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 openness: Except when it comes to our workspaces.” At first, I thought the piece was about open communication and transparency in the workplace, which is …
It’s been eighteen years and I can’t believe this is still an issue. In 2005, I started my first professional library job as a distance learning librarian. At the time, half of Norwich University’s students were in fully online graduate programs and when I started in this brand-new position, very little had been done to …
I recently wrote an essay for CHOICE’s LibTech Insights blog entitled “Building a Better Library Tech Future with Slow Librarianship.” It provides a brief introduction to slow librarianship, how it relates to library technology, and how our profession’s reification of innovation has kept us from really focusing on the needs of our patrons. I know …
In my last post, I wrote about the absolutely monstrous difficulty I was having getting off the migraine prevention medication (that wasn’t actually preventing migraines) I had been taking for 11 years. I saw two doctors and a sleep specialist about the issues I was having and none of them were helpful. My interactions with …
In a world where there is always content being pushed at you, it’s hard to notice when a particular author hasn’t posted in a long time. There have been so many times where it has taken me a year or more to realize that I haven’t heard anything from one of my favorite bloggers or …
A friend of mine wrote a tweet that really made me think the other day: I understand arguments against a default “vocational awe,” but much of the discourse denies the existence and validity of vocations. Some think of what they do as more than a job. They feel called to it. Not everyone is, and …
My town maintains an old dairy farm from the turn of the 20th century that now contains public gardens, a CSA, and community garden plots. In the Summer and Fall, I love to walk through the gardens and see all the amazing flowers, fruits, veggies, and more growing there. I love the mix of well-manicured …
The tl:dr is in whatever online communities you frequent, do you ever ask yourself “who isn’t here? Who doesn’t feel welcome here? What barriers are there to participation?” If not, you should. What I like about Twitter is how much more diverse it was than any place I’ve been online, and also how so many …
In the years that I have been trying my best to avoid overwork, I’ve become more attuned to the signs that I am indeed overworking. I usually notice one of three things: an inability to slow my brain down and not think about work during my off-time, difficulty with problem-solving (where my brain becomes like …
I had a dream the other night about my high school history teacher Mr. Farina who I haven’t seen since I graduated and he retired. I was ridiculously happy to see him, even in my unconscious mind. Back then, he saw something in me that I clearly didn’t at the time and his belief in …
I’ve had migraines for over 20 years. I didn’t seek workplace accommodations for them until this year. The biggest barrier to getting accommodations at work was my own internalized ableism, but of course I came by it honestly in our society. There were two elements holding me back. The first was shame about my limitations. …
I know a lot of librarians get mad about poorly informed articles about libraries all the time. It’s rare that I ever really get truly angry about an article. I expect nothing less from the NY Times at this point than both-side-ism and “Nazis! They’re just like us” articles. I expect too-late, tone-deaf statements from …
Workaholism is a hard addiction to recover from. It’s not like some addictions where you can avoid the places or substances that played a role. Most of us are not in a position to just stop working. We have to somehow develop better relationships with work while still being surrounded by all the things that …
Our profession has lost one of its best. My friend, Mark Lindner, died on Monday. Mark wrote one of the best library blogs during that lovely golden age of blogging in the aughts (where it truly felt like we were part of a close-knit and supportive community) and was someone from whom I learned a tremendous amount. I …
I’ve been reading a lot about employee voice and silencing in organizations and there’s a phenomenon I haven’t really seen discussed explicitly in the literature, though it’s possible I’ve missed something since I wasn’t doing a comprehensive lit review (apologies if I missed something!). I don’t know if I am coining a new term here, …
Last week, there was a lot of chatter about slow librarianship on social media. People were looking for writing on the subject and I realized that my work is scattered all around in such a disembodied way across presentations, slides, and blog posts. With this post, I hope to make a bit clearer my own …
It’s been a quiet summer over here, focused on family, recovering from the stress of the academic year, and doing a lot of reading. I’d had fantasies of getting a lot of writing done over the summer (more on that below), but I didn’t get nearly as much done as I’d hoped. I’m trying to …
I’ve been pretty good about not making big life changes during the pandemic. We didn’t get a pandemic dog, even after finally getting our yard completely fenced-in last August. I’ve tamed many, many impulses I had during the pandemic because it seemed like the wrong time to make or unmake big commitments. I didn’t want …
When I visited my parents in December of 2019, they asked me to go through a box of old stuff they wanted to get rid of. My mother had kept basically all the art we did, the bajillion songs and poems I wrote, everything we did for school, etc. It was surprising how much she’d …
Wow, this has been a hard year. No one’s life has been untouched by 2020 between the pandemic and unrelenting proof that the social safety net has been dismantled by late-stage capitalism, the state-sanctioned murders of black and brown people and ensuing protests, the horrendous wildfires that felt like horsemen of the coming climate apocalypse, and a stressful election. It’s horrifying. …
