Slow management in a fast world
Last month, I had the great pleasure of keynoting the CALM (Conference on Academic Library Management) Conference, which is consistently one of my favorites. The video of my talk, Slow…
Posted inslow librarianship speaking
Neoliberal Time and the Promise of Slow Librarianship
I've meant to post about this for a while, but one of the book chapters I wrote back in 2023-24 during my sabbatical has finally come out (the other is…
Strike time, collective action, and moral conviction in library leadership
I’m on strike right now, along with thousands of other faculty, academic professionals, and staff at Portland Community College (that's two unions, friends!). It’s a weird feeling. I never thought…
Posted inslow librarianship Work Work-life balance
When I surrendered to the current
One author whose newsletter I read avidly is Dr. Zed Zha. In Ask the Patient, she writes about holding on to humanity and humility as a health care provider and…
The double life of being chronically ill at work, slow librarianship, and checking in as an expression of care
Developing a long-term illness, whether chronic or acute, is like being dropped into a country completely unfamiliar to you. You don’t know the language, the customs, the cuisine, the people.…
Rest as a productive act
I’m a member of an online support group for the autoimmune condition I have and one of the recently diagnosed people wrote a post about how hard it is to…
Toxic comparison, time poverty, and a manager’s duty of care
I haven’t written anything in a while because it’s been a really hard few months. My health has taken a turn for the worse with a new condition – also…
Posted inDisability librarianship Work
The Crushing Mental Load of Disability
Photo credit: Statue Atlas by PeterKraayvanger on Pixabay This isn’t the essay I was planning to publish next. I’ve been working on an essay about the lack of solidarity around…
Posted infree the information!
It’s not about information literacy: Why people’s risk calculus around COVID has changed
Image credit: Willet on the Beach by Korall inWikimedia Commons I’ve been doing so much thinking, reading, and writing on social media about COVID that I was honestly surprised to…
On 20 Years of Blogging at Information Wants to be Free
Today is the 20th anniversary of this blog. I put that on my calendar about 6 months ago when I realized how close to 20 years I was and then…
Posted ininstruction social software
A review of Information Literacy and Social Media by Santamaría and Pfannenstiel
Santamaria, M., & Pfannenstiel, N. (2024). Information literacy and social media : empowered student engagement with the ACRL framework. Association of College and Research Libraries. When I started writing my book…
Community Time and Enoughness: The heart of slow librarianship
Photo credit: Mushrooms surrounded by trees by Valentin S. This is the sixth and final essay in a series of essays I've written on time. You can view a list…
Posted inslow librarianship Time Work Work-life balance
Queer Time, Crip Time, and Subverting Temporal Norms
Photo credit: The Harvesters by Pieter Bruegel the Elder This is the fifth in a series of essays I've written on time. You can view a list of all of…
Meredith’s Slow Productivity (not to be mistaken for Cal Newport’s Faux Slow Productivity)
Image credit: Dolce Far Niente by John William Godward This is the fifth in a series of essays I've written on time. You can view a list of all of…
Slow productivity is a team sport: A critique of Cal Newport’s Slow Productivity
Image credit: Dolce far Niente by John Singer Sargent This is the fourth in a series of essays I've written on time. You can view a list of all of…
The Productivity Trap
Photo source This is the third in a series of essays I've written on time. You can view a list of all of them on the first essay. In my…
Posted inslow librarianship Time Work Work-life balance
With Work Time at the Center
This is the second in a series of essays I've written on time. You can view a list of all of them on the first essay. Once upon a time,…
Posted inslow librarianship Time Work-life balance
Time: It doesn’t have to be this way
“What we think time is, how we think it is shaped, affects how we are able to move through it.” -Jenny Odell Saving Time, p. 270 This is the first…
Slowness, disability, and the art of losing
A few weeks ago, I had what honestly felt like a perfect day. It was a bright sunny day in December that felt almost stolen from the jaws of our…
Posted inlibraries management MPOW Work
Open Offices are Neither More Open nor More Equitable
I can’t properly describe the level of annoyance I felt when I read Steven Bell’s latest piece in College and Research Libraries News about open offices entitled “We’re all about…