Open Letter to CRL from the academic wing of #CripLib

Editor’s note: We welcome a guest blog post from the academic librarians of #CripLib, which focuses on the intersection of disability and library work.

Note: The focus is on our concerns about the quality of the article and the editorial process that led to it being published as research – NOT on the author as a person.

In Brief

The authors of this letter are writing in regard to “Respecting Privacy of Thought in DEI Training,” an article published in the May 2025 issue of College & Research Libraries (CRL).

How did such an intellectually dishonest, poorly argued editorial get published in College & Research Libraries, a highly-regarded library journal? We will identify some of the most obvious problems within the text–problems that any competent editorial team should have addressed before publication. As part of this, we also ask: why did the editorial team not support this author in refining her argument before publishing it? Or alternatively, why did the editorial team not reject this article?

Full version

Reason for writing this letter

Despite approaching the article with curiosity, we quickly identified several issues which caused us considerable concern:

The author neglects to engage with other scholarly critiques of DEI in library literature.
The political bias is hidden.
The author appears to misunderstand or shallowly understand several of the cited sources.
Citations are spotty – while some arguments provide adequate citation, other arguments lack evidence.

We are members of what are often referred to as marginalized populations–we all have different disabilities, and many of us are also LGBTQ+ and/or BIPOC, etc. We have been dismayed by the recent dismantling of DEI initiatives, which is operating hand-in-hand with the dismantling of our civil rights. We are also very open to critiques of DEI programs – we and people like us have often been at the forefront of critiques about DEI programs in libraries, expressing concerns about tokenism, lack of follow-through, ineffective “one shot” style training models, prioritizing white feelings over the material conditions of Black and Indigenous people or people of color, to name a few (see References).

However, none of the many articles written by librarians articulating critiques of DEI initiatives are engaged in this article. Instead, the author focuses on engaging with a frankly odd mix of Wikipedia articles, shallowly analyzed law review articles and political theory books, and right-wing blog posts and media. We recognize that several of these right-wing media sources identify as libertarian and that Anglo-American style libertarianism often refers to itself as non-partisan, but that doesn’t mean it lacks an ideology (tone marker: neutral valence, see Roberts, 2025). Meanwhile, accusations of library DEI initiatives being “politically partisan” are made a few times, without evidence. (Note: no definition is provided for “politically partisan,” so we are working on the assumption that it refers to allegiance to a political party.)

Frankly, we are concerned by the use of recent far-right talking points to argue against DEI initiatives in libraries without an honest acknowledgement of the political stance the author is taking. To be clear, we are not objecting to the author having a political stance, we are objecting to hiding it. Among those of us drafting this letter, we do not share the same political beliefs about everything, we just share the expectation of honesty and academic integrity, so we can actually work through those disagreements in a productive and respectful way.

Even with the current work being done to dismantle DEI, civil rights, and higher education at the direction of one political party, we would also be among the first to question political partisanship in libraries. That is because none of the dominant political parties in English-speaking North America reliably support us (see Anyangwe and Okoh, 2023; Dhenin, 2025 for two recent examples of bipartisan legislation that causes active harm to disabled and other marginalized peoples).

However, whatever our feelings are about the author’s conclusions, what we’re really dismayed by is its failure to honestly engage with legitimate critiques of DEI initiatives in libraries. There are some elements of the piece that we may have agreed on, if they’d been presented with more academic rigor.

That leads us to wonder: How did such an intellectually dishonest, poorly argued editorial get published in College & Research Libraries, a highly-regarded library journal? We will identify some of the most obvious problems within the text – problems that any competent editorial team should have addressed before publication. As part of this, we also ask: why did the editorial team not support this author in refining her argument before publishing it? Or alternatively, why did the editorial team not reject this article?

Problems identified within the text

Because the errors in argumentation and the questionable citations are so rampant within this article, we are puzzled by its publication.

The article includes a lot of references. We wonder if that was required for it to be called research rather than a letter to the editor? In any case, it has resulted in a long list of cherry-picked, manipulatively quoted sources that support what the author wants to say. This piece does not demonstrate any honest engagement in ongoing conversations in the field or even the arguments made in the cited works.

Similarly, the author demonstrates limited understanding of the academic texts referenced. Some of the references are to right-wing blog posts. Note that we’re not condemning the use of blog posts or popular press books across the board, what we’re critical about here is the relative lack of academic citations and the lack of disclosure about the political biases of the rest of the sources that were used. When talking about DEI initiatives at a time when the US federal government is actively dismantling them, while simultaneously engaging in anti-Black, anti-immigrant, openly eugenicist, and anti-LGBTQ+ initiatives, this matters. The author does not clearly identify the partisan nature of many of her non-academic sources–partisan as in partial to an approach that is generally viewed in the US as right-leaning, is often critical of social justice causes, and in some cases openly advocates for the right to discriminate (e.g., Levy, 2016).

Here are a few sections that we have selected to highlight, just for demonstration. This is not an exhaustive exploration of all the weaknesses of this article.

Does not engage with other scholarly critiques of DEI in library literature

Tracking attendance at trainings is one new data point, especially where participation is required or assessed in performance reviews.¹¹⁰ DEI action plans, rubrics, “temperature checks,” climate surveys, equity audits, assessments of impacts, and so on, in aggregate contribute to shifting the library’s culture away from the academic and toward the bureaucratic.¹¹¹ The message they send to the library workers is that their own independent thoughts and autonomy in their jobs is secondary to data-collection tasks.

One example of decentralized, bottom-up control is known in the organizational management literature as “concertive control.” Under concertive control, organizations employ cross-functional and self-organizing teams.¹¹² Library DEI trainings, while potentially administratively sponsored, are often delegated to a team that is responsible for their content and that may also conduct the trainings. Library administrators will naturally delegate DEI training to those who are motivated and well-versed in the ideas. These trainings, and the teams that lead them, are a mechanism for non-hierarchical, concertive control over employees. Teams that do not have authority over library policy may be given wide latitude to develop trainings, especially when they can be based on profession-wide guidelines…. (p. 442)

The author has not engaged with any of the many and varied library articles about managerialism, workplace climate, library assessment, etc. The implication of this section appears to be that library administrators should not delegate DEI trainings, in fact should not be using concertive control to delegate anything, because to do so means they lose all responsibility and control. If this is indeed what readers are supposed to take from this section, we would have liked a clearer articulation of — everything, frankly. If the author is not arguing that library administrators should not delegate work, that raises even more questions. Also, again, if the author had wanted to build on arguments made previously by other librarians critiquing various management tendencies, we think that would have enhanced and clarified her argument.

Does not disclose political bias

While this sort of statement is not required, it matters for this discussion because we are talking about issues where people hold a wide range of conflicting values and beliefs, and the argument is presented as if it is coming from some sort of objective place.

Pretending that you can talk about race and racism from a place absent ideology is weird. But if you take the perspective of someone who doesn’t want to think or learn about racism, it starts making more sense.

The author praises the 2012 Diversity Standards for demonstrating “non-ideological language” while criticising the narrower focus of the 2022 Cultural Proficiencies for Racial Equity (p. 439). Shortly afterwards she claims that “…. imperialism and colonialism, mass incarceration, disparities in access to healthcare, the achievement gap in education, and disparate outcomes for “BIPOC populations.”⁹⁵ None of these topics has more than an indirect link to library work.” (p. 440) There is plenty of evidence out there identifying how each of these points connect to each other (see References). A good place to start looking is within the Cultural Proficiencies. This section provides one of many examples of the author pushing back specifically on training that requires attendees to learn about racism. We can’t help reach the conclusion that this is not an absence of ideology, this is a refusal to acknowledge one’s own.

Misunderstand or shallowly understood source material

Much of the article centers on the idea of privacy of thought, the author’s definition of which is:

Privacy of thought is an instinctively understood concept because everyone experiences it every day. Most would consider being forced to share private thoughts an invasion of privacy. In this way, the idea that privacy of thought should be considered a human right feels intuitively correct. How this intuition is reflected in society via laws and culture, however, is inseparable from the influence of Enlightenment ideas about how we understand individual liberty…. (p. 432)

The author then goes on to use various references to argue that freedom of thought is a universal value, followed by a reference to cognitive liberty. We assume that the author has done the internal work of synthesizing these concepts, and that’s why they’re presented in conflated form. However, that work is not replicated on page, so we as readers are confused about why these different terms are treated as interchangeable.

Also, nowhere in this section is an acknowledgment that the Farhany discussion about cognitive liberty is specifically in reference to tort law, the legal doctrine of avoidable consequences, and emotional distress injuries. This is a really different context than workplace DEI training. We recognize that a link could be made here, but the author did not actually make it – for us this raises the question about whether the author read and understood the source material. This is a rich enough area for investigation that she could have made a whole paper focused on this idea. Instead, the paper immediately moves on to mostly unsubstantiated claims about DEI trainings (almost exclusively focused on critiquing anti-racism trainings), with yet more under-explained theoretical frames added to the discussion. And as we observed earlier, there are articles published by librarians on these issues, none of which are engaged here.

When talking about a self-assessment conducted as part of a racial equity training, the author notes that:

“Even if your employer does not see your responses, these ninety-six questions are presumptuous and invasive. Asking about a person’s thoughts in this way violates privacy of thought…” (p. 435).

Is learning something new or considering new approaches an invasive violation of privacy? It seems absurd on its face. Is having to think about challenging things – not having to publicly disclose your thoughts, just having to think about them – a violation of privacy? What are the boundaries of this argument – is it only when people are expected to work towards ending racism that it becomes a violation? This is a really strange argument that none of us understand. There may be a sensible rationale behind this argument, but it needed to be explained within the article before publication.

Also the source referenced in the above excerpt was a right-wing/libertarian blog post, rather than a direct reference to the assessment tool itself or a first-hand account. It’s unclear whether the library worker quoted within that blog post had actually taken the assessment. It is possible that this blog post was writing about one employee who just didn’t like how the Inclusive Excellence frameworks were implemented at UVA. In other words, the author’s argument here relies on unclear secondhand information provided by one person.

This section included a side point that “(Suggesting a redirection back to race and racism here implies that other marginalized groups are not appropriate DEI topics.)” – but all the citations in this section are to anti-racism trainings. Asking people to stay on topic seems like a reasonable request for a training session. Even if one wants to make this point about DEI trainings in general, which some have (see References), to once again make the focus of the argument a pushback against anti-racism training is noticeable. Again, why did the editorial team not catch this? Spotting this problem does not even require anyone to dig into citations, it’s self-evident just from reading the text itself.

Next steps

We are asking for a public statement from the CRL board articulating how they will rectify this situation and make improvements to prevent a recurrence.

Problems identified:

The author neglects to engage with other scholarly critiques of DEI in library literature. There have been innumerable articles, books, and presentations that talk about DEI in relation to the concerns brought up in this article (e.g., assessment of DEI programs, managerialism, the tensions between intellectual freedom and social justice) but none of that body of research was used here.
Instead the author uses sources that broadly fall under the spectrum of political theory that, as demonstrated in the text, appear to be misunderstood or shallowly understood.
The citations provided are plentiful but poor in quality, including more wikipedia articles than library research articles. While some arguments provide adequate citation, other arguments lack evidence.
We all have biases. Pretending that we or the systems we work with don’t operate in biased ways does not erase those biases, it just prevents those biases from being acknowledged or addressed. This article talks about DEI in libraries while pretending at objectivity in its framing, but the arguments presented and the citations referenced demonstrate a clearly biased point of view that is never acknowledged.

Because of the degree and pervasiveness of the problems we identified as well as the potential negative impacts on the field if this article is taken at face value, we are asking CRL to retract this article. We would also like an explanation: how did this make it through editorial review? Is there a peer review process at CRL? Are you having subject experts conduct peer review? Are you outsourcing peer or editorial review to artificial intelligence?

References

Anyangwe, D. and Okoh, C. (2023). The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act: A dangerous new chapter in the war on Black youth. The Center for Law and Social Policy. https://www.clasp.org/publications/report/brief/the-bipartisan-safer-communities-act-a-dangerous-new-chapter-in-the-war-on-black-youth/

Courtland, S.D., Gaus, G. and Schmidtz, D. (2022). Liberalism. In Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2022 Edition). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/liberalism/

Dhenin, M. (2025, May 9). Escalating anti-homeless policies fall hardest on disabled people in the US. Truthout. https://truthout.org/articles/escalating-anti-homeless-policies-fall-hardest-on-disabled-people-in-the-us/

Joint ALA/ARL Building Cultural Proficiencies for Racial Equity Framework Task Force. (2022). Cultural proficiencies for racial equity: A framework [White paper]. ALA. https://www.ala.org/pla/initiatives/edi/racialequityframework

Levy, R.A. (2016). Libertarianism and the right to discriminate. CATO Institute Policy Report. https://www.cato.org/policy-report/march/april-2016/libertarianism-right-discriminate#

Roberts, W.C. (2025). Ideology. In Zalta & Nodelman (Eds.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2025 Edition). https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ideology/#ValIde

(see References) note: We had originally referenced the work of respected librarian-scholars who’ve published research in this area. However, because we value them so much, and because we recognize the risk of speaking out publicly like this, we decided not to publish their names. Those new to this sort of work may not know the history of librarians doing DEI work being targeted by harassment campaigns and death threats – especially women of color – but those of us who have been around for a few decades don’t want to see that happen again.

Authors Against Book Bans

Editor’s note: We welcome a guest post from Jessica Olin, who was in the library field for close to twenty years, both as a librarian and a library director. For eight of those years, they were also responsible for the well known blog, Letters to a Young Librarian.

Why is a former academic librarian and library director writing for ACRLog? Because I want to talk to you about an organization I joined last year, an organization I’m hoping you’ll join as well: Authors Against Book Bans. We are doing important work and I’m hoping you’ll join your voices to ours.

Let me begin by sharing our mission statement:

We are Authors Against Book Bans.

We, a coalition of writers, illustrators, anthology editors and contributors, and other book creators, stand united against the deeply unconstitutional movement to limit the freedom to read. We unequivocally support the availability of diverse voices on our library shelves, in our schools, and in our culture. We pledge to band together against the oppression of literature, to speak when our voices are silenced, to go where our bodies are needed, and to fight as one to ensure this freedom. Together, we will be fearless.

Our concern is not only for the books themselves, but for the children, families, educators, librarians, and communities who suffer when the freedom to read is challenged and taken away. We abhor the current organized attempts to censor books in schools and libraries across our nation, particularly in view of their insidious targeting of BIPOC and LGBTQ+ stories, the erasing of history, and silencing of voices that speak truthfully about essential human experiences. The great power of literature is its ability to create empathy, foster self-empowerment, impart knowledge, and enhance diversity of thought. We will defend this power from those who seek to subvert it.

As authors and as members of our local and national communities, we pledge to protect the rights of all young people to access the books they need and deserve.

So many of the people reading this right now are more than librarians and educators: you’re authors, too. I was an author long before I published my first work of fiction. I’ll admit I didn’t think of myself that way back then. I was more concerned with getting my ideas out into the world while also making my CV and my annual report look good.

Another thing I should admit is that book bans weren’t something I necessarily worried about when I was still in academia. I was more concerned with budgets and faculty buy-in, with preserving institutional history in the archives and fighting for library instruction inclusion in the broader curriculum. The one time someone tried to question the way my library ran our collection, upper administration and I laughed about it briefly then moved onto other topics. I felt, and really was, removed from that kind of thing.

But that’s not the truth anymore. Earlier this year, the United States Naval Academy saw the removal of nearly 400 books from its library under the order of the Defense Secretary. Earlier this month, that spread to all military educational institution library collections (as discussed here on ACRLog in a post by Violet Fox). It’s not just military schools, either. Whole programs are being cut to satisfy misguided and unconstitutional dictates on both local and national levels. Your libraries aren’t immune, and it will only get worse from here.

This is why we need to fight. And fight we are.

Here are some recent victories:

HB 1539/SB 1692, the Florida “Material Harmful to Minors” law, is officially dead for the 2025 legislative season. According to Florida Freedom to Read, an organization with boots on the ground in that state, AABB was a huge part of that.
Texas voters elected a big group of freedom to read candidates in school board elections across the state. Members of AABB created candidate score cards in concert with Texas Freedom to Read, that helped inform the electorate.

And now I’ll circle back to what I said in the opening paragraph: I proposed this guest post because I’m hoping you’ll join with us. This is the kind of organization that you really can have as little or as much involvement as you’d like. For some of our members, it’s like signing a petition – and having your name on our rolls is a valuable contribution you can make. That’s how I started. You can also get more involved – like the thirty-eight separate emails I wrote to Florida legislators opposing a bad law, or supporting authors who are facing bans, or even this blog post I’m writing.

Yes, AABB is racking up the wins, but there’s so much more to do. We need more voices for such important work. Add your voice to ours. We’re stronger together.

How are you doing? (redux)

Bird sitting outside a window — Photo by Ziba Maghrebi on Unsplash

We’re coming to the end of another year of grappling with pandemic-related changes across higher education, and the ACRLog blog team thought this might be a good time to check in on how things are going for all of us in our libraries, as we’ve done around this time for the past two years.

What’s the situation at your institution at the time of writing?

(Alex) As the College of Medicine’s library, we are attached to medical facilities and have the same masking requirements in place, visitors are still not permitted into academic spaces, and library employees are all still hybrid or entirely remote. The rest of our university, though, seems fairly back to normal; they don’t have the restrictions we do, but they do allow remote work on a case-by-case basis.

(Maura) Our campus and library fully reopened last Fall, and with the increase in in-person instruction at the college for the Spring we’re definitely seeing more students in the library than we did last semester. Still, it’s quieter than it was in the past, perhaps not surprising as about 50% of classes are still online this semester (we struggled a lot with crowding and noise pre-pandemic so this change is not entirely unwelcome). The university (and the college) lifted the mask requirement a little more than a month ago, though many folx are still masking on campus, both students and employees.

(Emily) We fully reopened last Fall as well, and in early March (coinciding with the CDC’s updated guidance), our school dropped the mask requirement, although as Maura said, many on our campus are still wearing masks indoors. Having more students on campus has meant more business for library services, both at the desk and over chat and email. I chalk it up to students becoming aware of our virtual communication options during the pandemic, and some finding that they prefer that mode even when face-to-face is available.

(Angie) My campus resumed in person classes last fall with a vaccine and mask mandate in place for a brief period. The summer prior, the Libraries began transitioning remote faculty and staff back to hybrid work that was at least 60% onsite. In the Spring semester mask mandates continued in all indoor campus spaces as Omicron was peaking. Then in March they became optional in non-classroom settings, and later that month became optional in classrooms. My impression of the physical spaces is they still seem sparsely populated by normal comparisons, and request volume in technical services is still only 30-50% of pre-pandemic levels. We have had a lot of employee turnover and are in the middle of 3 of 5 faculty searches. This has definitely affected morale, especially since many, if not all, were already experiencing significant burnout before taking on additional duties these vacancies may have left to them.

Do you anticipate changes in your library or campus situation in the Fall semester?

(Alex) We were recently asked how many days per week each person would like to work in-person after Labor Day, so the plans are being made for changes, but they aren’t finalized yet. It’s hard to say what other changes may come at that time.

(Angie) It’s hard to imagine *not* anticipating changes, right? But I hope the drive for normalcy will hold some sway in keeping major changes to a minimum. Orienting some new faculty and staff will bring positive, new change. In my area of the library we’re also seeing an urgency to support new orientation for all students – not just new ones. With the university experience of the past few years being so irregular, many haven’t had the chance to experience the usual things libraries offer students, like our spaces, the help desk, or ILL. Talking with my leadership, I’ve learned there is actually a campus-level priority to ramp up outreach as a matter of mental health as much as academic success. I love this acknowledgement of my favorite philosophical problem (not knowing what you don’t know) and the stakes and responsibility involved in helping solve it.

(Maura) We do anticipate that there will be more students on campus in the Fall, with an estimated 80% of classes scheduled fully in person or hybrid next semester (though that can certainly change as students continue to register throughout the summer). We’re starting a strategic planning process here in the Library that we aim to complete by the end of the Fall semester, so in many ways we’re not anticipating changes as much in the short term as we are thinking about changes we’d like to make in the next 3-5 years.

What pandemic-related challenges are you still facing in your library work?

(Maura) Librarians and staff are required to work at least 70% in person this semester, which has made scheduling somewhat complex, especially for service desk shifts. We’re managing it, though it took a few weeks to settle into our new routines. It’s not clear what the requirement for on-campus work will be for fall, but we’re keeping an eye on that. It’s also been somewhat challenging this year to reach students who started at the college last year and to raise their awareness of library services and resources. While that group did have information literacy instruction in their English Composition I course, as all students do, since those courses were fully online last year they didn’t have the opportunity to come to the physical library. We’re continuing to do outreach to all students and hopefully have reached at least some of that cohort with in-person instruction in their Comp 2 class this year.

(Emily) The library staff where I work are all facing burnout and morale-related challenges, caused by negotiating telework and on-desk scheduling, feeling unrecognized by campus administration, and a protracted expectation to “keep the trains running” over the last 2 years. In light of this, our library director has instructed us to treat this summer as a period of recovery, urging us to take vacation time and avoid piling on extra projects like a usual summer. I’m hoping that this recovery period, combined with a reconsideration of some of our processes, will be enough to improve our overall morale.

(Angie) Hybrid schedules have turned out to be really challenging, both for those onsite who rely on others’ consistent onsite availability and for those who feel their work could continue to be done entirely remote. Selfish example: it has been much more difficult to grab coffee with my work bestie on a whim! The freedom we have been given to set the type of hybrid schedule is certainly nice, but it has proven practically at odds with rebuilding the kind of serendipitous connection for which it was intended. The variety of schedules means fewer people in the office at the same time for serendipity, or even intentional connection, to take place. The supportive technology onsite for hybrid meeting rooms is necessary but still kind of awkward – I think we prefer seeing each other in individual Zoom boxes rather than a combination of seeing individual’s boxes with another box of people distantly meeting in another room. I’m observing (guilty of) remote attendance at meetings happening from an individual desk in the same room! And maybe that’s OK. Maybe that is what we learned is necessary to preserve from remote work after all. I do worry that people’s pandemic-related burnout has been exacerbated, rather than eased (yet) by a logistical “return to normal.” The motions may be mostly normal, but people’s lived experiences have not returned to normal, and this makes it very difficult to authentically connect at large – as a team, as an organization. Wherever our library has created those very intentional opportunities to connect, even in a hybrid way – award ceremonies, holiday parties, all staff meetings – this has seemed to help the most. It’s curious, right? That intentionality should be the necessary ingredient for serendipity.

What positive changes have you seen this year in the ways your library supports the mission of the institution?

(Alex) We don’t hesitate to make changes that we think will benefit our users. I wouldn’t say we were “afraid” to make change before, but I think we’ve grown accustomed to pivoting (ugh that word) at the drop of a hat, so saying things like “let’s change this policy, it isn’t fitting students’ use of our resources” or “should our hours be this way, or can we adjust them to work better for us?” has become easier.

(Maura) We’ve also seen what Alex highlights — my colleagues and I are definitely more amenable to making changes in library services to align them more closely with what students and other library patrons seem to need, even if it’s different from what we’ve done before, or a change in the middle of the semester. We’ve adjusted printing limits to better accommodate students who are coming to campus less often, and shifted our study room policy to allow single-student use for taking online classes. We’ll be thinking about how students and faculty use the library now as we head into our strategic planning process, too, and will hopefully hold some focus groups in the Fall to help us learn more.

(Angie) At both our Library and University levels, there has been intentional effort by the administration to address salaries and diverse hiring in meaningful ways. We have had three different tiers of staff already getting across the board increases based on market studies. In my experience it is the hiring process that provides the most intentional and practical avenue for scaling awareness and development of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. Given that we are doing so much hiring, and that those serving on search committees are experiencing that process, these are both positive changes to increasing DEIB awareness and (hopefully!) growth into other areas.

We’d love to hear how things are going in your library, please drop us a line in the comments.

How are you doing? (part 2)

Last April, some ACRLog team members reflected on how things were going in our respective libraries. At that time, we were in the very early days of the pandemic and had no idea what was ahead of us, or for how long. Now, over a year later, we’re all still navigating an uncertain and stressful landscape. We thought we’d pause to reflect again for an updated view of how things are going where we work.

What’s the situation at your institution, at the time of writing?

Alex Harrington: All our students are back, although instructors may be using more remote work than they used to. College of Medicine employees are encouraged to continue working from home if they can. There are temperature-checking iPads at the entrance, but nobody is posted there anymore to ensure that people use them. Our library hours were cut and I think they’re going to stay that way, but it wasn’t a drastic cut.

Emily Hampton Haynes: The campus is open to faculty, staff, and students only. As a community college with only a few main entrances, it’s easy to manage access to the campus through two designated screening areas. Most of our classes are fully online, and about 25% of classes meet on campus (prioritizing classes that have an in-person component, such as science labs, art studio, and nursing classes).

In the library specifically, we work a rotating shift schedule where only one person from each department is on-campus at the same time. For example, I’m on campus for 4-hour reference shifts Thursday evenings and Friday mornings, and the rest of the time I’m working remotely. In the last year, about 95% of the info lit classes I’ve taught have been online, synchronous instruction through Teams, with some tutorial videos and a handful of in-person classes. Teaching through a mask is no joke, I don’t envy those who have to do it every day!

Jen Jarson: We don’t have many students on campus at this point. Most classes are still happening online this semester. Some classes have in-person components that bring students to campus–a few classes that are regularly scheduled to be fully or partially in-person and some that occasionally require students to come in for exams or particular learning experiences. Our campus doesn’t have any residential facilities, so while students are welcome to come to campus to make use of spaces and resources, they are rarely just incidentally hanging around. As a result of all this, traffic in the library has been very low. Our library space is open, but on a reduced schedule because of COVID protocols related to staffing (although there isn’t demand for more hours given the very low on-campus traffic). Our information literacy instruction program is entirely online–and working quite well that way, thankfully. Same for reference/research consultation. Our institution is still requiring that we quarantine returned materials and we have restrictions in place regarding accessing/borrowing print materials due to our agreement with the HathiTrust to enable their Emergency Temporary Access Service. So collections-related services (like physical course reserves, a big deal for us) have taken the biggest hit, I think.

Maura Smale: Our campus is still mostly closed — there are two buildings that have some face to face classes, mostly in the allied health departments and a few other hands-on lab classes, with probably less than 10% of students coming to campus this semester. The library is within a complex of 4 connected buildings that aren’t open to students, and our space is still closed. We’re still providing all library services online, including 100% online instruction and reference, and haven’t yet started accepting returns of or circulating print materials; our textbook reserve collection, which has historically seen heavy use, isn’t available. Some library faculty and staff are coming in to work in our offices on a voluntary basis, mostly for the change of scenery (that’s definitely the case for me, and I’ve been working in my office one day/week).

Veronica Arellano Douglas: Our main library remains open, but with limited hours, while our subject libraries are open Monday-Friday only, again, with limited hours. My colleagues in Access Services are the people keeping the building open, while a few folks from other departments come in once or twice a week to work on tasks that can only be in the building. My department, Liaison Services, is still working from home. The university’s Spring semester classes just ended, making the campus seem even quieter than it already was earlier in the semester. Most classes were online this spring and that will continue to be the case for the summer session.

What do you anticipate the Fall will look like for your library?

Maura: As of this writing my university (the City University of New York) is aiming for 25% in-person instruction in the Fall, with each college making its own specific plans. I’m really hoping that CUNY will require all students who will be on campus in the Fall to be vaccinated (and honestly I’d prefer that requirement for employees, too), but there’s been no decision on that yet. For CUNY a big concern is public transportation — nearly all students and employees travel to our almost-entirely commuter colleges on subways and buses, and many folx are still understandably hesitant to return to mass transit. At my college it’s likely that the majority of face to face courses will remain in the two buildings that are currently hosting classes, and it’s not clear yet what parts of the buildings where our library is located will be accessible to students. In the library we are moving forward with plans to begin circulating print materials again (grab and go); instruction and reference will stay fully online in the Fall. It seems unlikely that we’ll be open for study space or computer use (there are other computer labs on campus that will be open), though our plans may change over the Summer as (hopefully) more of NYC is vaccinated.

Jen: At this point, my institution is planning to return to pre-pandemic levels of in-person instruction. (Of course, that’s dependent on the status of the pandemic at that point.) It’s unclear how social distancing guidelines will be revised, though. If the guidelines stay at 6 feet or are only partially reduced, we won’t be able to accommodate that many in-person classes given limited classroom sizes at my campus. Those decisions will impact how many students are on campus, but either way we’re expecting to expand our library hours back to normal, or near-normal. We anticipate that mandates to quarantine returned materials and other restrictions on collections will be lifted, so we’re excited at the prospect of restoring our physical course reserves service which so many of our students count on. We still have a lot to figure out–our information literacy instruction program, our space, our staffing schedule, and more–because so much of that hinges on what expectations the university sets about distancing and other COVID-related guidelines.

Veronica: Honestly, I have no clue. Right now we are very much in an information vacuum. Being a public institution means that so much of our administrative design making is based on state-mandates and given the governor’s propensity to open everything it seems likely we will be on campus in the fall barring no major changes in the medical situation (which is a huge unknown). We’re trying to plan space arrangements within the library and our classrooms and encourage faculty and librarians to continue to use online lessons and online synchronous instruction. In some ways my biggest fear is that we will just go back to work as it was pre-pandemic, having changed nothing about the ways in which we accommodate worker needs to create safe, healthy work environments. We’ll see, I guess.

What have we learned during the pandemic that may enrich our work practices as we transition toward a time when in-person, on-campus engagement is more common?

Angie Rathmel: There’s been very deliberate attention to this question at my campus, which aims to resume mostly in-person learning this Fall. My library colleagues noted how successfully we have collectively been able to provide our services, even with the majority of our workforce remote. I supervise a unit where remote and onsite work during the pandemic split out at about 85% – 15% respectively. This small but essential in-person staff presence forged unofficial leadership channels, required a more deliberate communication style, and created a distinctive experience of collective trust. All of these I think can enrich our practices as we are more increasingly together in person. One would think these successes, combined with the practical and technological efficiencies and productivity gains, would lead us to normalize remote work in ways we haven’t previously. But I’m discovering how counter that idea runs to the prevailing notion of “returning to normal”. I’m still trying to reconcile this disconnect, but feel strongly that enriching our work practices requires us to do more than overlay these lessons onto a former normal. The lesson that I feel we need to keep learning through practice is the awareness of how our decisions and actions impact others.If we were to practice more generous thinking as we try to answer this question, it might look less like “what did I learn?” and more like “what did I learn about your experience that was different than mine?” or “How did my experience shape yours and vice versa.” See also “how can we best support one another…”

Hailley Fargo: As a librarian who helps to host events and workshops outside the classroom, the pandemic really pushed me and my colleagues to think more intentionally/strategically about what events we could support in an online environment. We worked more closely with student clubs and offered smaller scale events like zine workshops. It allowed us to learn more about the student pandemic experience and host events where every participant was really jazzed and excited to be there. I hope we can take this lesson and bring it into a more hybrid and or in-person situation. It’s nice to be able to focus on meaningful outreach while also coming to a better understanding of our student community.

Veronica: I’ve learned how important childcare, eldercare, and other kinds of full-time caregiving (which includes K-12 school and caring for adults with special needs) is to all of the work that we do. Without it, our work is extremely difficult to impossible. My biggest hope is that we start to pay caregivers what they are worth. Secondary to that, I’d like to continue to see flexible scheduling for all employees who are caregivers and parents, who suffer from illness, who have disabilities, and who need the kind of flexibility we’ve had this year to do the kind of work that keeps our libraries running. I take a break from work everyday to pick up my son from school at 3pm because there is no after-school care in a pandemic. When we get home I fix him a snack, get him set up with something to do or watch, then I go back to work. This would never have happened pre-pandemic, but what will happen post-pandemic? Will I still be able to pick him up and continue my work at home everyday? 3 times a week? Once a week?

What practices do you want to keep when you return to campus? What do you want to leave behind?

Alex: I very much want to continue to work from home some of the time. The extra time in close proximity to my cat and the ability to get up and do a housework task in the middle of the day (so I don’t have to tackle it when I get home) has done wonders for my mental health. Certain work is easier to get done at home. Also, in March 2020, we implemented weekly check-in meetings on Monday mornings, to update the rest of our location’s library employees on important matters, and to make sure everyone is doing generally okay. I think we should keep them, because it connects us and makes sure nobody misses important information or deadlines, and gives us a chance to share the good and the bad.

I won’t mind leaving behind virtual-only instruction. Some workshops and orientations, I just do better in person. I like to walk around, gesture a lot (which gets cut off by my webcam), and see reactions to my jokes. (I fully support turning off your camera if you Just Can’t Right Now, but I also feed on laughter and need to be validated while I teach.)

Emily:

Want to keep: The slower, contemplative pace for planning instruction. The creativity and problem-solving of making online learning materials. The awareness and respect for colleagues’ and students’ lives outside of the workplace.
Want to leave: The isolation from my coworkers, the confusion and hurt feelings from all-virtual communication, the two hour Teams meetings with no stretch breaks.

Jen: I agree with what my colleagues are noting here about compassion and flexibility. Additionally, I’m grateful for the new techniques that teaching online has given me an opportunity to explore. I recognize that I might be an outlier here! I’m as Zoomed out as anyone, of course. But the challenge of trying to engage students in the online classroom has actually helped me think about how to revitalize my in-person instruction, too. I definitely plan to sustain (and hopefully grow) some of the techniques I’ve been using.

Maura: We were a 100% onsite all the time workplace before the pandemic, and I’m hoping we can keep some flexibility in all of our work moving forward. This is likely to be complicated by the different classifications that library workers hold at my university: we have library faculty, what the university terms professional staff, IT staff, and civil service staff, represented by two different unions. While of course we haven’t been able to offer every library service remotely during the pandemic, everyone has had work to do and everyone’s contributed to keeping library resources and services available for our patrons. I’m committed to advocating for all library workers to have the flexibility to do some work from home in the future.

I do look forward to seeing my colleagues in person again, and to having meetings where we’re all in the same room. I’ve tried to be very mindful about communication this year, not calling a meeting when an email will suffice, and not sending too many emails if I can help it. But communication has still been a huge challenge, especially considering all of my colleagues’ different commitments, with some folx more Zoom-bound than others. Once we all have a more regular presence in the physical library I hope that communication will get easier.

Hailley: I want to keep the boundaries I have been able to create between my work and my personal life (including hobbies!). I don’t know why the pandemic has aided so much in creating that separation but I hope to maintain it as we return to in-person work. Similar to Emily, I’m excited to leave behind the solo work; I’m so excited to run into colleagues in the library and have those spur of the moment chats that can result in a new idea or collaboration.

Veronica: I want to continue to offer virtual options for student consultations and classes. I think it meets a need we’ve always had as a large urban university where so many students and instructors commute long distances. It takes into account everyone’s personal needs and life situations.

How can we best support one another as we prepare for and navigate this transition back to campuses?

Alex: Flexibility in all possible ways. It is very important to remember that everyone is going to recover and transition in their own way, in their own order, and at their own pace. Communication, too, will continue to be key. This includes: asking others about their comfort level with certain procedures, letting people know where you are in the transition process, and expressing your needs and boundaries while hearing others’.

Angie: I keep thinking about how the pandemic has reinforced a practice for how our individual actions and responsibilities primarily protect and support others more than ourselves — my mask protects you and your mask protects me. Keeping this “other” focus in our communications, in our decision-making reflections, and in our individual actions is the best way I see to collectively support one another and collectively prepare to transition back to campus (or in any change, maybe).

Me, an introvert, learning social distancing is the only way to stop the corona virus: pic.twitter.com/s0gX0nZdxm
— Anna Rasmussen (@arasmussen918) March 11, 2020

As a sort of “other” when it came to in-person-work, introverts gained a level of ease and privilege in remote-work. Those who have been working in person throughout the pandemic (both introverts and extroverts) are now that “other” as the majority transition back. If we don’t provide opportunities to surface the nuanced needs of each “other” in all kinds of circumstances, we won’t know how to support or fully benefit from our learning. Creating space for both those shared and distinctive experiences could be a particularly healing act we all need right now.

Emily: “Grace” is going to be my refrain as we transition back to campus. We don’t know what Fall will look like at our community college yet — although administration wants us 100% in person, their decision will be based on numbers and recommendations from the county health department. So as of now a lot feels still up in the air. And that’s why having grace for one another is such an important guiding principle for me. What this could look like in practice:

Flexibility around arrival time – We’ve all gotten used to our 30 second commute, and transitioning back is going to be an adjustment. I’d like to see redundancy in scheduling for the first hour of the day, so that opening the library is not on the shoulders of just one person.
Social support for using vacation leave – I discussed this in my last post, but with the return of students and our old routines, PTO will be an essential form of self-care. I want my coworkers to know that I’m willing to cover for them if they need a break at the desk or a full day off, even when the semester gets busy.
Give each other the benefit of the doubt – I could see friction arising around sharing work space again as we return to campus. But let’s give folks the benefit of the doubt when they inconvenience us, or when a comment lands weird in an email or note left on the reference desk. I intend to not take things personally, to ask for clarification when I’m confused or hurt, and let the little things go when I can.
Patience with students – Sure, there are things that bug me about student behaviors in the library: students that wait til the last minute and stress me out with their urgency, ask me to do their homework for them, or make appointments and don’t show up. I want to extend them grace too, and remember that this will be a big adjustment for them as much as it is for me, after a year of profound trauma and chronic stress.

Maura: I am +1 on everything that my fellow ACRLoggers have said: flexibility, patience, compassion, and just overall emphasizing care in all of our interactions — with each other, with students and others on campus — is what I’m keeping top of mind as we start getting back into the physical library. I’m so proud of the work we’ve all done, we’ve all supported each other through this very difficult year, keeping safety at the forefront. And while I know there are many challenges ahead, I think we’re in the best place we could be to address them. I’m also going to continue to encourage my colleagues (and myself!) to use our vacation days — even if we’re not going to be traveling during the summer, I hope we can all take some time to rest.

Veronica: I think that we need to understand that not everyone is going to acclimate to post-pandemic life in the same way. Be kind and understanding to your colleagues, or as Emily put it, show them a measure of grace. Some folks might not be comfortable sitting in a small meeting room, others might not want to go to lunch as often, and still others may want to hug everyone they meet. Faculty and students will need time to adjust to in person relationships again and our virtual connections may start to suffer a bit. We will just need to remind ourselves that everyone is adjusting in their own way.

How are you doing? How are things going at your library? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

Lost in Exigency, Baby.

As a researcher of organizational communication, I have spent much of the past year observing and analyzing crisis communication by university and library leadership. Often I’m in the minority, praising communication and transparency I’ve observed from university responses to the pandemic, where others have been quick to find fault. Far from an apologist, my unpopular opinion just as often puts me at odds with leadership, especially when presenting views of those further removed from the hierarchy.

Kansas stirred up quite a bit of crisis communication last week as its Board of Regents (KBOR) unanimously passed a policy suspending University tenure protections aimed at addressing immediate budget challenges due to COVID-19. While no University is required to implement the new policy, KBOR gave Universities 45-days to respond with criteria and a process for invoking such a policy.

University administrators’ reaction to the policy was swift, either seeking broader input or acknowledging they would not implement. An open letter also quickly circulated, criticizing the policy as well as administrations who hadn’t joined in denouncing it outright. Without diminishing this alarmed response — the policy and its adoption are certainly worthy of it – my first and strongest impulse is always to ask questions.

One important question being asked is “why is a new policy needed?”

When KBOR’s Governance Board met to present and discuss this policy (around 19 minutes in), Regent Kiblinger asked this very question, in context and comparison to KBOR’s existing “financial exigency” policy. The response she got highlights several distinctions, while justifying it against other COVID-specific policy changes the Board has made. The first key distinction, though, really struck me.

“It treats everyone the same.”
KBOR General Counsel, Julene Miller

The new KBOR policy (6.b.ii) creates a COVID-specific exigency (if you will) applicable to any state university employee without the declaration of financial exigency as a prerequisite. Who is affected is the current focus of both the response from Universities and indeed the essence of how this policy “treats everyone the same”. It is admittedly more complicated , but deceptively that simple.

This sentiment — a takeaway from Kathleen Fitzpatrick’s very timely visit to my campus this week discussing Generous Thinking: A Radical Approach to Saving the University (John Hopkins University Press) – has bolstered an uncomfortable hunch I have about this current situation in Kansas. Fitzpatrick calls for a radical rethinking of how we participate in our collective values as communities of learning with a “duty of care”. While faculty loudly address the failure of leadership to make clear or understand the value of academic freedom and shared governance promised by tenure, we fail recognize and acknowledge how its structures like tenure and governance have also been built and broken down in ways that no longer live up to the values they intended to secure.

The key differences in the policy getting the most attention have to do with who has input throughout the processes and changes to the advance notice, process of appeal, and the affected employees. These explicit limitations on who is consulted, their representation and due process do raise justifiable concerns on a number of levels, one of which may be the further erosion of academic tenure in and beyond Kansas. But, remedying these concerns through a narrow lens of tenured faculty rights, just hits wrong. It misses the larger point, an opportunity even, that could be driving new and more equitable policy. Ironically, it misuses the privilege afforded by that which actually needs defending here.

What’s driving the policy?

The next set of distinctions the KBOR Governance Board outlined in its meeting mention the expedited timeline the new policy provides and an executive-centric role in the process. While financial exigency lacks as explicitly specific a process, it does ensure the executive role is shared with governance. We’ll come back to this.

But, first, the gist of the financial exigency. The Kansas Reflector summarized the policy even more succinctly [my emphasis inserted]:

Under existing Board of Regents’ policy, a state university must formally recognize a financial exigency that [has already] required elimination of non-tenured positions and operating expenditures. With the declaration, the universities could move ahead with reductions in tenured faculty positions.

By the open letter responding to this new policy asserting at the outset that, “procedures already exist to make decisions according to financial exigency as part of shared governance”, its authors acknowledge the similarly dire circumstances that concern both policies. KU’s rules and regulations for shared governance of financial exigency further emphasizes the gravity.

“Only as a last resort after all possible alternatives calculated to preserve the survival of the University as a quality institution of higher learning have been in good faith examined, and utilized or rejected, should the University consider the release of any tenured member of the faculty on the basis of Financial Exigency.
https://policy.ku.edu/governance/USRR#ArticleVII

If urgency of the circumstances are justifiably similar and this new COVID-19 specific policy is something clearly different than financial exigency, then how we talk about those differences matter.

The positive difference in the policy of financial exigency (shared governance) has already been noted. My question is why would we defend a policy that requires Universities to explicitly begin eliminating non-tenured lines before any tenured lines?

Because…tenure?

Like crises before it, COVID-19 has been both a global equalizer and a stark reminder of disparities resulting from all kinds of privilege. For KU employees COVID-19 has already forced temporary salary reductions across all employee types, additional hiring freezes, and top-down realignments that have resulted in administrative promotions and demotions, unpaid additional labor, and the voluntary and involuntary loss of good people and expertise.

Values and standards can certainly be upheld during unprecedented upheaval. The open letter reminds us “the statements of core values and standard practices [of academic freedom and tenure] were composed during moments of extraordinary societal upheaval and unrest—during the worst economic depression and the deadliest world war”. We must acknowledge they also occurred when “in some Northern cities, whites called for African Americans to be fired from any jobs as long as there were whites out of work.” Can we honestly say today, under circumstances similar or unique from crises of the past, that explicitly prioritizing the elimination of non-tenured faculty or staff actually “preserves the survival of the University as a quality institution of higher learning”, but eliminating any tenured faculty doesn’t?

What actually needs defending here?

What if Universities responded to the call for developing this framework with a generosity inherent in “it treats everyone the same”? What if a framework did include shared governance, adequate notice and appeal privileges, and did so (as the policy requires) for any state university employee?

Wouldn’t that be better than defending currently inequitable alternatives like financial exigency, or narrowly focusing on the academic freedom afforded only to tenured faculty? Wouldn’t it be better than an institution publicly declaring they are (for now) not planning to submit criteria or implement the new policy as is?

These questions prevent me from defending an alternative of financial exigency as it exists. In posing these questions, I also acknowledge that KBOR’s approval of this policy without shared governance and transparency is indeed unprecedented in a manner that “degrades the working conditions of the entire university and the learning conditions for all of our students”. At the same time, I can see the issues it is attempting to address gives unprecedented opportunity for more equitable approaches to “save the university”.

Having worked for the State of Kansas in the KBOR system for more than 20 years, I have experienced the political and budgetary challenges to employee salaries and benefits from the vantage point of different employee statuses – classified and unclassified staff, tenure track and non-tenure track, and tenured faculty administration in which I have supervised or mentored all of the former. This given me access to perspectives some of my colleagues may not as readily share.

Clearly this issue has shaken more than the foundational principles of tenure. It has us questioning ourselves, our professional relationships, and our leadership at all levels. Ultimately, though, this is a good thing. And while manifested poorly, both these polices, and at all times our privilege, should be open to further critique.

Shared governance is a privilege students, staff, and faculty can and should exercise on behalf of the most vulnerable. It calls us to use our collective voices not in self- or self-identifying preservation, but for giving unprecedented voice, participation, and due process for all employees. KU’s chancellor has publicly and internally sought input from governance, administrators, faculty, and staff across the university to determine this process, despite any requirement of the KBOR policy to do so – as he should! In addition to this invitation, it is our right and obligation to demonstrate how equity becomes and remains a prerequisite part of any policy.

Let’s get to it.