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Monday, April 11, 2022

Librarians' wellbeing: Student panel #LILAC22

The first keynote session of LILAC (Sheila here) was a panel from four students at the iSchool at Manchester Metropolitan University: Susan Connor, Ray Smith, Imogen Webb, Rachel Wilding. We had been asked to view their 15 minute panel video beforehand, and the focus live was on responding to questions posed to them beforehand. 

Questions included: whether people should take responsibility for themselves in creating boundaries; how the information literacy community could support/prevent burnout; where people could take action against the causes of burnout; how easy is it to work out what personal information about clients is OK| to share (even if you know about GDPR (regulations about data sharing) this can be difficult to judge); whether there is still a stereotype of librarianship as a quiet job; whether there should be more support for librarians having to deal with clients who are distressed; whether CILIP etc. should provide guidance about librarians running social media accounts, in particular to protect them against abuse and give them rights not to use social media; is it the librarians' role to teach people to use social media; the extent to which you might update people about terminology used to describe groups, if you feel that they are using inappropriate terms. 

Points raised by the panel included the following. There are implications for employers and professional associations like CILIP;
- that taking responsibility for your own wellbeing/boundaries was not incompatible with also requiring support for wellbeing;
- that there was a problem of maintaining boundaries work/life: e.g. because of pressure to answer work emails outside work time, the pressures of underfunded work environments. It was difficult keeping boundaries when e.g. you might be on a temporary contract, want to get on in your job etc. (so there is pressure to DO the extra work in your own time, to keep your job or develop your career)
- The need to be able to talk about how personal information about others is upsetting YOU (i.e. that this is something possible and supported in a work context)
- The need for good training & knowledge about what the law and guidelines are about data access, confidentiality and sharing
- How there is a lingering stereotype about librarians (including being challenged as to why you'd need a Masters qualification). The lack of recognition about the challenge and diverse nature of a library career can cause stress and anxiety
- There is definitely a need for more training and support in dealing with clients who are upset. This is also connected with making the role and purpose of the library and librarians clearer. Wellbeing/caring may be connected with the library, but most librarians are not experts in wellbeing support and mental health, and signposting rather than providing direct support should normally be the answer. (Trying to cope with these issues without support or expertise can end up with the librarian sacrificing their own wellbeing). If the library is putting on e.g. "wellbeing" sessions this can raise false expectations. It was important to think about why you were organising wellbeing events and what you would actually do if someone wrote or talked about something very personal and upsetting.
- There was agreement that there needed to be more guidance/regulations to protect librarians using social media as part of their job. The problem of it still being treated as if it were something librarians were doing "on the side" was pointed out (or e.g. being given as a task for interns). Social media was used used differently in different organisations, and guidelines which covered these different uses would be valuable.
- Broadly, there was a "yes" answer to the issue of librarians training clients in the use of social media. Social media has become part of the information world, and in particular there is the problem of mis/dis information on social media, where librarians have an information literacy education role. There was sennsitivity about imposing your ideas of what was "correct", more obvious was the role in developing information literacy skills.
- If faced with people using outdated terminology there might be different responses: if it was a question of helping with something like search terms, it was clearly a good idea to help people understand the current preferred terminology to help with information retrieval (in addition to the educational aspect. Otherwise it could be up to the individual librarian, their own preference and comfort, but also considering the wellbeing of the client they are engaging with.
- Questions which the panel might ask of employers about wellbeing, in a job interview, included: what occupational health support was there; what were policies and guidelines concerning employee wellbeing; what accredited schemes had they participated in.

Overall a main conclusion was the need for the profession to talk about and pay greater attention to these wellbeing issues.

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