new librarian

Three Pieces of Advice for First-Year Academic Librarians

I thought my first year at Vanderbilt had flown by, but as it turns out, the first semester of my second year seems like it’s moving even more quickly! As I finish up the first five weeks of the semester, I’ve been thinking a lot about how different this year feels from last year, and how I wish I could go back and tell myself not to be stressed because before long, I would have plenty of outreach from students and faculty! If there were three things I could tell myself a year ago, they would be:

Spend time on relationships

One thing that I didn’t expect about librarianship is how important it would be to build relationships with the department that I support – and that although the relationship building may take time to pay off, it’s important not to give up on it. For example, I started holding in-person office hours in the Spring 2026 semester, setting up a two-hour mobile office once a week in my department’s building. In that entire semester, only one person came to office hours. Most faculty and students who walked by didn’t give me a second glance, not knowing who I was. I wondered if I should even continue with office hours this fall, but the department assistant was excited about setting them up, so I decided to give it another try.

This semester, my department has moved back into their permanent building (which was being renovated last year), and there’s a central seating area where I can hold office hours. Understanding that faculty might not know who I was, I also made signage saying, “Library Office Hours Happening Now!” with my name and other information, and I put up the signage during the two hours, so students and faculty who pass by would understand who I am and why I’m sitting there.

Now, when students and faculty walk by, they smile and often introduce themselves or say hello. I have twice as many classes scheduled this semester as I did last fall, because as faculty have gotten to know me and put a face to a name, they’ve started responding to my outreach. I spent so much time last year lamenting how no one knew who I was, but it turns out that I just needed to be persistent and give it a little time.

Don’t panic if you don’t know the answer

When I started this job, I jumped into a lot of aspects of librarianship that I didn’t know a lot about. For example, the collection development course that I took in grad school didn’t prepare me at all for the realities of managing an actual budget, so I learned that on the job with help from colleagues (and am still learning!). I also try to say “yes, and” instead of “no” whenever I can – and even sometimes when I maybe shouldn’t. Late last fall, a faculty member reached out to ask if I could help her set up Perusall for a class. I confidently said yes, then spent the remainder of the day teaching myself how to use Perusall so that I could teach it to her later that week (for anyone else who’s never heard of it, it’s a tool that integrates with a course management system like Brightspace or Canvas so students can annotate readings). And so forth.

Sometimes I’m surprised when faculty members act like I know everything and have all the answers. Is it just an aspect of librarians being seen as knowledgeable people, or do they actually think I can do it all? I got a piece of the answer to these questions in a conversation with a faculty member a few weeks ago. She asked if I could come and teach her class, stating that since I had taught the class before and I had been in my role for several years, she hoped it wouldn’t be a problem to teach on short notice (neither of those were accurate).

I agreed to teach the class and didn’t let on that I had never taught it before and that I had only been in my position for a year, but I learned a lot from that conversation. No matter how uncertain or new I feel, people likely won’t even notice unless I draw attention to it. My faculty and students aren’t counting how many months I’ve been in this job, they just know that they know me and I’m here to help. In situations where I don’t know the answer, I’m learning to take a deep breath, not panic, and that I’ll likely be able to figure things out.

Enjoy the moment

Through my first year as an academic librarian, and even in the first few months of my second year, there have been both highs and lows. I would also remind myself to enjoy all the moments – the good moments, because they’re great, the bad moments, because they’re learning experiences, and everything in between, because the time will go by so quickly. Volunteer, get involved on campus, and enjoy being where I am and doing the work that I do every day. I hope this helps academic librarians who are starting their first years this semester. You’ve got this!

Making the Cross-Border Jump as an Academic Librarian

Moving to the United States, especially at this sociopolitical moment was not something I was expecting (re: see Violet’s most recent post here), however, a dream position came up that I couldn’t turn down! I wanted to take this first post as a regular contributor to ACRLog and mark this turn in my career in hopes to help anyone else who might be going through similar changes.

Applying

Interviewing and applying to positions in other countries is straightforward, like other types of interviewing, but reading the fine print may be necessary. Some positions say visa sponsorship is not available but may be open to Canadian applicants through the TN visa process. Sending an inquiry to HR before applying just to ensure that the institution and search committee is aware that you are a Canadian applicant might be a good idea as well. The academic library interviews were more intense than the Canadian interviews I have had, where the process was sometimes one and a half or two full days. The long interviews were personally appreciated as I tend to warm up over time and enjoy getting to visit the different campuses, cities, and have more time to get to know everyone at the library.

Moving

Moving away from home is definitely not easy but is unfortunately something that one needs to be open to in order to secure a job in academic librarianship. To make things easier for myself, I have adopted a sort of minimalist lifestyle (emphasis on sort of) and living away from home since high school has helped me become better at packing and moving (although it is cumbersome and physically draining). Many institutions already offer this, but during the in-person interview, taking advantage of all the opportunities to look around the city and neighbourhoods such as tours and lunches to ask questions, really opened my eyes in envisioning myself fitting into the city. The job is important, but a fit between the city’s lifestyle, food scene, cinemas, and bike/running trails were equally important for me.

Mental hurdle

I definitely think that the biggest obstacle to accepting a position in another country was in my head. Just the thought of working in another country was pretty daunting, but here are some strategies that helped me make the transition easier. First, identifying anyone at my current institution who has ever worked in the US, or moved from US to Canada, or other countries was really helpful. Getting to know their experiences and personal anecdotes really helped me prep myself and to know which questions to ask to which person. Second, asking if there were other Canadian librarians at the institution I was interviewing at was critical. This showed me that they had an HR team, an international office, and a department who knew how to support Canadian applicants as well as a network of librarians who had gone through the same or similar process that I could rely on in the future and during the transition period.

Logistical Things

This was/is still my least favourite part. From learning about the TN visa process, getting a new phone number, applying for a social security number, making a bank account, finding a place, thinking about taxes, and much more that I am probably forgetting, there are many steps that need to take place when you are moving countries! Surprisingly, there are a lot of other people who had also gone through a similar move (especially for tech, engineering, post-graduate degrees, etc.) that I could reach out to in my own life and read about online. Something that I had trouble doing was asking for help when I needed it, especially things like rides and their time, but I am actively working on it and trying to put myself in their shoes and thinking about how happy I would be if someone reached out asking to share my time and experiences.

The main message that I wanted this post to show is the transparency of the process and encourage others who may be on the fence about it, especially early-career librarians! There really are no boundaries, and these paper processes can be annoying, but there are entire teams at the library from human resources to managers who can really make the whole move less stressful and burdening. I also wanted to take this post to thank everyone who helped me during this transition and to those who shared their experiences, knowledge, and time with me!

First Year Reflections

Tuesday of last week, August 4, marked one year in my role at Vanderbilt. The time has flown by! One of my goals for the summer was to reflect on my first year as a librarian and to plan for the second year based on what I’d learned. Although I haven’t had as much time for that reflection as I’d hoped, for my final post as a First-Year Academic Librarian blogger, I wanted to share a few lessons learned that I’m planning to build on during the upcoming year:

Be proactive

I started this job last year only three weeks before the first day of fall classes. Although it felt like enough of a head start at the time, especially considering that I had only moved to Nashville a few weeks prior, I wish that it had been possible for me to start earlier. As it was, there were several classes that I had to get ready to teach or co-teach at the last minute, relationships with the department I support that I was trying to build in a hurry, and a lot of basic information about how everything worked that I had to learn. Even with support from the other librarians at my library, plus our library director, it all felt like a whirlwind.

One example of something that I wish I could have planned better for was when I met individually with around 25 students from the same degree program, almost all in October, for research appointments. I realized about halfway through the appointments that the students all needed help with the same skills – choosing databases and learning how to search with Boolean terms – and that it would be a lot more efficient for everyone’s time if I could have taught all the students that in one instruction session. This year, I reached out to the appropriate professor in late July and asked if I could come to a class early in the semester to teach everyone the basics of a library search. Happily, she enthusiastically agreed. My hope is that this year, I’ll be able to spend my appointments with students talking about their specific search topics and make the sessions more tailored to their research interests. But that wouldn’t have even been a possibility if I hadn’t learned from last year and proactively reached out this year.

Build community

During this first year, one of the main things I knew was how much I didn’t know. I had tons of questions (and still do), and more things to learn seemed to come up every week. Luckily, librarians are generally helpful people, and I’ve gotten very lucky with how many people around me have been willing to help me out. My colleagues at my library, Peabody, have been incredible, always willing to answer questions and take the time to walk me through different processes and procedures. Additionally, there were actually six new librarians (including me) who started at Vanderbilt last summer, and we all bonded pretty quickly. Being able to check in with them, ask each other questions, and serve as sounding boards has been a huge help. We also started a journal club that’s expanded to include other newer librarians, and having that built-in community is great.

I’ve also been able to make and strengthen connections with librarians outside of Vanderbilt. One of my professors from library school is now friend and mentor – in addition to our frequent Zooms, we’re also co-authoring a textbook chapter. The education librarian from UNC-Chapel Hill, where I did my MSLS, has also become a friend and colleague. We support a lot of similar degree programs, so we chat around once a month about what trends we’re seeing with our students, what helpful resources we’ve found, what new ideas we’ve tried, and more. And, because I get so many business-related questions, I’ve also looked for business mentors who can help with questions. In addition to all the business librarians at Vanderbilt, who have been great, I’ve also connected with UNC-Chapel Hill’s business school librarian. Building all of these relationships and communities has taken time, but it’s been time so well spent. My first year would have been so much harder without my colleagues and friends, and now I have these solid connections to move forward with this year.

Learn lots!

When I first started, my library director told me that “this is a learning year.” I agreed, because of course that made sense on the surface, but at the time I didn’t fully understand what she was getting at. It took going through this first year for me to really understand what she meant. There’s so much more that I know now after a full academic cycle. Some of it is tangible – like being proactive – but a lot of it is also intangible. I know which months will likely be busy and which will be slow(er). I know how much fun it is when the students come back to campus after the quiet summer. I know that I need to work ahead on projects because every day is different, and saving something for a specific day probably means that that day will get overtaken by something else and I’ll have to scramble. I know that a big part of my job is just being present, both at my library and at my department, and getting involved with whatever’s happening. And even with everything that I’ve learned in the last year, I’m very conscious that there’s still so much I don’t know. There’s always something else to learn.

Looking ahead

Students will be back at Vanderbilt in about two weeks. I’ve already done some prep work for the upcoming semester and academic year, but I have a lot more to do before classes start. I’m looking forward to being back in the classroom and meeting with students more regularly, as well as reconnecting with colleagues who I haven’t seen as much over the summer. Vanderbilt Libraries also hosts regular professional development sessions for newer librarians during the school year, so I’m excited to see familiar faces at those sessions as well (plus, more learning!). I’m also just really interested to see how I feel about this second year compared to the first year. My hope is that I can learn just as much, while also building on what worked from last year. I’m looking forward to it!

Developing a Teaching Style… In Style!

A commonality among this year’s first-year academic librarian bloggers was the daunting task of standing in front of a class for the first time. We were curious to discuss the similarities and differences that exist between becoming a teacher for the first time in a post-secondary setting and how we developed our style over our first year as librarians.

Eleanor: Collaboration is key

I never knew what to say when asked to describe my teaching style in a job interview. When I taught one-shots during my MLIS, I simply hodge-podged together various activities I’d enjoyed as an undergraduate. Regardless of whether it was effective or ineffective, what I was doing didn’t have the level of intentionality required to be called a “style.” What is a teaching style? I wondered. How will I know if I have one?

But over the last year, I’ve gained experience navigating the classroom and developed confidence in myself as an instructor. Collaboration and conversation with other faculty have been key to my development as a teacher, which is why I think this is a valuable conversation for the FYALs to have together. Through co-teaching experiences and working through teaching challenges together with my colleagues, I was exposed to a wide variety of ideas about teaching. I began to understand what makes my approach to teaching similar to or different from theirs and develop the language to articulate why a lesson felt right (or didn’t!).

For example, I was introduced to TILT Higher Ed (Transparency in Learning and Teaching) through the new faculty colloquium at UNI, and I experienced it in action during my first semester as a co-teacher. TILT is a teaching framework that emphasizes radical transparency in teaching methods, classroom expectations, course design, and more. This helps level the playing field between all students, which is especially important in the library classroom. As many public and school libraries are forced to close or reduce hours due to drastic budget cuts, our students enter college less familiar than ever with libraries and research strategies.

But ultimately, the most important thing about my teaching style isn’t any specific framework, technique, or activity. It’s the fact that now, I’ve developed intentionality in my approach to teaching. That means I can actively evaluate, critique, and grow my own teaching. My teaching style will not be static over the course of my career. It must evolve in tandem with my students, my course material, my institution, and the wider cultural context in which I teach.

Lisa: Take-away materials & take-away friends

When first jumping into the role of an academic librarian, it was overwhelming just to think about even getting through that one, two, maybe three hours that I had in front of a class. Especially as someone who used to have a fear of public speaking and still has remnants of that anxiety in different caveats of daily life, teaching alone as a fresh graduate seemed like a tall ask. Now that almost three semesters’ worth of teaching have passed, I feel that I have really relaxed into the role thanks to different pockets of fun and confidence that I’ve identified to lean into when teaching.

Something I try to think about when I am teaching are the tangible take-away points for students so that they can leave the session with a better sense of their research topic, the library, and other new intersecting thoughts. This might also be due to the fact that I support subject areas in STEM with students who are looking to finish school with professional careers rather than learn about the ins and outs of the research lifecycle. Relevant examples, recent cases, real-life scenarios, and pain points from previous students are ways I try to incorporate discipline-specific needs into traditional information literacy sessions.

At the undergraduate level, especially in senior courses, when students are attending classes for the sole purpose of graduating, there are often instances when my energy is not being reciprocated. To alleviate this tension, something I started doing at the beginning of each session was to bring a bit of myself. Whether it be through a photo or an analogy comparing information literacy to Korean food, incorporating myself into the session helped me to become more familiar in a new environment while allowing students to open up to me and each other as well. Another strategy that I love are icebreakers. I love doing quick ones where students must hold up a number to identify themselves with a meme or submit answers to an interactive website (wooclap, kahoot, etc.).

An aspect that I took for granted in university was the social aspect of learning, whether it was participation in class, group work, presentations, or conversations. To utilize this unique aspect to the maximum, I have fun adding in activities that incorporate a social aspect in all of my sessions, whether they are one-shots, recurring workshops, or consultations. In my mind, if students didn’t get anything from the actual session, they can at least emerge out of it with having interacted with one new classmate, shared their research topic with a friend, found a research partner, or reinforced their classroom community further. One of my favourite parts of my role in the library is witnessing the growth of students throughout the year, and teaching is so exciting because it really is the first step in developing that relationship.

M: Gaining confidence in the classroom

When I first started library school, I didn’t envision myself teaching much. However, as I made my way through classes, I started to realize that if I wanted to be an academic librarian who primarily works with students, there was basically no way to avoid teaching. Like Lisa, I haven’t always felt the most comfortable with public speaking, although I’ve worked hard to be better at it and feel more confident. I decided that I would have to find a way to figure out how to be, at minimum, an average teacher if I wanted to continue on the academic librarian path that I’d chosen. There are three things that have helped me work on being a more confident and effective teacher:

First, in library school, I was able to take a course on Library Instruction. That’s the first place where I was asked to think about my teaching style and where I had to write a teaching statement. I haven’t looked at that statement since I started in my current position, but I plan to go back to it this summer and will be interested to see what’s changed and what’s stayed the same. Library Instruction helped me think about teaching as more than just lecturing students – students can also learn through back and forth dialogue, think-pair-shares, and other interactive methods. Since I only teach graduate students, I’m still working on how I can most effectively bring those forms of instruction into my teaching, but I know I’ll figure it out. Big thanks to my professor for this class, Dr. Rawson, for her own incredible teaching.

Second, I’ve had the opportunity both in library school and in my current job to observe instruction sessions led by other librarians. Those experiences have been invaluable in helping me figure out what works or doesn’t work in front of a class, what I currently do well, and what I can improve on. Sitting in on those sessions, especially when I then have time to talk to the librarians afterwards and ask them questions, has been a fantastic way to learn. I would encourage anyone to find opportunities to do this – if it’s not built in to the structure of your library school program or current position, ask the librarians at your school or your colleagues at your job if you can sit in on some of their sessions informally.

Last but not least, practice, practice, practice. It sounds obvious, but it really makes a difference. I was so lucky that my supervisor at my Graduate Assistant job, Kate, was so willing for me to co-teach with her and also gave me opportunities to teach on my own. Getting that practice over and over while I was still a student went a long way to helping me feel more confident. I still feel the most nervous when I teach a session for the first time after a long break, but when this happens, I think back to the advice that Dr. Rawson gave our class – you can still be a great teacher even if you have a lot of nerves. I’ve also been glad to learn this year that once I’m back in the swing of teaching, I still have butterflies before an instructional, but my nerves aren’t nearly as bad. I’m trying to gear up now for what will probably be an instruction-heavy fall and will be interested to see how that impacts how I feel about teaching for the rest of the year.

So, what’s my teaching style? I’m still working on it. I love to include interactive components in my teaching whenever I can, but I feel that there’s still a place for sharing information with students in a more traditional format. I’m trying to figure out what icebreakers work well for graduate students and if I can ask them to do activities or not. And I’m working on building up the confidence to try new things in the classroom and to be okay if they don’t work out. I’m not sure if those things constitute a teaching style or not, but I hope they do – or that they will.

Conclusion

Together with all of our combined experiences, it is evident that there are so many different ways to approach teaching – and always new ways to learn and grow.

How to… Fre+nglish

Although I took one psycho-linguistics course in undergrad (very interesting, by the way), I never thought I would be able to apply the theories and examples I learned in that class to real-life. As I navigated my first-year of academic librarianship in a bilingual French-English institution, I slowly began to accumulate routines and activities that worked for me the most. With French being my third language, I wanted to take this post to share strategies and tips that helped me in my first year to improve my French more than it ever has.

Identifying Needs

Something that I found to be helpful is to organize my own personal needs in recognizing what skills I lacked the most. For me, they were conversational and oral skills, especially during bilingual meetings or when listening to presentations. Identifying a set of words that were commonly used within everyday work was something I quickly recognized that helped immensely in these everyday situations. In addition, really getting myself out there in terms of French training, lectures, workshops, events, conferences, symposiums and volunteering for co-teaching and shadowing opportunities were other ways to quickly be exposed to an immersed setting.

Confidence

Frenglish is definitely real. I use Konglish (Korean+English) quite often with my family, but I always thought that my French had to be perfect before I opened my mouth, especially in professional settings. If there is something I learned this year, it really is that trying is often enough! I often think about my parents when I think I speak broken French. When they first immigrated to Canada, they must have also felt this fear and wall in communication, accents, and judgement. Most people are simply just grateful that I am trying to speak and communicate, and often to help them! My favourite memory from a teaching session is a student coming up to me after and thanking me for learning French. These little fragments of memory and experiences really motivate me in wanting to learn and refine my skills further.

Building a Network

It is honestly 110% due to my amazing co-workers and supportive network that I continued to work hard on my French this year. From external French courses, to French courses through the university, conversation circles both within the university and at the public library, bi-weekly chats with co-workers, weekly lessons with a French tutor, group lessons, and much more were some ways I received help from my network. Making friends is definitely not something that comes natural to me, but when sharing the same struggles such as learning a new language together, it does become easier. Holding each other accountable and continuing to expand my network without any language barriers has been a challenging, yet rewarding process of this language acquiring journey.

Lisa Shin at the Rendez-Vous Québec Cinéma film festival at the cinémathèque québécoise.

Mélange into your Hobbies

As mentioned in a previous blog post here, one of my favourite ways to spend leisure time is to go out to cinemas and watch movies. Building a routine into incorporating French into my hobbies has been ideal as I find it to be a low-stress, yet beneficial use of my time (we love efficiency!). Things like the French cinema club, French film festivals, Québécois film festivals, purposely watching movies without subtitles, and trying to finish a French director’s filmography, are some fun ways I expanded learning into my time off. The different accents, countries, and cultures are only a snapshot, but the films provide stories and insight into atmospheres and environments that I found to be critical in understanding the language in a colonial, communal, historical, and different socioeconomical contexts.

Overall, I am quite pleased at how much my French has struggled and improved this past year. Having the confidence to teach in French was something unimaginable last summer but now I am happy to have taught 4 sessions in my third language. Of course, the learning never really stops, especially in librarianship, but I am looking forward to more that I will learn with this new lens of a third language.