Slowness, disability, and the art of losing

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Slowness, disability, and the art of losingabout me, career, slow librarianship, Work-life balance

by Meredith Farkas on 1/8/2024 with Comments Off on 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 long, cold, gray Portland winters. I woke up with almost no joint pain for the first time in ages and tons of energy. I worked …

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The power of shame and belonging

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The power of shame and belongingabout me, instruction, librarianship, libraries, Work

by Meredith Farkas on 7/5/2023 with 2 comments

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 …

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Saying goodbye to American Libraries magazine

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Saying goodbye to American Libraries magazineabout me, ALA, american libraries, career, librarianship, writing

by Meredith Farkas on 5/31/2021 with 1 comment

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 …

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#LISMentalHealth: That time my brain and job tried to kill me

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#LISMentalHealth: That time my brain and job tried to kill meabout me, classic blunders, librarianship, Work, Work-life balance

by Meredith Farkas on 2/18/2020 with 6 comments

Happy LIS Mental Health Week friends! I want to start this post by recognizing someone who has done a great deal to support library workers’ mental health in the face of toxic workplaces, Kaetrena Davis Kendrick. Kaetrena has done some incredibly valuable research on low morale and toxic workplaces in librarianship and has created an awesome …

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Thoughts at Mid-Career Part 5: Where to From Here?

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Thoughts at Mid-Career Part 5: Where to From Here?about me, librarianship, mid-career, social software, Work, Work-life balance

by Meredith Farkas on 9/11/2019 with 9 comments

This is the fifth in a series of essays. You can access the rest here, though it’s not necessary to read them all or in order. “To me, the only habit worth ‘designing for’ is the habit of questioning one’s habitual ways of seeing” -Jenny Odell, How to do Nothing “We have to fight for this world, but we …

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Thoughts at Mid-Career Part 4 – The Cult of Productivity: You’re Never Doing Enough

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Thoughts at Mid-Career Part 4 – The Cult of Productivity: You’re Never Doing Enoughabout me, career, librarianship, mid-career, social software, Work, Work-life balance

by Meredith Farkas on 8/28/2019 with 4 comments

This is the fourth in a series of essays. You can access the rest here, though it’s not necessary to read them all or in order. “These days, I just want to slow down. I want to pull the shutters closed and block out the world… The more time I have, the more I realize that all that …

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Thoughts at Mid-Career Part 2 – Ambition: You are Not Enough

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Thoughts at Mid-Career Part 2 – Ambition: You are Not Enoughabout me, career, gender, management, mid-career, Work, Work-life balance, writing

by Meredith Farkas on 8/7/2019 with 4 comments

This is the second in a series of essays. You can access the first here, though it’s not necessary to read them all or in order: “So maybe my great ambition, such as it is, is to refrain from engagement with systems that purport to tell me what I’m worth compared to anyone else. Maybe …

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Thoughts at Mid-Career Part 1 – Letting Go, Questioning, and Pathfinding

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Thoughts at Mid-Career Part 1 – Letting Go, Questioning, and Pathfindingabout me, librarianship, mid-career, Work, Work-life balance

by Meredith Farkas on 8/2/2019 with 9 comments

This is the first in a (probably) five-part series of essays. For about two years, until January, I felt a disturbing lack of ambition. I felt directionless and passionless; devoid of my usual neverending energy and interest. I chalked it up to mid-career malaise, but it was more than that. Having only in the past …

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Wayfinding and balance at mid-career

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Wayfinding and balance at mid-careerabout me, gender, librarianship, management, tenure track, Work, Work-life balance

by Meredith Farkas on 2/20/2018 with 9 comments

It’s LIS Mental Health Week; a week focused on raising awareness of mental health. This post isn’t about mental health per se, but something that I think, for me, is very much exacerbated by anxiety and the constant negative self-appraisal that comes with it. Two blog posts really resonated with me recently. Sarah Houghton (who I believe …

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2016 wasn’t all bad

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2016 wasn’t all badabout me

by Meredith Farkas on 12/29/2016 with 3 comments

As I alluded to in my last post, this year was a difficult one for me personally that ended up turning out for the better. I know that many of us have felt dispirited and beaten down since the election and feel like 2016 was a flaming dumpster fire of a year, so I’ve decided …

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Playing the super-productive librarian. My #LISMentalHealth Week post

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Playing the super-productive librarian. My #LISMentalHealth Week postabout me, libraries, Work, Work-life balance

by Meredith Farkas on 1/19/2016 with 12 comments

I know a lot of librarians who’ve suffered with depression or anxiety, take psychotropics, or who go to therapy. It makes me wonder if people with mental illness are drawn to librarianship in greater numbers than other professions. I was very happy — and a little trepidatious — when I saw that two fantastic librarians …

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My year in reading, 2015

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My year in reading, 2015about me

by Meredith Farkas on 12/27/2015 with 4 comments

I’ve learned over time that work/life balance not only looks different for every person, but looks very different for an individual from one moment to the next. The needs you and your loved ones have and the things that give you the most pleasure can radically change over time. This year, I really tried to …

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Should the horrible first job search be seen as a rite-of-passage?

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Should the horrible first job search be seen as a rite-of-passage?about me, career, free the information!, job search, librarianship, libraries, library school, management, Work

by Meredith Farkas on 11/9/2015 with 13 comments

I felt really sad when I read Kyle Shockey’s post on the Librarian Burnout blog about feeling burnout after library school and being in the midst of the job hunt. By all indications, he is one of those rare recent grads who followed the advice so many of us give to LIS students — don’t …

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My year in books

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My year in booksabout me, ebooks

by Meredith Farkas on 12/29/2014 with 12 comments

Growing up, I was a voracious reader. What a surprise, right? Gee, a librarian who likes to read. But something happened to me between college and grad school where I lost that zeal to lose myself in a great book. That’s not to suggest that I didn’t read, but I didn’t read much for pleasure. I …

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