Résumés
Abstract
In March and April 2021, we conducted semi-structured interviews with academic librarians from across Canada about their experiences working through COVID-19 thus far. Topics included workload, collegiality, and overall satisfaction with their working conditions during a pandemic. Themes emerged around job scurity, meaningful work, workload shifts, working from home, relationships with colleagues and administrators, and hopes for the future. While individual experiences varied greatly, the biggest uniting factor was the care and deliberation that characterized both our participants’ framing of work that was meaningful to them as well as their ideal relationships with colleagues and administrators. This research connects to previous literature on vocational awe and emotional labour in libraries. For librarians, this study connects isolated individual situations with the overall picture of what our work looked and felt like during the COVID-19 pandemic. For library administrators, we have identified some general trends, which can provide insight in the areas of communication, flexibility, and institutional support as we work toward a post-pandemic new normal.
Keywords:
- academic librarians,
- COVID-19,
- library labour,
- librarian workload,
- care in libraries,
- affective labour
Résumé
En mars et avril 2021, nous avons mené des entrevues semi-dirigées auprès de bibliothécaires universitaires à travers le Canada au sujet de leur expérience de travail durant la COVID-19 jusqu’à présent. Les sujets abordés comprenaient la charge de travail, la collégialité et la satisfaction générale à l’égard de leurs conditions de travail pendant la pandémie. Des thèmes ont émergé concernant la sécurité d’emploi, le sens du travail, les changements de la charge de travail, le travail à distance, les relations avec des collègues et des administrateurs, et l’espoir pour l’avenir. Quoique les expériences individuelles varient grandement, le plus grand facteur unifiant est le care et la délibération qui caractérisent à la fois l’encadrement par nos participants du travail qui a du sens pour eux ainsi que leurs relations idéales avec des collègues et des administrateurs. Cette enquête se joint à la recherche antérieure sur l’émerveillement professionnel et le travail émotionnel dans les bibliothèques. Pour les bibliothécaires, cette étude relie des situations individuelles isolées pour offrir un portrait général de ce à quoi ressemblait notre travail et de ce que nous ressentions face à celui-ci durant la pandémie de la COVID-19. Pour les administrateurs des bibliothèques, nous avons identifié quelques tendances générales qui peuvent fournir un aperçu dans les domaines de la communication, la flexibilité et le soutien institutionnel alors que nous travaillons vers une nouvelle normalité post-pandémique.
Mots-clés :
- bibliothécaires universitaires,
- charge de travail des bibliothécaires,
- COVID-19,
- le care en bibliothèque,
- le travail des bibliothèques,
- le travail affectif
Parties annexes
Bibliography
- Allison-Cassin, S. (2020). Bodies, brains, and machines: An exploration of the relationship between the material and affective states of librarians and information systems. Library Trends 68(3), 409–430.
- Almeida, N. (2020). The labour of austerity: Absurdity, performative resistance, and cultural transformation. Canadian Journal of Academic Librarianship, 6, 1–25.
- American Library Association. (2012). Diversity counts.
- Anderson, D., & Kelliher, C. (2020). Enforced remote working and the work-life interface during lockdown. Gender in Management, 35(7/8), 677–683.
- Arellano Douglas, V. (2020). Moving from critical assessment to assessment as care.Communications in Information Literacy, 14(1), 46–65.
- Asher, A., & Miller, S. (2011). So you want to do anthropology in your library? Or, A practical guide to ethnographic research in academic libraries. The ERIAL Project.
- Bessette, L. S., & McGowan, S. (2020). Affective labor and faculty development: COVID-19 and dealing with the emotional fallout. Journal on Centers for Teaching and Learning, 12, 136–148.
- Bisaillon, L., Cattapan, A., Driessen, A., van Duin, E., Spruit, S., Anton, L., & Jecker, N. S. (2020). Doing academia differently: “I needed self-help less than I needed a fair society.” Feminist Studies, 46(1), 130–157.
- Canadian Association of Professional Academic Librarians. (2019, March 25). 2018 census of academic librarians: User guide and results summary.
- Canadian Association of University Teachers. (2017). Librarians in Canada’s universities and colleges. CAUT Education Review.
- Emmelhainz, C., Pappas, E. & Seale, M. (2017). Behavioral expectations for the mommy librarian: The successful reference transaction as emotional labor. In M. Accardi (Ed.), The feminist reference desk: Concepts, critiques, and conversations (pp. 27–45). Library Juice Press.
- Ettarh, F. (2018). Vocational awe and librarianship: The lies we tell ourselves. In the Library with the Lead Pipe.
- Fielding, H. A. (2017). A feminist phenomenology manifesto. In H. A. Fielding & D. E. Olkowski (Eds.), Feminist phenomenology futures (pp. vii–xxiii). Indiana University Press.
- Farkas, M. (2021, October 18). What is slow librarianship? Information wants to be free.
- Gaudet, S., Marchand, I., Bujaki, M. & Bourgeault, I. L. (2022). Women and gender equity in academia through the conceptual lens of care. Journal of Gender Studies, 31(1), 74–86.
- Glassman, J. (2017). The innovation fetish and slow librarianship: What librarians can learn from the Juicero. In the Library with the Lead Pipe.
- Glusker, A., Emmelhainz, C., Estrada, N., & Dyess, B. (2022). “Viewed as equals”: The impacts of library organizational cultures and management on library staff morale. Journal of Library Administration, 62(2), 153–189.
- Gray, B. C. (2021). The university cannot love you: Gendered labour, burnout, and the COVID-19 pivot to digital. In G. Veletsianos & S. Koseoglu (Eds.), Feminist critical digital pedagogy: An open book. EdTech Books.
- Hernandez, T., & Abigail, Y. (2020). Remote workers during the COVID-19 lockdown: What are we missing and why is important. Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 62(11), e669–e672.
- Hicks, D. (2016). Advocating for librarianship: The discourses of advocacy and service in the professional identities of librarians. Library Trends 64(3), 615–640.
- Hochschild, A. R. (2012). The managed heart: Commercialization of human feeling. University of California Press (Original work published 1983).
- Hudson-Vitale, C., & Waltz, R. M. (2020). Caring for our colleagues: Wellness and support strategies for remote library teams. College & Research Libraries News, 81(10), 494–497.
- Ismael, J., Lazzaro, A. E., & Ishihara, B. (2021). It takes heart: The experiences and working conditions of caring educators. Radical Teacher, 119(30), 30–40.
- Joe, J. (2019). A perspective on emotional labor in academic libraries. Journal of Academic Librarianship, 45(1), 66–67.
- Julien, H., & Genuis, S. K. (2009). Emotional labour in librarians’ instructional work. Journal of Documentation, 65(6), 926–937.
- Kendrick, K. D. (2017). The low morale experience of academic librarians: A phenomenological study. Journal of Library Administration, 57(8), 846–878.
- Martyniuk, J., Moffatt, C., & Oswald, K. (2021). Into the unknown: Onboarding early career professionals in a remote work environment. Partnership: The Canadian Journal of Library and Information Practice and Research, 16(1), 1–11.
- Matteson, M. L., & Miller, S. S. (2013). A study of emotional labor in librarianship. Library and Information Science Research, 35(1), 54–62.
- McLay Paterson, A., & Eva, N. (2022). "Always at work": Canadian academic librarian work during COVID-19. Partnership: The Canadian Journal of Library and Information Practice and Research, 17(2).
- Minello, A., Martucci, S., & Manzo, L. K. C. (2020). The pandemic and the academic mothers: Present hardships and future perspectives. European Societies, 23(Sup 1), S82–S94.
- Nardine, J. T. (2019). The state of academic liaison librarian burnout in ARL Libraries in the United States. College & Research Libraries, 80(4), 508–524.
- Nicholson, K. (2019). "Being in time": New public management, academic librarians, and the temporal labor of pink-collar public service work. Library Trends, 68(2), 130–152.
- Nicholson, K. P. (2021). Spatial thinking, gender and immaterial affective labour in the post-Fordist academic library. Journal of Documentation, 78(1).
- O’Neill, B., & Kelley, R. (2021). Delivering bad news: Crisis communication methods in academic libraries. College & Research Libraries, 82(3), 310.
- Pagowsky, N. (2021). The contested one-shot: Deconstructing power structures to imagine new futures. College & Research Libraries, 82(3), 300–309.
- Popowich, S. (2019). “The power of knowledge, objectified”: Immaterial labor, cognitive capitalism, and academic librarianship. Library Trends, 68(2), 153–173.
- Potts, K. L. & Brown, L. (2015). Becoming an anti-oppressive researcher. In S. Strega & L. Brown (Eds.), Research as resistance: Revisiting critical, Indigenous, and anti-oppressive approaches (2nd ed., pp. 1–16). Canadian Scholars Press.
- Revitt, E. J. (2020). The academic librarian as the subaltern: An institutional ethnography of a feminized profession [Ph.D thesis]. University of Alberta.
- Rodger, J., & Erickson, N. (2021). The emotional labour of public library work. Partnership: The Canadian Journal of Library & Information Practice & Research, 16(1), 1–27.
- Salvesen, L., & Berg, C. (2021). “Who says I am coping”: The emotional affect of New Jersey academic librarians during the COVID-19 pandemic. Journal of Academic Librarianship, 47(5).
- Santamaria, M. R. (2020). Concealing white supremacy through fantasies of the library: Economies of affect at work. Library Trends, 68(3), 431–449.
- Seale, M. & Mirza, R. (2020). “The coin of love and virtue: Academic libraries and value in a global pandemic.” Canadian Journal of Academic Librarianship, 6 (December), 1–30.
- Shuler, S., & Morgan, N. (2013). Emotional labor in the academic library: When being friendly feels like work. The Reference Librarian, 54(2), 118–133.
- Sloniowski, L. (2016). Affective labor, resistance, and the academic librarian. Library Trends, 64(4), 645–666.
- Strega, S., & Brown, L. (2015). From resistance to resurgence. In S. Strega & L. Brown (Eds.), Research as resistance: Revisiting critical, Indigenous, and anti-oppressive approaches (2nd ed., pp. 1–16). Canadian Scholars Press.
- Todorinova, L. (2021). One year in: A survey of public services librarians on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Journal of Library Administration, 61(7), 776–792.
- Weyant, E. C., Wallace, R. L., & Woodward, N. J. (2021). Contributions to low morale, part 1: Review of existing literature on librarian and library staff morale. Journal of Library Administration, 61(7), 854–868.
- Wood, B. A., Guimaraes, A. B., Holm, C. E., Hayes, S. W., & Brooks, K. R. (2020). Academic librarian burnout: A survey using the Copenhagen Burnout Inventory (CBI). Journal of Library Administration, 60(5), 512–531.