People often think of librarianship as a financially lucrative career, but with many libraries now offering only part-time hours and irregular shifts, it is very possible to become a working-poor librarian.
Why do teams matter? How do we develop strong teams? What challenges do teams face? OLA President Richard Reid and Kasey (Mallen) Whalley tackle these issues and more.
A library reflects the communities and the cultures in which it operates, and library collections and programs reflect the reading tastes, the history and the priorities of the residents.
Before I became a genealogy librarian, I was never really into tracing lines of ancestral descent or into knowing my family tree. Discovering family history seemed so abstract.
The annual Thunder Bay Diversity Breakfast fulfills a very specific mission: To work towards an inclusive, equitable community free of racism and discrimination of any kind.
I have a wealth of training and have done (and continue to do) a plethora of professional reading on learning to read ... the reality is that even the experts cannot quite agree on the “just right” approach.
As library professionals working across a diverse field, we experience tensions and triumphs as we work together. From discord to discourse promotes our capacity to be effective collaborators and co-workers.
A library is clearly “place” in the sense of a physical space filled with books, posters, signs and desks. But just as obviously, a library is also people.
As library staff, we all deal with stressful situations such as a person haggling over $1.50 in fines shrinking budgets and rising costs. Whether we're up north or down south, reflection and sleep can boost our resiliency and stress-wrangling capacity.