Just Thinking

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.

On-Boarding Colleagues: A Collaborative ACRLoggers Post

Recently, I’ve found myself talking and thinking about on-boarding. How do you successfully bring a new colleague into your organization? What types of on-boarding have you experienced that have worked? If you could be in charge of on-boarding, how would you do it? How can every person in an organization be an active participant with on-boarding? I thought these questions might be good to bring to the ACRLoggers group for our February collaborative post. Readers, feel free to add your thoughts in the comments!

We often think of on-boarding as the logistical pieces – getting a new email, setting up a laptop or device, knowing where to park, and having access to all the right systems and listservs. However we know there’s much more to on-boarding. In your opinion, what should be our philosophy with on-boarding? What should our ideal approach be?

Justin: I always think of on-boarding as setting up the new hire for success. That definitely includes the more logistical components that Hailley mentions, but also providing long-term support, things like mentorship, communities of practice, and more relational components to the profession. We’re in a helping profession and that includes helping and supporting your colleagues.

Alex: In addition to what Justin said about giving the new hire what they need to succeed, I think it’s important to give them the knowledge and opportunities they need to find their own place in the organization. A lot of that “place” is dictated by the job they were hired to do, but this extends to committee involvement, social ties, etc. It’s important to be aware of your own biases when introducing someone new to an organization you may have been with for a long time. Are they the right person to fill a gap on a committee that you highly value the work of? Maybe, maybe not. Do they need to know you had a negative experience with someone in this other department ten years ago? Probably not. Introduce them to everyone and give them the room to have their own interactions, identify where they can be of help, and draw their own conclusions.

What’s something you experienced when being on-boarded at an organization that you really appreciated or valued?

Justin: I really appreciate my library’s community of practice for early-career staff, called the New Archivists’ and Librarians’ Group. It’s a great place to share any issues early-career librarians and archivists have, and to talk about it in a safe space with your colleagues. We often talk about logistical pieces like our annual performance reviews and preparing for promotion, but we recognize the value in creating community; getting to know the early-career librarians and archivists you work is such a wonderful thing.

Alex: During the interview for my current position, I was given equal time to talk to and interact with staff as well as faculty in the library, which I appreciated. This extended into the onboarding, as I had one-on-one meetings with everyone in my library in the first two weeks, to get to know their roles and responsibilities as well as them as people.

Hailley: When I started my first academic library job, my immediate supervisor set up meetings for me that stretched throughout the first six weeks of my job. I got to meet many people, at many levels, throughout the library. It was a nice way to ease into things, move around the building, and create connections. In this job I also had a secondary supervisor. She found an opportunity for me to join the Common Read Committee, which put me in touch with colleagues across campus and gave me a project to jump into. When I think about on-boarding, I often think of these two supervisors; they were intentional about bringing me into the fold, getting me connected with colleagues, and giving me work I could start.

For supervisors, what are strategies or approaches you take when getting ready to on-board someone new into your department/unit/organization?

Hailley: As I mentioned above, I am definitely informed by my past supervisors and the ways I have been on-boarded into organizations. In thinking about on-boarding people into my department, I remind myself not everything and every introduction has to happen right away. I try to space out information and introductions over a longer period of time. I find ways to provide documentation, but also give colleagues space to read, digest, and reflect on their own time. I also try to involve as many folks as possible in on-boarding. While it’s great to hear from me as their supervisor, I want new colleagues to hear about the organization and department from their peers. Finally, when I think about on-boarding students into the library, I try to think about what context they will need to be successful. How do I set up conditions for them to have the information they need to do the work I want them to complete?

For those not supervising, what are approaches or things you do to help welcome and on-board someone who is joining your department/unit/organization?

Justin: As someone who’s been leading our new archivist and librarian group, I heartily encourage them to join us and attend meetings; it’s such a great and welcoming group! I also encourage new hires to reach out and talk to me or other librarians with any questions they have. I try to live my life by treating others how I would want to be treated, and I really, really, really appreciated the welcome and support I was shown when I was first hired. I try to remember that for anyone new that starts at my library.

Alex: I emphasize that I have an open-door policy whether you have a work-related question, want to know where the best Mexican restaurant is in the area, or just need to decompress and talk about literally anything else for a few minutes. Sometimes you need Alex the Access Services & Instruction Librarian, and sometimes you need Alex the Chimichanga Enthusiast or Alex the Pretty Good Listener.

How can or does on-boarding look different for those coming in as new professionals vs colleagues joining our organization who are mid or late career? Should we employ different strategies (and why)?

Justin: Definitely introducing those logistical things unique to your institution is important and ensuring mid- and late-career librarians are aware of anything unique to your institution (e.g. promotion and tenure guidelines). I’d also focus on establishing a welcoming and supportive work environment, which I think every librarian, regardless of career stage, can appreciate.

Hailley: Okay, so I wrote this question but I’m having a hard time answering it. This is a question I’ve been mulling over. I think as Justin mentions, there are obviously common on-boarding threads across all new hires. However, I’m wondering if there are different focuses depending on when you’re coming into a new organization and at what level (middle management, admin, etc.). No fully formed thoughts yet but something I’m chewing on.

Any other thoughts on on-boarding? Are there any resources you rely on or any last comments you’d like to make?

Justin: With job precarity becoming more common, I think it’s important to ensure you’re setting up librarians with skills and knowledge that not only benefits their current position, but also positions in the future. I recommend reading Julia Martyniuk, Christine Moffatt, and Kevin Oswald’s “Into the Unknown: Onboarding Early Career Professionals in a Remote Work Environment.” Though focused on remote on-boarding, I think their recommendation to “[cultivate] a sense of belonging for new hires” is such an important part of the on-boarding process.

Alex: I think we generally think of onboarding as being done after a couple days or weeks, but it should really be a one-year process, in my view. I started my job on January 2 several years ago, and all the year-end reports and statistics and processes like that were brand new to me even though my one-year anniversary was a week or two away the first time I encountered them.

Hailley: I agree with Alex. Especially within academic libraries, on-boarding is a year-long process so you can see the rhythms of fall, spring, and summer!

Communication Successes and Challenges

As the semester winds down to a close, I’m finding myself thinking often about communication within our libraries. Like many colleges and universities, mine is still firmly in a hybrid work mode — on any given weekday we have some library personnel working onsite in the library, and others working remotely. Since this is my first semester in my new position I’ve been spending a lot of time in face to face and online meetings with colleagues, but as I’m settling in I’m thinking more about how we all communicate with each other, and ways for us to feel connected to one another and reduce the barriers in our work.

This month I’m the ACRLog blogteam collaborative post coordinator, and I’m wondering about how we all communicate at the different libraries and institutions where we work. What’s been effective and successful? What still needs some refining?

Angie: As Maura knows, *I* *am* *always* thinking about communication, both theoretical and practical. So I couldn’t pass up an opportunity to collaborate on this topic. Almost a year to the month before COVID changed our work dramatically, I wrote this post (mission statement?) on how I understand communication and work in libraries.

Still rings true — maybe more so — in a post-pandemic work environment. The short of it calls for an intentionality we may take for granted when experiencing work the same way – onsite or remote.

The first communication hurdle I hoped to solve returning to a hybrid work environment was making schedules more transparent. Right? I’ve found any and all ways one can communicate their particular schedule definitely worth the effort. I used to be the first to call out these extra, sometimes duplicate approaches as inefficient. Now I realize how fundamental their role is to whether communication happens at all.

Some practical examples include physical IN/OUT cubicle signs. I created these and have used them for years at my office. The email signature is another opportunity some use to share onsite vs remote day. This creates visible and regular reminders through something you use everyday, as well as a subtle model for your recipient. My department also uses MS Outlook’s “Work Time” Settings and “Working Remote” free/busy status. As a department head, this makes it way easier to see everyone’s differences at a glance, plan for in person meetings or celebrations, and assess for schedule adjustments that may be needed. Harder to get library-wide adoption on this one, but baby steps!

Observing my own overreliance on email communication since working remotely, I try to build simple intentionality by starting emails with a greeting and gratitude. Like “Hi, Angie. Thanks for doing this.” Yes, I have to intentionally remind myself to do this. I learned this working with folks on this blog team and others in my library for whom this comes naturally (or else struggle, but remember). While “This meeting could have been an email” remains relevant, there is also benefit to flipping this adage around on the regular. Now when I’m inclined to email, I ask myself if there is a better opportunity to connect in this communication in person.

I still sometimes wish face to face communication could be thought, typed, backspaced, cut, rearranged and sent as fluently and coherently as an email – or this blog. But the more intentionally I seek connection and dialogue through all types of communication, the less often it tends to feel like a jerky dance of mouth words, awkward pauses, and apologies.

Hailley: As a department head, I’m frequently thinking about how I communicate with my team. We have a Teams group for the department, which functions for throughout the day chats and information sharing that feels too informal for an email. Sending a Teams message is definitely the quickest way to get a hold of me; I try hard to not have email up unless I’m actively sending emails. I send emails to the department for more formal purposes and it usually involves providing updates, reminders, and next steps. If possible, I try to gather several things I want to share before I send out an email. Recently, I’ve noticed that I started to use more headers and formatting in these emails, in the same ways I use headers in other types of documents. Helps me ensure I share all the information I want to share and hopefully it allows for easier reading from the people receiving it.

Two other miscellaneous thoughts related to communication: 1) timing is important! Everyone has different gaps in their days/weeks and that is often when big emails go out. However, for some folks, receiving an email late in the day or close to the weekend can be stressful. Sometimes that timing is unavoidable, but I try to think strategically about when I’m sending things out. 2) I just finished reading Remote Work Revolution: Succeeding from Anywhere by Tsedal Neeley. She provides some useful tips and pointers about communicating across hybrid and remote teams. I’m still mulling the book over but it was definitely a good way for me to reflect on my own communication style!

Maura: What we’re doing now is, I imagine, similar to how many libraries are communicating internally. Our institution uses the Microsoft suite and we in the Library use Outlook for shared calendaring. My colleagues and I each try to keep our own calendars up to date, and we have 3 shared calendars: planned vacation or other absences, remote workdays, and the reference desk schedule. I also put my institutional meetings on the shared calendar so that everyone knows when I’ll next meet with the Provost or the university’s library leadership. Our shared calendaring is working fairly well, and while Outlook is not my personal favorite it does have the advantage of being a system that all of us have access to both onsite and remotely.

Where I think we could use some discussion and perhaps change is for sharing files and communicating electronically. For filesharing we’ve got a shared drive that’s only accessible onsite or via VPN, Sharepoint via our institutional Microsoft suite, and the ever-present Google docs which many of us use with our personal Google accounts (we don’t have an institutional license). The shift from the shared drive to Sharepoint was well underway when I got here and I suspect will continue fairly organically. But Google is trickier — many (most?) of us have used Google docs heavily for years: outside of work, in our research, or (in my case, at least) at previous jobs. It’s hard to disinvest from the Googleverse, even if we know we should.

Electronic communication is the one I’m struggling most with right now. We have email, of course, and there is a Slack instance with multiple channels that all library faculty and staff have access to though not everyone uses. I’ve been thinking about Teams — again, not my personal favorite (I find the interface to be much less intuitive than other platforms), but my primary goal is to find a way for us to communicate that isn’t as overwhelming (for some) as email or as separate from institutional platforms as Slack. I’m happy to conform to whatever all of us decide on — it’s my strong belief that while we’ll never find one platform that everyone prefers, if we can find something that’s good enough *and* make sure that everyone is trained and supported in it’s use, that’s a reasonable goal.

Alex: We have a few different things going on as far as knowing who is where in this hybrid set-up we’ve had for two and a half years. The staff who cover the service desk have a set schedule that’s mostly in-person, but they each have their time to work at home. There is a group of three librarians who rotate being the in-person “manager,” which just helps everyone to know that (1) there is a librarian there every day, and (2) which one it is. We print a copy of the monthly schedule for us three and stick it to the service desk for quick reference, but it’s also on the shared Outlook calendar. That calendar was already in place in the before times, to share library closures and everyone’s time off (to reduce the number of “is Alex working today?” emails). There are a few other individuals with their own hybrid schedule, and those are on the shared Outlook calendar too. Most of them work with in-person things like interlibrary loan and the 3D printer, so this helps us know when we might expect those things to take place. Some people are still 100% working from home, so they aren’t listed on the shared calendar except for their days off. Beyond Outlook, we are a Teams institution, although some people dislike Teams enough that you’re better off emailing those individuals. We have an unspoken but ubiquitous assumption that everyone actively checks their email throughout their workday. So even our communication is pretty hybrid: email and Teams combo is usually all we need. We are also a Sharepoint institution, although I don’t think I’ve ever used that among my campus library colleagues, only with the wider institution.

Maura: Many thanks to my blogteam colleagues for all of this useful detail on communication in our workspaces! After the winter break I’m hoping to convene a communications working group of library faculty and staff, full-time and part-time, and I will probably recommend that they begin by reading this post. And we’d love to hear from readers in the comments — what’s working/not working in communication at your workplace?

A November Check-In from ACRLoggers

Time is flying and somehow we are entering the last two months of the year. Where did 2022 go? As we head towards wrapping up this fall semester, we wanted to get a pulse on how our ACRLoggers are feeling. We hope some of these answers resonate with you! Feel free to use the comments section to respond to one of these questions if you’d like.

What’s something you’re proud of and or excited to celebrate that has happened (or is happening) this fall semester?

Justin: One thing I’m proud of is having an article published on relational practice of Canadian academic librarians, research that was done collaboratively with a colleague. I feel relational work is invaluable for academic librarianship and oftentimes invisible work, in many ways.

Emily Z: I am mainly proud and happy that I’m making my way through my first fall semester as a full-fledged librarian! It’s been challenging to establish my own workflows, get to know student workers and faculty, and being in a new state, but overall I think it’s going well.

Alex: I finished co-writing a chapter with a colleague that I’m really happy with about the toxic culture of rankism in higher education. The book won’t be out for a while but our writing and editing is done, and it was a new and educational experience for both of us!

Hailley: I’m currently teaching a seven-week asynchronous course and I’m just happy to be mostly staying afloat with the content and student grading. I’ve taught a version of this course before but it’s my first time teaching it asynchronously for seven weeks. I’m learning a lot and establishing some of the materials as I go.

How do you feel this fall semester has been as compared to other pandemic semesters? What has felt different or new about this fall?

Justin: After coming back to a largely deserted campus in the Winter 2022 term, it’s been great having the campus full (and masked!) for Fall. I’ve been able to get my legs under me with in-person teaching again. Doing things like the human Boolean game has been fun and engaging, and of course being able to talk in-person to students again is great – sometimes I change around what I’m instructing on, based on their non-verbal (and sometimes verbal!) cues.

Now I just wish the coffee shop line was smaller…

Emily Z: I have been hearing from colleagues that this fall has some of the lowest energy AND the highest anxiety they’ve ever seen in students. I think everyone is dealing with burnout, and understandably so. I’ve seen this manifest a bit in my instruction sessions – students just can’t be bothered to do something like create a RefWorks account beforehand. Given the last three years, this isn’t necessarily surprising; I was in their shoes too in my last semester of grad school just a few months ago.

Alex: This has been the semester when our social distancing and masking guidelines were lifted on the college side of our buildings (the hospital and any areas where you are around patients still have the same rules from 2020). It doesn’t so much feel like a “return to normal” as it does “another version of new rules” like every other time they’ve been updated.

Hailley: Campus feels more active and we’ve seen an increase in one-shot instruction requests. I also feel more established now that I’m a year in, so maybe campus feels more active because I can pay attention to that energy (vs just trying to get on-boarded and learn my job last fall).

What’s a topic that you’ve been thinking about/thinking through on the job recently?

Justin: I’ve been thinking a lot about values-based practice and a values-based approach to librarianship, specifically. I really appreciate the work of Christopher P. Long and the HuMetricsHSS initiative in this regard. I think identifying values and tying your work – in all respects – to your values is important.

Emily Z: I’ve been thinking a lot about digital humanities, as well as physical data visualization – so think temperature blankets, bullet journaling, etc. I wonder about the impulse to track these things in an analog way – why are folks gravitating towards this? Does tracking your own data manually change said data eventually? How can I tie this interest of mine back into librarianship, too? Given the new Data Science major at my university (and the fact that I am their liaison) I think there could be a lot of opportunities there for us to work together on assignments and lessons for students.

Alex: I have been thinking about slow productivity a lot. I have not been successfully implementing it, but I have been thinking about it.

What’s something you’ve moved over to the “Think about next year” list?

Justin: I have a lot of things on my “to do next year” list – there’s never enough time to do all the work you want to get involved with. My library hosts researcher workshops geared towards grad students and faculty and I am continually thinking about what topics I want to present on.

Another long, long-term project I’ve been mulling over is starting a librarian-focused radio show on our campus radio station. I have a radio show on another campus station and it’s been rewarding putting it altogether. Who knows if that’ll ever happen, but it’s fun to think about merging two of my interests.

Emily Z: Oh, there’s so many things I want to do, and so little time to do it. One thing I want to bring to my university is more on-demand or scheduled workshops in which students, faculty, and staff sign up on their own for. I particularly would love to teach things like visual design, Canva, and infographics. For now though, I’ll need to focus on settling into my job (as well as the looming Gen Ed overhaul at my university…).

Hailley: Department goals! Our annual review work starts in January and that will be the perfect time to co-create departmental goals. I’m keeping some notes about ideas but am waiting for the new year to devote the brain space to that level of strategic work.

Reflecting on the Leadership Orientations Questionnaire

Throughout this academic year I’m participating in a leadership institute at my university. I’m part of a cohort of nine colleagues, from across the university and in various leadership roles. We meet once a month to discuss chapters from Reframing Academic Leadership, hear from leaders across campus, learn how to be better leaders, and discuss the challenges and opportunities we see and face in our roles. I’m really excited to be a part of this institute and learn from my colleagues across the institution.

For October’s meeting, we took the Leadership Orientations questionnaire. This was created by Lee G. Bolman and Terrence E. Deal and published back in 1991. They developed four frames for understanding leaders: structural leaders, human resources leaders, political leaders, and symbolic leaders. You rank a series of choices based on how true you feel the statement is to you and your leadership. Once you’ve completed the questionnaire, you add up your scores and you see which of the four leadership frames you scored the highest.

I scored highest as a human resources leader (followed by symbolic, structural, and political). When I looked at the definition of a human resources leader, I wasn’t surprised that was my highest score. In particular, my attention caught on the last line in the definition of a human resources leader: “A good leader is a facilitator and participative manager who supports and empowers others.”

As I shared with my cohort, I feel like the last year as a department head has really pushed me into strengthening and sharpening my facilitator muscles. I’ve always enjoyed facilitation, but in my current role, that’s a huge part of my work. I’m leading department meetings, working through theoretical questions and decisions around our reference services, and overseeing a library informatics bachelor’s degree program. In doing facilitation, I hope that the people who participate in these meetings do feel supported and empowered. That’s certainly my goal and how I think about setting up those opportunities.

The phrase “participative manager” also resonated with me. I feel my leadership style is influenced and informed by the participatory design work I started while I was at my last institution. As much as possible, I like to collaboratively work with the department to make decisions, especially decisions around our priorities and work. This has resulted in meetings where we draw vehicles representing our digital learning objects or where I solicit feedback on a proposal for a way to move the work forward within the department. I feel that style has worked both for me as a manager and for my team (see my last post about laughing with the department).

In thinking about being a participative manager, I also started thinking about how I help, support, and often do the day-to-day work of the department. This is definitely something I struggle with; I feel strongly about “pulling my weight” and being an active participant in the department. However, my job now involves other types of work and sometimes I can’t do all the participating I want to do. In discussing these frames with the cohort, I mentioned that I struggle with balancing participating with some of my other department head tasks and someone in my cohort shared something along the lines of, “Well just don’t do as much.”

While I appreciate the straightforwardness of that answer, I don’t think the solution is that easy. In some ways, it reminds me of the ideas I was sorting through in my coordinator role particularly around my identity. When I started in this department head role, I felt pressure (whether internal or external) that I needed to prove myself. So I jumped right into the teaching and the outreach work of the department. I wanted to prove I could do the work and that I could do it well. And now I’m at a point where I’ve got to start making decisions about where I can step back. I need time to do the departmental work of keeping a department moving forward. I’ve got to find new ways to balance my understanding (and participation) of the day-in-day-out work and strategic department head work. I know it’s always a work in progress and having the space to reflect on my style has helped me bring this a little higher on my priority list.

I appreciated the chance to take this questionnaire and dig into some of my thoughts on how I lead. As a cohort, we had an interesting conversation on how our frames change over time, as we step into new leadership roles and grow as humans. I feel that I’ll always have the human resources in me but there are definitely opportunities for me to strengthen some of those other frames. Knowing where I feel most comfortable can help me think strategically about ways I can lean more into my structural, symbolic, or political side.

Have you taken this leadership questionnaire (or something similar) before? If so, what lessons did you learn about you and how have you tried to use that framing in your job moving forward?

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