

This whole situation had me also thinking about my first post I wrote for ARCLog, about setting a project up for success, knowing full well that someday you might not be doing that work anymore. I know it can feel great to work on a project, know it inside and out, and feel secure that no one can do that work like you can. But ultimately, if we want that work to be sustainable and impactful, we have to make sure we are setting both the project and someone else up for success. I think this includes documentation of some kind and talking openly about the work (to all levels of the organization).

To be honest, this scenario isn’t limited to only when someone leaves an institution. I remember one summer at my past institution where my colleague and I had some family issues arise. We were going to need to be out for parts of the summer, primarily over our larger outreach work that we co-led. When my supervisor asked what documentation we had to support our colleagues stepping in to do this work, we didn’t have anything. Luckily, we had some time to get everything squared away before we were out but life happens, our jobs are just one part of us, and we need to make sure we have information to pass along.

So my takeaways from this situation is documenting what I can about this can of worms I opened up. I’m talking to folks (across, down, and up) in my organization about what I’m learning and how it applies to their work. I’m thinking even more about how I communicate department work to my supervisor and how I can create opportunities for the team to share their work, at a variety of levels, to various audiences. With summer just right around the corner, I’m hoping to get some time to work on some of that documentation for my work. It’s never too early to lay the groundwork for the work I’ve done and what I’ve learned along the way.

Would love to hear from you reader – do you have strategies to help communicate both ways? Do you have ways of creating work that is sustainable and actionable, even if someone has to leave your institution? Would love to hear your strategies and insights on this topic!

Mysteries of Liaison Librarianship

I’m not saying I’m worried about faculty and students taking me seriously as a librarian, but harkening back to my days as a teenager who used to be a big fan of emo music: sometimes I feel misunderstood.

I recently read the article “The Librarians Are Not OK: A years-long attack on their status is bad for all of us,” written by Joshua Doležal, and published in The Chronicle of Higher Education. Despite Joshua using the same title as Anne Helen Petersen’s empathetic and heralding CALM 2022 keynote, he gets at several things I’ve experienced in my early tenure as a librarian.

I’m an early-career librarian who is still sorting out what it means to be an academic librarian. I work as a liaison librarian, supporting several departments in our Faculty of Science. My entire ethos as a liaison librarian—and one that I share constantly when speaking to students—is that I want to make things easier for them, to save them time. And I do, if they and their professors let me.

I search for opportunities to talk to students about information literacy and save them time as they search for and access library resources. But there’s a misunderstanding of what librarians do. I recently had lunch with a faculty member and graduate student. We were talking about library services for graduate students, and neither had much idea of what library services are available to them. This isn’t their fault; in a lot of ways, libraries have a marketing and advocacy problem. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve spoken with my friends, and they have no idea about the bulk of my job. I need to liaise with students and faculty in my subject areas, but if they don’t have any idea of what I can do for them, doesn’t that fall—at least in part—on me?

As librarians, we’re knowledgeable and we have deep professional knowledge. We’re the ones implementing and maintaining the systems that allow our patrons to find resources in our catalogue; we’re the ones ensuring our collections support curricula at the institution; and we’re the ones expertly and concisely instructing on how to find, access, and use all kinds of information. We need to make sure our community knows this and for more people to know what our work consists of.

Shirley Phillips writes in a recent Globe & Mail opinion article, that librarians she knew would “literally search the world over, using their knowledge and uncanny problem-solving skills to find needles in haystacks. But they also helped high school students with their homework. No matter the question, there was no judgment. They went out of their way to put people at ease, ferreting out their true needs, especially those who were ashamed to display what they thought of as ignorance in a knowledge-based institution. It was public service at its finest.”

I think so, too.

Advocating for Mental Health Together: Why Library Professionals Should Be At The Forefront of Advocacy

This post comes from a guest poster, Alejandro Marquez. Alejandro is a Collection Development Librarian at the Auraria Library which serves the University of Colorado Denver, Metropolitan State University of Denver, and the Community College of Denver.

The academic library is open the most staffed hours of any public building on campus. We open early for students to use the computers, print papers, or use the photocopier before class. The library provides a clean and climate-controlled space for individuals to study and learn even on the weekends when other departments are closed. Individuals visit the library to ask for directions or help navigating the physical campus. Because we see a wide swath of students, community patrons, and individuals experiencing issues such as housing insecurity, food insecurity, we should be able to recognize the signs of mental health distress. Healthier patrons equals healthier interactions which mean less trauma for employees.

As a community hub of campus, libraries have a mission to advocate for their communities and the workers themselves. I see advocating for emotional well being as being tied in with librarianships’s values of promoting social justice. The role of library professionals is to support belonging, build trust, and relationships within the library and in the academic community. All of these actions support student retention and employee retention. A healthy student body and healthy workforce support student retention and staff retention.

The profession needs to go beyond the traditional approaches to thinking about our work to meet the needs of our community. Libraries have always supported the traditional concept of literacy and mental health literacy is just another variation of our core mission. Many library professionals are woefully under trained nor equipped to handle mental health and there needs to be an active investment of resources to ensure success.

There are high levels of burnout and low morale in library professionals and it is compounded by similar experiences of university students, staff, and faculty who they also interact with and serve. Library professionals experience difficult situations and pass it on to the people we help and our loved ones at home. Later, our loved ones pass it back to us and we take it back to work where we begin the cycle anew. It becomes a never ending draining cycle. There is a recognition that even mildly difficult interactions can compound over time and create secondary trauma.

It can become overwhelming to think where to start addressing the issues when there is an interconnectedness and an action and reaction between the corresponding entities. The theory that I like comes from the field of safety science called the swiss cheese model. James Reason, a professor at Manchester University, introduced this model in his book, Human Error. A block of swiss cheese is full of holes and when cut into slices the number of holes and size vary from one slice to another. These holes could represent shortcomings, weaknesses, hazards, or potential for failure. Each layer has holes and no layer is perfect. Since all the slices have holes in different places, stacking them up reduces the risk. The openings are covered by other slices. The strengths in some parts can negate weaknesses in others. With any complex issue, there is no magic bullet and it is rare that there is any one single root cause. It requires all of those things, not just one of those things. Small changes enacted by individuals or organizations can broaden the safety net.

The following levels of care are meant to be fluid and can bleed into one another. They are built on trust, commitment, and accountability. Each of us has a duty to care for ourselves and others. Not everyone is a manager but they can be a leader. Leadership at all levels is needed to address the issue and improve well being. This collective and coordinated action involves library professionals, the organization, and the entities that fund and support our work. This is a community problem and will only be solved with the help of everyone.

On the individual level, the more immediate environment encompasses relationships between coworkers, library members, and staff. Self care is the most commonly heard phrase in the mass media. It calls for individuals to take care of themselves after a stressful day due to personal or professional obligations. Common remedies are getting enough sleep, exercise, or enjoying an indulgence. This level of care assumes that the responsibilities were difficult but manageable. Audre Lorde’s essay, A Burst of Light, illustrates this idea: “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.” It is like they tell you on the airplane, put your mask on first. You are unable to help another patron or coworker unless you are well yourself. People often feel guilty about taking time for themselves. Your health is just as important as others.

Individual Level Questions

Are staff receiving training and feedback?
Are there sufficient professional development opportunities?
Is the workload manageable?
Are individuals treated with civility and respect?
Are patron and staff interactions warm and inviting?
Can people afford to make a living at the job or do they have to work two jobs?

Collective care is the duty to advocate for coworkers and the work being done in departments. It requires building a culture of care so no one slips through the cracks. It is our duty to champion their health and wellness as we are interdependently connected. It increases work and life balance that create stronger and stable dynamics within a unit.

Organizational care is one in which institutions have a robust medical and mental health plan for their employees. A good benefits package shows that organizations care about their workers. It can help with recruitment and retention. Flexibility in the work schedule allows workers to spend more time with their families which allows individuals to balance child care and other life commitments.

Departmental And Organization Level Questions

Are there supportive policies such as remote and flexible work schedules, COVID policies, diversity, pay equity?
Are there clear expectations and NOT vague workplace fit and professionalism standards?
Are we only valuing work that is easily measurable? What about emotional labor and diversity work?
Are there systems in place for hiring, pay, promotion, and retention?
Are we making sure that there is pay equity?
Is there adequate staffing and resources?

Societal care is a public that funds quality medical and mental health services for all individuals regardless of their ability to pay for it. This creates a healthier workforce and prevents future social costs. We saw during the pandemic that the most vulnerable communities were affected because they didn’t have healthcare nor paid time off. Physical and mental health shouldn’t come with any financially or culturally imposed moral failings or blame.

Socio-Political Level Questions

How does the profession advocate for government investment of time, money, and resources?
How do library workers promote critical thinking to counter the wave of anti-intellectualism?
How do individuals fund libraries as a social good?
How do institutions lower the cost of the masters of library science degree?
How do organizations retain BIPOC librarians?
How should libraries contribute to the larger societal conversations on racism, discrimination, and marginalization?

Overall, libraries need to be able to give employees the tools and confidence to try to meet these modern problems. These challenges create opportunities for change. We should treat this situation not as something to run away from but as a signal that there is something to understand.

Coming out of a January fog

January and the first part of February is usually a tricky time of year for me. I’m both buoyed by the promise of a new year and bogged down by the weather and amount of daylight available to me. January feels like a slog; I’m just trying to make it through. There are moments during the first days of the year where I feel like my motivation is at an all time high. I see the connections between work projects, I see the direction for the department, and I see the impact we can have. There are other moments where I feel stuck and there’s so much coming at me I’m not sure what to pick up next.

I think this January has also been an interesting time to be at my university. Similar to other colleges and universities, we are facing budgetary challenges and declining enrollment. We also recently named an interim president and are settling into new leadership. There’s a lot of uncertainty that you can feel every time you step foot on campus. When I talk with my colleagues about May, the summer, even the fall, there’s always an unspoken (or sometimes spoken) phrase of, “But who knows what the context will be then.” The uncertainty makes it hard to move forward confidently. We might decide to go left only to learn we’ll need to loop around to go right a few months later.

All of these things – the slog, the uncertainty, the potential opportunities – has made me think a lot more about prioritization. How do we decide on what is a priority? How do we have those conversations? How do we make the tough decisions? How do we pivot? And how do we accept the change we know is coming but aren’t sure what it will look like yet? I don’t have any answers but I know that getting through the January slog means having the space to work through these questions and figure out where to step next.

And in these moments, when my head is turning, I am so thankful to have a network of support. The friends and colleagues I turn to get through the slog, hold the uncertainty, and celebrate the successes. I’ve been so appreciative to have fellow department heads at other institutions to talk to, a research group to get excited about and hold me accountable to research, my various text message threads with friends who send funny gifs, screenshots, all the emojis, and voice messages, my colleagues within the library to strategize with, and my colleagues across the institution who I can get coffee with and chat about what we can do together.

I feel that I’ve emerged from the January fog and that feels wonderful. What about you? How are you getting through these first couple of months? What’s been on your mind and who has been there to help support you?

Core-Skills Based or Task-Focused Academic Librarianship?

In the forecourt of his temple were inscribed the words ‘Know yourself’, since it was only with self-knowledge that a human could unravel the confusing tangle of the priestess’s words.
Charlotte Higgins, Greek Myths: A New Retelling

I read an interesting column in University Affairs that argues work in academia is often task-focused. The authors, Alexander Clark and Bailey Sousa, gives task-focused examples such as organizing meetings, responding to email, and teaching. However, they advocate that to be a happy academic, you should adopt a core-skills based approach. This includes improving your learning and writing skills, being creative and influential, and working well with others and yourself. While Clark and Sousa’s advice is interesting to think about and certainly aspirational, I can’t help but think of my work as task-focused, but at the same time I want to continue to develop core skills.

As someone fairly new to librarianship, I like to think I am actively cultivating the habits that Clark and Sousa write about: by challenging myself and applying and volunteering for opportunities, practicing my formal and informal writing, and taking time to reflect on challenges and success alike. Many of us in academic librarianship continue to build these core skills. Our jobs consist of short- and long-term tasks, projects, advancement, professional development, and so on. I think there’s room for both core skills and tasks.

At the University of Manitoba, our library is currently going through a reorganization by implementing functional roles for liaison librarians, things like research data management, collections development, and instruction. At the same time, we’re evaluating our current level of liaison library services and determining which services to prioritize. Within our library, we will be holding focus groups with liaison librarians to ask what it means to be a liaison, what the core parts of our job are, and what tasks are we doing as liaisons? I appreciate having my voice heard during this process and it gets me to reflect on what I do in my role.

I think it’s important for all academic librarians to think about the work they’re doing and whether they find meaning in and are actively engaged in librarianship. I am reminded of the words of Kim Leeder, in her wonderful article from 2010, My Maverick Bar: A Search for Identity and the “Real Work” of Librarianship, wonders what exactly her job is. Ultimately Leeder discovers what her job consists of: “[m]y real work is Knowledge. If I hold that goal in mind, the details of how I accomplish it on daily basis begin to fall into place.”

Some of my duties, like instruction, support Knowledge directly. Other tasks, like tracking how many reference questions I respond to, are not tied to that higher goal–they’re more administrative–but are necessary for the reality of my workplace. If I want to continue in my job, I can’t just stop doing those less crucial tasks, but I can prioritize my efforts and most of all, reflect on what our work really comprises.

I challenge each of you to think about your real work of librarianship and how you build your core skills and continue with your task-focused duties.