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What is "low morale"?
Why?
- lack of PoC voices in original study
- persistent LIS recruitment/retention issues
- EDI concerns
- recent past re: PoC welcomeness in libraries & in LIS
Our Questions
- What is the low morale trajectory for racial/ethnic minority academic librarians?
- How does holding a racialized identity impact the low-morale experience for this group?
Research Frameworks
- Critical Race Theory (Solorzano 1998)
- Counternarratives (Solorzano & Yosso 2002)
- Negative Workplace Behaviors (Freedmen & Vreven 2016; Ortega 2017)
- [Historical and persistent] Whiteness in LIS (Hathcock 2015; ALA 2017; Cooke 2018)
- EDI (Davis & Hall 2007; ALA 2017)
- Emotional Labor (Hochschild 1983; Evans & Moore 2015)
Methodology & Participants
- qualitative (phenomenology)
- 17 participants
- deep interviews (286 pages of rich data)
Grand Total:
4 Impact Factors
12 Enabling Systems
The Low-Morale Experience of Minority Academic Librarians: A Review
Kaetrena Davis Kendrick, University of South Carolina Lancaster
Ione T. Damasco, University of Dayton
Let's...
Traditional Markers
Updated Links
Low morale is the result of repeated and protracted exposure to emotional, verbal/written, and system abuse or negligence in the workplace.
(Brun & Cooper, 2009)
(Kendrick, 2017)
Frameworks
Resilience narratives
(Berg, Galvan & Tewell, 2017)
Vocational Awe
"The idea that libraries as institutions are inherently good. It assumes that some or all core aspects of the profession are beyond critique, and it, in turn, underpins many librarians' sense of identity and emotional investment in the profession."
5%
Native American
(Ettarh, 2017)
Job Precarity
Contractual, ambiguous, insecure, unprotected, & poorly paid labor/work/employment.
25%
Latinx
35%
Asian
25%
Multiracial
30%
African American
(Brons, Riley, Yin & Henninger 2018)
The General Low-Morale Experience
A Quantitative Portrait of PoC Low Morale
- unexpected
- identifies co-worker as abuser
- short-term affective and physiological effects
- emotional, verbal/written, system, negligence
- compounded affective, physiological, and cognitive responses
- negative outlook on LIS career and profession
Top Triggers:
- reduced collegiality
- reduced professional confidence
- increased procrastination
- increased absenteeism/tardiness
- reduced professional engagement
- Insidiousness
- Contagion
Countermeasures? Let's Talk...
- Promotion and Tenure
- Human Resources Limitations
- Staffing & Employment
- LIS Perceptions
- Leadership
- Uncertainty & Mistrust
Top Abuse Types and Offenders
- long-term
- unresolved
- physical/mental health implications
Qualitative Results Summary
Qualitative Results Summary
- stereotype threat
- deauthenticity
* internally motivated
* cautionary/defensive behaviors against hostile/unwelcoming workplaces
Ongoing Work: Academic Librarians
- all types of abuse/negligence reported
- physiological, affective, and cognitive responses
- impact factors
- enabling systems (except staffing/employment)
- recovery (attempts)
Spot-check: https://bit.ly/2HPR6UU
Strategies: https://bit.ly/2tPWYnn
- experience emotional & system abuse during trigger events
- experience system abuse & negligence during low morale development (feeling "tricked" or baited-and-switched; more likely to block memory of instances of abuse)
Ongoing Work: Racial/Ethnic Minority
Academic Librarians
Study: Forthcoming Fall 2019
Deauthenticity survey: https://bit.ly/2NHvg5v
- Diversity rhetoric (cognitive dissonance; superficiality; pushback, tokenism; scholarship devaluation)
- Whiteness (white women abusers; white privilege; lack of intersectionality)
- White supremacy (paternalism, whitewashing of institutions role in historical/current racism; reductionism of accomplishments)
- Racism (stereotyping, microaggressions, oppression, phenotype reliance)
Ongoing Work: Public Librarians
Spot-check: https://bit.ly/2Tjb5AV
Strategies: https://bit.ly/2XGVxFp
ALL
Share Your Story: https://bit.ly/2TrgUvn
Facebook Community: Renewers
Website: Renewals (renewerslis.wordpress.com)
The Renewal Seminar / The Renewal Workshop
- Career/environmental landscapes (hostile campus or living communities; racially homogeneous workplaces; dissonance between student body/faculty)
- Politics (results of 2016 U.S. Presidential election and subsequent education, social, and civil rights assaults)
- Collegiality (collaborations, support, credit-stealing)
- Oppressed group behavior (hazing or lack of assistance due to newness in workplace or in the field)
Works Cited (cont'd)
Freedman, S. & Vreven,D. (2017). Workplace incivility and bullying in the library: Perception or reality? College & Research Libraries 77 (6): 727-48. https://crl.acrl.org/index.php/crl/article/view/16553/17999.
Works Cited
American Library Association. 2017. 2017 ALA demographic study. http://www.ala.org/tools/sites/ala.org.tools/files/content/Draft%20of%20Member%20Demographics%20Survey%2001-11-2017.pdf.
Hathcock, A. (2015). White librarianship in blackface: Diversity initiatives in LIS.” In the Library with the Lead Pipe. http://www.ala.org/advocacy/diversity.
Berg, J., Galvan, A. & Tewell, E. (2018). Responding to and reimagining resilience in academic libraries. Journal of New Librarianship, 3(1): Retrieved from https://www.newlibs.org/article/3218-responding-to-and-reimagining-resilience-in-academic-libraries
Hochschild, A.R. (1983). The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Kendrick, K.D. (2017). The low morale experience in academic librarians: A phenomenological study. Journal of Library Administration, 57(8): 846-878.
Brons, A., Riley, C., Yin, C. & Henninger, E. (2018). Catalog cards from the edge: precarity in libraries. Presented at the British Columbia Library Conference. Retrieved from https://osf.io/sqvcm/
Brun, J.P. & Cooper, C. (2009). Missing pieces: 7 Ways to improve employee well-being and organizational effectiveness. Houndsmill, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
Ortega, A. (2017). Academic libraries & toxic leadership. San Diego: Elsevier Science.
Cooke, N.A. (2017). “The GSLS Carnegie Scholars: Guests in someone else's house.” Libraries: Culture, History, and Society 1 (1): 46-71.
Solorzano, D.G. (1998). Critical race theory, race, and gender microaggressions, and the experience of Chicana and Chicano scholars.” Qualitative Studies in Education 11 (1):121-36.
Solorzano, D.G. & Yosso, T.J. (2002). Critical race methodology: Counter-storytelling as an analytical framework for education research.” Qualitative Inquiry 8 (1): 23-44.
Davis, D.e M. & Hall, T. (2007). Diversity counts. http://www.ala.org/aboutala/sites/ala.org.aboutala/files/content/diversity/diversitycounts/diversitycounts_rev0.pdf.
Ettarh, F. (2018, January 10). Vocational awe and librarianship: The lies we tell ourselves. In the Library with the Lead Pipe. Retrieved from http://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2018/vocational-awe/