Quitting Time; American Libraries, June 1, 2022

Lara Ewen , American Libraries ; Quitting Time

The pandemic is exacerbating attrition among library workers

"Those feelings of career ambivalence were complicated, Rorie says, by vocational awe, a term coined in 2017 by academic librarian Fobazi Ettarh to describe the notion that librarians, the library profession, and the institution of libraries as a whole is inherently good and therefore above reproach. For Rorie, the idealized standard only made her feel worse. “I feel like I let down the community,” she says. “I feel like I should have tried harder. It’s hard to have to come face-to-face with that.”

Yet even librarians who spoke out say they were largely ignored. “I told my boss, my director, my team, the whole library on multiple occasions that I was really burned out and not doing okay,” says Jules, a queer, neurodivergent academic librarian at a Mountain-state community college who decided in late 2021 to leave libraries. “And it never changed.” Jules is currently looking for nonlibrarian jobs.

Similar experiences have led to low morale across the profession, according to Kaetrena Davis Kendrick, a researcher and library leader whose work on morale has been widely cited.

“Low morale is a traumatic experience for librarians that was happening before the pandemic,” she says. For the purposes of her research, Kendrick defines low morale as the result of “repeated, protracted exposure to workplace abuse and neglect” and says that the issue strikes at the heart of librarians’ identities. “We feel comfortable in libraries,” she says. “But we’re realizing that libraries are not places of comfort or refuge for librarians anymore. So how do we reconcile those feelings of nostalgia, those feelings of having a calling, when we go to work and we’re being abused and neglected?”

Some libraries have tried to assuage employee unhappiness by implementing programs aimed at reducing stress, but Alex says they fall short. “They don’t seem to understand that wellness programs are placing the problem with the individual library worker,” she says. “You can’t meditate your way out of systemic issues or terrible pay or horrible levels of stress.”...

Yet it’s not just about money, says Elaina Norlin, professional development and diversity, equity, and inclusion program coordinator for the Association of Southeastern Research Libraries. “One of the mistakes most organizations—not just libraries—make is, they assume pay will resolve everything,” says Norlin, author of The Six-Step Guide to Library Worker Engagement (ALA Editions, 2021). “When you look at pay, it’s essential, but it’s not a guarantee of [being] engaged, excited, or interested. I’m not saying money isn’t important. But you can’t just say, ‘Here’s the money’ and expect all of this [other] stuff to go away.”

Norlin says that a library system with a diverse workforce will cultivate diversity of thought and different approaches. “We need libraries to invest internally as much as we invest externally,” she says. “And we need to take a really critical look at hierarchy. There is always a small percentage of people who are benefiting from status quo. They’re the gatekeepers, and that needs to be challenged for the [field] to turn around.”"

Pitt researcher’s work featured by U.S. Patent & Trademark Office; Trib Live, November 12, 2019

Patrick Varine, Trib Live; Pitt researcher’s work featured by U.S. Patent & Trademark Office

"Rory Cooper, who was recognized earlier this year by the office with a trading card created to honor U.S. inventors, holds more than two dozen patents related to mobility-improvement research. Cooper is the director at Pitt’s Human Energy Research Laboratories, a U.S. Army veteran and also serves as director of the Paralyzed Veterans of America Research Foundation...

Cooper was recognized in the patent office’s SUCCESS report, an update on progress achieved through the 2018 Study of Underrepresented Classes Chasing Engineering and Science Success (SUCCESS) Act. The act aims to promote patent applications by women, minorities, veterans, the disabled and other underrepresented classes.

“Without diversity of thought, potentially life changing work for wheel chair users and others with disabilities might not be possible,” Cooper said. “We have a world-class team at our labs that is committed to helping people with disabilities and older adults live full lives and contribute to society as much as they can and they like.”"

5 Reasons Diversity and Inclusion Fails; Forbes, 1/16/17

Glenn Llopis, Forbes; 

5 Reasons Diversity and Inclusion Fails

"4.  Think mosaic not melting pot

The days of taking a one-size-fits-all approach are over, never to exist again. Our goal as leaders is to convert the melting pot of differences into a mosaic that fuels strategies for growth, innovation, and opportunity to maximize the full potential of people, brands, and businesses. Diversity and inclusion must be about understanding your identity and the identities of all people. Only then can we be courageous enough to steer away from like-mindedness through assimilating people’s differences (melting pot) and towards like-mindedness through honoring those differences (mosaic). To do this, initiatives designed for “cultural competency” aren’t enough. Diversity and inclusion requires diverse and non-diverse leaders to work together to create a culture that embraces diversity of thought and deploys the required best practices, development tools, and resources to maximize talent engagement, advancement, workplace performance, and overall satisfaction.

How well do you practice diversity of thought?  Take the following assessment and find out."

Bob Moritz, on How to Learn About Diversity; New York Times, 9/14/13

Adam Bryant, Corner Office, New York Times; Interview with Bob Moritz, chairman and senior partner of PricewaterhouseCoopers: Bob Moritz, on How to Learn About Diversity: "In my sixth year, I went off to Japan for a couple of years. It was amazingly difficult, and it taught me big lessons that I actually have developed into a leadership style. Q. Please walk me through them. A. First, it taught me about diversity. Over there, I was the minority. I was the guy outside of the circle. I couldn’t speak the language. I was the guy who was discriminated against. So it gave me a different perspective of diversity, and it influenced the diversity agenda we have now. The second thing it taught me was about diversity of thought and cultural diversity. In Japan, you respect titles. You respect age. And you don’t challenge authority. If you’re going to do your job in Japan, how can you ask challenging questions to get the right answers without making people feel threatened? In the role I’ve got today, diversity of thought is hugely important. How do you get people to understand global business practices and do it in a way so that people feel good and not threatened? How do you set that tone and that environment?"