Editor’s note: We welcome a guest blog post from Lexi Kadis, Teaching and Learning Librarian at the University of Maryland Libraries.
I was in a state of perpetual déjà vu throughout the Spring 2026 semester. Just a year ago, I was on the academic librarian job market—revising CVs, writing cover letters, interviewing (rinse and repeat)—and now, I was helping six Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS) graduate students navigate the job search process.
I work as the Teaching and Learning Librarian at University of Maryland Libraries where I am also a co-director of the Libraries’ Reference and Teaching Fellowship (RTF), a three-semester, scaffolded professional development program that prepares MLIS students to be academic librarians. Since its founding in 2015, the Fellowship has supported more than 50 Fellows and has a proven track record of helping students find jobs (I should know, as I am a 2025 RTF alumna myself!).
Over the past semester, I have learned that supporting MLIS students on the job market takes a great deal of time, energy, and emotional labor. While I am a part of a team of four librarians who mentor our Fellows, I understand that for many librarians, providing mentorship and guidance to graduate students is a siloed act of service to the profession. To that end, I wanted to share my experiences and perspectiveon how to provide effective and sustainable mentorship to MLIS students.
Don’t Be the Cure-All
I first want to acknowledge that many graduate students turn to their library supervisors and mentors for job search guidance because of a lack of support from MLIS programs. Many of our Fellows have noted that the coursework and infrastructure of their graduate program has not prepared them to apply for academic librarian positions. From knowing when to start applying to jobs to turning resumes into CVs to preparing for full day interviews with job presentations, the hidden curriculum of the academic library job process is not being taught in library science classes.
Given the deficit of structural support—something you may have experienced in your own MLIS program—it is easy to want to be a cure-all for your mentees. However, trying to provide all the solutions is not a sustainable model for mentorship, particularly when it comes to the job search process. Based on my own experience, it is important to clearly communicate to your graduate students the types of help you can provide and when they should seek support elsewhere. Even if their MLIS program does not have a robust job search support system, students may have access to a campus career center, for example, and you can direct them to these types of resources.
Synchronous Feedback is your Best Friend
Guiding MLIS students through the job search process is very time-consuming. Reviewing materials, practicing for interviews, and serving as references can quickly eat up your whole work week. That is why it is helpful to think of ways to reduce time spent on this aspect of mentorship. One of the best ways to save time is to provide synchronous feedback only for application materials (whether CVs, cover letters, job presentation slide decks, lesson plans, etc.). For our Fellowship, this typically looks like a 20-30 minute meeting where I meet with the Fellow to review their documents and to provide verbal feedback.
I have found that synchronous feedback has benefits for both mentors and graduate students. It takes significantly less time to read and comment on a cover letter in person or over Zoom as, compared to doing it asynchronously. Additionally, when providing live feedback, students get to ask you clarifying questions in real time. Our Fellows have also noted that synchronous feedback is more helpful because a mentor reading your cover letter mirrors a potential employer doing the same. Rather than receiving line by line edits, hearing someone’s gut reaction helps graduate students understand if a cover letter is written effectively and persuasively.
The Emotional and Invisible Labor of Mentorship
I want to conclude this post by recognizing the emotional labor that goes into mentoring MLIS graduate students. We all know that the job search process can be emotionally charged, especially in an increasingly competitive job market and an unstable world at large. Writing cover letters and preparing for interviews is a deeply personal and vulnerable process that can bring up questions of identity and various feelings. As mentors, we are not only helping students to navigate the job search, but also the emotional potholes that come along with it.
It is equally important to acknowledge that mentorship is often invisible labor. The guidance that library mentors provide to graduate students is invaluable but often overlooked or unseen as part of our professional portfolios. The lack of visibility contributes to the isolation of mentors from each other. Based on my work with a team of librarians to support our Fellows, I believe that mentorship is at its best when it is collaborative. We can become better mentors by learning from each other. I encourage everyone to share their ideas, advice, and resources for mentoring MLIS students within their networks and communities.
Lastly, I want to thank the librarians and LIS professionals who have mentored me over the course of my library science journey and education. I think mentorship is very much a pay-it-forward act of service, and I am very grateful to be able to be a mentor to current and future graduate students.
When I attended my first conference hosted by the Music Library Association (MLA) in Salt Lake City, UT this year, I expected to learn about music collections, cataloging standards, and emerging research resources.
I did learn those things. But what surprised me most—and became the central lesson of my experience—was the way the community’s professional culture fundamentally shaped a sense of belonging and opportunity through mentorship and openness.
The conference became a model for how professional gatherings can foster mentorship, generosity, and true inclusion. For a newcomer like me, this was transformative, demonstrating that professional culture defines not just what we learn, but how we join the field.
I arrived at the conference at a moment of professional transition. I had recently begun a new role as Humanities Librarian at the University of Chicago Library, serving as liaison to the Music Department and the Committee on Theater and Performance Studies. The position carries a particular sense of responsibility: it has been vacant for more than six years following the sudden and tragic passing of my predecessor.
While I come to this work with a background in performing arts and librarianship, I do not hold a PhD in music or a formal degree in the discipline. In a research environment like the University of Chicago—an institution known for intellectual rigor and strong disciplinary traditions—that reality can feel especially visible.
Without a dedicated internal mentor in music librarianship, I rely on the field’s insight for questions about publishing ecosystems, vendors, cataloging, and collection strategies, despite supportive supervision.
Conference in a single hotel with multiple maps, an app, Slack channel, and the MLA website with message board.
Entering a Specialized Field
At the same time, I am still learning to navigate the institution’s culture. The University of Chicago has long been associated with intellectual intensity, but also with a certain institutional privacy—an academic environment that can feel somewhat mysterious from the outside. Until quite recently, that culture was manifested literally: the university gates were locked, and visitors to the library needed special permission to enter. While those policies have evolved, the image remains a powerful metaphor for how knowledge institutions sometimes operate—carefully guarded, selective, and structured by invisible boundaries.
Entering music librarianship at the University of Chicago, with its infamous institutional boundaries, has made access, mentorship, and the feeling of community more than just professional benefits—they are essential. Attending the MLA conference thus became a pivotal way to encounter this culture directly.
Although conferences often promote networking and mentorship, those interactions are frequently shaped by hierarchy and credentials in practice.
What I encountered at MLA felt strikingly different.
The conference was intentionally designed for participation—large enough for expertise, but small enough for repeated encounters. All events were held at a single hotel, allowing conversations to flow freely.
Before the conference even began, first-time attendees were invited to a pre-conference Zoom orientation that introduced the organization and explained what the conference experience would look like. Programming was shared well in advance via the CVent platform, making it easy to explore sessions and plan a schedule in advance. Many sessions were also available to stream, supported by a technical team that ensured clear audio and video, as well as recorded access.
As an attendee at the ACRL Conference in 2026, I noticed the conference organizers aimed for similar intentionality in welcoming newcomers. However, in my experience, ACRL felt overwhelming and panel and program acceptance were extremely competitive–less than 10% of submissions were accepted. The biannual structure increased the pressure and made networking challenging, despite the welcoming atmosphere. Even after volunteering on several committees, I found it difficult to build connections and advocate for myself in such a large, bureaucratic organization. Unlike the targeted mentorship I experienced at MLA, ACRL’s size and structure made formal mentoring difficult.
Even the scheduling reflected thoughtful design. Interest group and committee meetings were held the week after the conference, so attendees would not have to choose between participating in the organization and attending sessions.
These structural choices were more than logistical: by reducing barriers and prioritizing access, the conference created a setting where real community, collaboration, and learning could happen—illustrating the central role culture plays in professional belonging.
A Conference Designed for Participation
Professional networking can be difficult, even after years in academic libraries. Finding the right balance between introducing oneself and participating, while respecting others’ boundaries, takes care. Mentorship remains professional labor.
Because of this, I was especially grateful to connect with potential mentors before the conference even began. Through introductions from fellow librarian Greg MacAyeal, I had the opportunity to speak with several MLA members beforehand. By the time I arrived at the conference, there were already familiar faces in the room.
That small shift made a tremendous difference. What might have been an intimidating professional gathering instead felt relational and welcoming from the beginning.
Music librarianship is an extraordinarily specialized field. It requires familiarity with music publishing ecosystems, performance traditions, archival preservation, metadata standards, and constantly evolving formats.
Yet the expertise present at the conference did not feel guarded.
It was shared.
Sessions ranged from discussions of contemporary score distribution to cataloging documentation and collaborative strategies for collection development in an era of budget constraints. Librarians, composers, and distributors discussed how new technologies are reshaping the circulation of music.
Rather than presenting polished solutions, many sessions invited collective problem-solving. Librarians spoke candidly about institutional constraints—budgets, workflows, and evolving research needs—and the conversations continued outside the formal sessions.
Slides from the presentation “ADA Title II and Music Libraries: Implications, Questions, and Strategies”, Kristi Bergland, Jackie Zook, and Anna Dimoula.
Scholarship, Performance, and Community
The cumulative effect was a sense of shared responsibility, not competition—a model of professional culture grounded in collective advancement, which sharply contrasts with other associations.
One evening event captured that spirit particularly well: Salon Night.
The program featured an eclectic mix of scholarship and performance. There were operatic performances and a playful musical adaptation of Oklahoma! titled Obsolescence, which was hilarious and resonated with our beautiful nerdy hearts. A presentation on queer disco clubs in 1970s New York examined dance floors as spaces of cultural memory and community formation.
Kathleen (Kathy) Abromeit, Head of the Conservatory Library with Oberlin College Libraries, shared work from her new book An Index to Spirituals, , reflecting on how a single reference question in the 1990s grew into decades of scholarly documentation of African American spirituals as both musical and cultural history.
What stood out was not just the diversity of topics but the way people engaged with them.
The room moved easily between laughter, curiosity, and deep reflection—at moments people laughed loudly, and at others they wiped away tears. People spoke about archives, music, and cultural memory with a level of care that extended beyond professional obligation.
Spaces that blend rigorous inquiry with genuine openness were rare in my experience before this conference. It illustrated that professional cultures built around mentorship and inclusivity can redefine how newcomers join, contribute, and thrive.
Confronting the Field’s History
The conference also made space for conversations that confronted the field’s historical foundations. In a presentation on early twentieth-century music librarianship, Veronica A. Wells examined how collection practices helped codify the Western canon in American libraries and ongoing questions regarding designation of “popular” music and the deeply racist, classicist cultural assumptions held by founding librarians.
Those decisions continue to shape music collections today, underscoring how professional cultures can reinforce or challenge exclusion—making intentionality in mentorship and inclusion all the more crucial.
Listening to that presentation, I found myself thinking about Audre Lorde’s essay The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House. Lorde reminds us that institutions can claim progressive intentions while still reproducing the structures they inherit.
Music libraries—like many cultural institutions—carry those histories.
The discussion explored how Indigenous musicians, composers, and archivists are reshaping libraries’ approaches to collections, programming, and performance archives. Speakers reflected on the complex musical histories shaped by the U.S. boarding school system, where Indigenous children were forcibly removed from their communities and subjected to assimilationist policies. Within and despite these institutions, students encountered new musical forms and instruments that later influenced emerging musical traditions, including early jazz.
The panel emphasized that these histories must be understood not as products of the institutions themselves, but as examples of Indigenous resilience, adaptation, and cultural continuity. It also underscored the importance of centering Indigenous voices in archival interpretation and programming, ensuring that contemporary collections and performances reflect the perspectives of the communities whose histories they document.
A Profession Built on Conversation
Part of what makes this kind of conversation possible may lie in the nature of the field itself.
Music librarianship is often described as specialized, but in practice, it resists neat disciplinary boundaries. Music moves across formats and cultural contexts—scores, recordings, dance traditions, film, archives, and the ephemeral materials that surround performance.
A question about a score can quickly become a question about performance practice, cultural history, copyright law, or digital preservation.
Supporting this work requires collaboration with performers, composers, archivists, scholars, technologists, and community historians.
In that sense, music librarianship cannot easily operate in silos. The work itself demands conversation.
And perhaps that necessity helps cultivate the intellectual generosity I witnessed throughout the conference.
Carrying the Lessons Forward
Returning to my work at the University of Chicago Library, I have been thinking about what made this experience so meaningful.
Part of it was structural: thoughtful conference design, accessible programming, and mentorship opportunities for first-time attendees.
But much of it was cultural.
The MLA community demonstrated that professional expertise need not be guarded to be respected, and that intellectual rigor can coexist with generosity and care. In a profession often shaped by institutional prestige and credentialed authority, that culture felt quietly radical.
For someone entering a specialized field without a traditional disciplinary pathway—and inheriting a role that has been absent for years—that kind of professional community is not simply helpful.
It is essential.
And in many ways, the message that stayed with me from the conference came down to a single moment.
At the opening session, incoming MLA president Holling Smith-Borne, director of the Wilson Music Library at Vanderbilt University, reflected on their first experience attending an MLA meeting. They shared that when they first attended the conference, they quietly asked themselves, “Should I bring my full self to this space?” Do I belong here?
But they described choosing something different—to challenge that voice of doubt and replace it with another: No. You belong here. No matter who you are.
Listening to that story, I realized that what I had experienced throughout the conference—the mentorship, the intellectual generosity, and the willingness to share expertise—was not accidental.
It was a community intentionally working to make that statement true.
Acknowledgments
I am deeply grateful to the colleagues who welcomed me into the Music Library Association community with generosity and care. Special thanks to Becca Fülöp, Amanda Dubose, Allison McClanahan, Bruce Evans, Ruthann McTyre, Tamar Barzel, Michelle Rivera, Misti Shaw, Sarah Ward, and Greg MacAyeal for mentorship, conversation, and encouragement throughout the conference.
Belonging is often described as a feeling—something we either experience or lack, as if it is found by chance rather than actively created. In institutions, belonging is frequently seen as incidental rather than the outcome of ongoing relational effort. But belonging is built through care, attention, and the often-invisible work of those who make room for others. Moments of transition make that labor visible, inviting us to pause and give flowers thoughtfully while we can.
This piece is a reflection on what it means to build belonging through librarianship, and on the communities and colleagues who make that work possible. It also asks how belonging is defined and distributed within a profession that is predominantly white and female, and how individual narratives—like my own—fit within, benefit from, and must be accountable to that broader context.
With Intentionality
Within university settings, librarianship and archival work have devoted significant time, energy, and resources to fostering a sense of belonging among students, faculty, and community members—often positioning libraries as sites of welcome, care, and connection within complex institutional landscapes. This was certainly what drew me in to the profession as an undergraduate. At a time when I struggled to understand who I was or what I could offer, librarianship felt less like a calling and more like a possibility. It seemed like it could be a space where belonging seemed not only valued, but intentionally built.
That isolation is not accidental. I’ve always been intensely aware of how lonely a university campus can be, and how much heavier this experience weighs on people who are already marginalized. That awareness drew me to librarianship. I wanted to counter that isolation.
Universities are often described as communities, yet within contemporary higher education–shaped by market logics, austerity, and increasing precarity—that language can feel aspirational at best. Even while benefiting from significant racial privilege, I did not experience the university as a site of meaningful belonging beyond my relationships with library staff colleagues. And even within that space, class distinctions between staff and librarians created points of tension that shaped how belonging was felt, distributed, and sustained.
Measuring success
It was at Arizona State University Library that belonging began to feel less aspirational and more tangible. While libraries are embedded wIthin the same institutional structures that shape higher education more broadly, they can have the possibility of operating through relational rather than strictly heirarchical practices. Care, attentiveness, and responsiveness are not abstract values but daily requirements of this work. And, I genuinely believe, values that ASU Library both champions and accomplishes through direct action. In this environment, belonging has emerged as something built collectively through trust, shared responsibility, and sustained relational labor.
At ASU, I experienced that sense of belonging most clearly through my colleagues. I was trusted to bring my full self to the work, encouraged to take intellectual and professional risks, and supported in ways that made sustained engagement possible. That support mattered profoundly. In a field where emotional and relational labor are often undervalued—and where isolation and burnout are common—experiencing collegial belonging shaped not only how I worked, but how I move through the world. It made the work feel shared rather than solitary, and it affirmed that building belonging is not an individual effort, but a collective one.
This did not mean the absence of tension or inequity. Librarianship remains shaped by the same racialized, gendered, and classed dynamics that structure the academy, including disparities in status, pay, and authority. And yet, within those constraints, I encountered colleagues who modeled what institutional belonging can look like in practice: collaboration, partnerships, and growth rather than competition.
The Potential for Repair
But my ASU story was also about complexity. Even when you believe in the work, it is exhausting to make a change. I discovered how draining it is to care deeply in spaces where change outpaces relationships. And I recognized how tenuous belonging can become when university politics shift around you.
That sense of belonging grew stronger and became real through the work itself, especially by caring for the Theatre for Youth and Community Collection. Working with this collection showed me that archives are not neutral, but shaped by who is included, who is invited, and whose stories are kept, and offers a chance to repair.
This potential for repair became most evident to me in moments when students encountered materials that reflected their own identities, communities, or creative lineages—sometimes for the first time. Watching a student recognize themselves in the historical record underscored how deeply representation matters. Importantly, these encounters were not incidental; rather, they resulted from intentional stewardship, collaborative description, and sustained relationship-building with artists, donors, and communities. As a result, belonging here was not symbolic. It was experienced.
At the same time, while these moments were powerful, they also revealed the significant labor required to build that sense of connection. Activating a collection in ways that feel inclusive, ethical, and responsive demands time, trust, and profound emotional investment. This experience is often in contexts where such labor is undervalued or under-resourced within an institution.
It is important to name the irony here: the sense of welcome and even belonging I found was largely cultivated by colleagues who themselves occupied marginal or precarious positions within the academy—arts faculty, staff members, colleagues with disabilities, and BIPOC, LGBTQIA+ librarians and archivists whose labor has historically been feminized, undervalued, and structurally constrained.
The Cost
Building belonging through librarianship is deeply meaningful work, but it is not without cost. The same relational labor that makes libraries feel humane can also be exhausting, especially when it is unevenly recognized or structurally unsupported. Care, when treated as an individual disposition rather than a shared, structurally resourced, institutional investment, becomes difficult to sustain.
At ASU, I became increasingly aware of the emotional weight that accompanies this kind of work. Advocating for community-centered collections, ethical archival practices, and inclusive engagement often meant navigating institutional constraints that moved faster than relationships could be built. The work required patience, persistence, and a willingness to sit with ambiguity. While I was fortunate to experience strong collegial support, the broader systems in which the work unfolded did not always make time and care for relational practice.
This tension—between the values that draw many of us to librarianship and the structures that shape how that work is resourced—was one of the most difficult lessons of my time at ASU. It sharpened my understanding of how fragile belonging can be in transition, and how quickly care-centered work can slip into burnout. And yet, naming that cost also clarified what I believe the work requires: not less care, but more collective accountability for sustaining it.
Going Grief
Leaving ASU for a new role in early 2026 has stirred a grief I was not entirely prepared for. Stepping away from students whose growth I have witnessed, from collections I have stewarded with care, and from especially colleagues who offered trust, generosity, and challenge in equal measure. This is not the grief of regret, but of genuine gratitude and connection that form when work is shared and deeply invested in.
There is a particular ache in leaving a place where you have poured vision and labor into something ongoing. Much of the work I was engaged in at ASU was iterative and future-facing: collections in the process of being reimagined, relationships still unfolding, students still finding their footing. To leave knowing that some of those seeds will continue to grow without you is both a testament to collective work and a reminder that belonging is never owned by a single person.
That grief is also evidence. It shows that something real was built. The ability to grieve a workplace and miss colleagues is rare and meaningful. It reflects a model of librarianship based on being changed by the work.
Carrying the Work Forward
As I move into my new role at the University of Chicago Library, I carry this work with me not as a completed chapter, but as an ongoing practice. The context will change. The questions will deepen. The communities and institutional cultures will be different. But the commitments that shaped my time at ASU remain the same: to build relationships grounded in care, to approach librarianship as an ethical practice, and to treat belonging not as an abstract value but as something made through daily, collective effort.
Editor’s note: We welcome a guest blog post from Alejandro Marquez, Science and Engineering Librarian at the University of Denver Libraries.
Hazing is the practice of initiation rituals often involving humiliation, danger, or abuse. It is a serious and deeply troubling issue within many groups. It is most commonly associated with fraternities, sororities, sports teams, and even some clubs. While proponents sometimes argue it builds camaraderie and strengthens bonds, the reality is that hazing can quickly escalate into dangerous and even deadly situations. The core problem lies in the power imbalance created when new members are pressured to participate in activities which they may not be comfortable with and often under the threat of exclusion or ridicule. These activities can range from simple pranks and sleep deprivation to more extreme behaviors like forced consumption of harmful substances, physical violence, and risky stunts. Regardless of the intent, hazing fundamentally violates a person’s autonomy and can have devastating consequences.
Hazing occurs in higher education even though it is less visible than in fraternities, athletics, or social clubs. Researchers have examined this phenomenon in music education faculty, in the workplace, and in new employee hazing. It can manifest in many ways such as deliberately excluding individuals from important meetings or social events to assigning them the most difficult or unpleasant tasks, often with the intention of making them feel inadequate. While some might rationalize it as “tough love” or a way to quickly train new hires, hazing fundamentally undermines trust, creates a climate of fear, and can severely impact an employee’s mental and emotional well-being.
The dangers of hazing extend far beyond just physical harm. Psychological distress, anxiety, and depression are common outcomes for those subjected to it. Hazing can create a culture of silence and secrecy, making it difficult for victims to seek help and for institutions to address the problem effectively. It creates a legal liability for library organizations, as hazing can be considered harassment or discrimination.
Resilience Narratives
The prevalence of hazing is consistently underreported. This silence isn’t accidental. It’s often rooted in cultural norms, unspoken expectations, and a reluctance to confront uncomfortable truths. Several factors contribute to this concealment including the influence of vocational awe and professionalism. Workers have gotten used to being put into difficult situations as reported in the Urban Library Trauma study. Although this report focuses on public libraries, it highlights a lot of the same concerns facing academic libraries.
Resilience narratives suggest that seemingly negative or harmful experiences can be reframed as opportunities for growth and strength. It can often feel like bosses encourage or require library professionals to get the job done no matter what the obstacle. They might frame an incident where a student who yells at an employee as a teachable moment of customer service rather than focus on setting appropriate workplace boundaries. Additionally, people tend to downplay the adversity they face even if they meet the definition of a horrible act like hazing. They downplay it with, “it wasn’t so bad” or “others had it worse.” Hazing tells a worker that they are unworthy of their position, accomplishments, or who they are.
The Hidden Curriculum
The hidden curriculum can actively perpetuate hazing. It refers to the implicit lessons and values that are taught within an organization, often through observation and experience, rather than formal instruction. For example, older staff members, having themselves navigated a system of hazing such as enduring long hours, being assigned undesirable shifts (like nights and weekends), or handling difficult patrons may simply assume that this is the “normal” way things are done. They may even explicitly articulate these expectations to newer employees, leaving them feeling pressured to conform, even if the practices are uncomfortable or unfair. It’s crucial to recognize that this cycle isn’t always intentional. It’s driven by a desire for loyalty and a belief in the importance of paying your dues.
Rites of passage
Rites of passage describe the transformative process that individuals undergo as they transition from one social status to another. These workplace rituals provide structure, instill values, and foster a sense of belonging within a community. While not always explicitly called “hazing,” the practice often involves new employees being subjected to uncomfortable, humiliating, or even dangerous activities as a test of loyalty and commitment to the group. Within libraries, this might take the form of excessive workloads, forced overtime, public shaming, or requiring new staff to perform tasks outside their job description. These acts are designed for professionals to demonstrate dedication and willingness to “earn” their place within the established team. For example, one library team forced their new instruction librarian to work with the ‘difficult’ professor to see if they could handle the job. They framed it as a trial by fire.
Anecdotally, there seems to be a generational divide when it comes to hazing. It seems like older generations believe that if they had to survive this awful thing then so do younger generations. They paid their dues. There also seems to be a mistrust of things that bosses and coworkers can’t see, like working remotely or relying solely on email communication. Some workers are proud about pushing the envelope (burning out), working while sick, or not taking vacation as a sign of commitment and belonging. This tells other members of the team that they should push themselves to and past their limits.
Conclusion
For too long, the silence surrounding library hazing has allowed it to fester and grow. We’ve accepted the notion that ‘it’s just how things are’ which is a dangerous and ultimately self-destructive mindset. We as a library profession cannot passively accept this any longer. Each of us has a responsibility to challenge the norms that enable this behavior and to speak out against injustice. Every instance of hazing represents a breach of trust and a serious threat to employee well-being and productivity. Let’s commit to building an academic library workplace where there is a firm declaration that hazing – in any form – will not be tolerated.
I’ve always felt a strong sense of professional community as a librarian. I had a close local cohort of friends in my distance MLIS program, a fantastic group of ALA Spectrum Scholars who helped me feel accepted and included, and great colleagues. I’ve been lucky to have worked at institutions that invest in the professional development of their librarians (especially early-career folks) and therefore have been able to attend conferences, leadership institutes, and other learning experiences. I joined the social media platform formerly known as Twitter in 2008 and shared thoughts there and via my personal blog, connecting with librarians across the country on everything from critical information literacy to elder millennial jams.
Then the pandemic hit. We still had all the finest web-based apps needed to maintain our ability to work, but something about connecting online didn’t feel right anymore. It was simultaneously too much and not enough. I missed grabbing dinner with friends, going to yoga class in person, and visiting family (among all of the comforts of having a “normal” day-to-day life). The isolation was crushing. All of the fledgling communities I had started to build in a new city crumbled and the long standing professional community in LIS was struggling. We all trickled back into our “normal” routines eventually, but things were markedly different. We were different, and the communities that sustained us throughout the years of isolation were not necessarily the same ones we relied on pre-pandemic.
I finally left what was then still Twitter in 2023, as did many of my colleagues and friends. I’ve struggled to feel motivated enough to attend conferences and professional activities in person given the number of free or low-cost online offerings (book a flight and wait to be reimbursed? in this economy?). But I do miss being able to catch up with colleagues at other institutions in person. I miss the serendipitous collaborations that sprung for venting sessions over coffee or lunch after a thought-provoking presentation. I miss getting to know people outside of their identities as librarians. I don’t know where the librarians are online anymore, but I know that I miss them! Occasionally we see one another in professional service organization meetings, private-chatting each other via Zoom, but of course, it’s not quite the same.
I am very curious to discover what community looks like now for folks in LIS, especially early-career folks. I will admit that moving into a management position and recognizing that I’ve been in libraries for 17 years(!!!!) have also contributed to a shift in community for me, but it hasn’t changed the fact that I need a community. I think we all do. We all want to feel understood and valued in our profession. So what does librarian community look like now, and what can we make it?
