Your life is happening now: what are you waiting for?
It’s a tremendous challenge for many of us to be fully present in the current moment. There’s a pull toward imagining the future and ruminating on the past – sometimes…
Posted inslow librarianship
Slow librarianship, slow food, politics, pleasure, and moderation
The Slow Food Manifesto begins with the following two sentences: “Our century, which began and has developed under the insignia of industrial civilization, first invented the machine and then took…
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…
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…
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…
Slow librarianship and prioritizing life over work
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…
Vocational awe is always harmful
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…
