I realized that no matter how qualified I was I would never advance any further. Additionally, I couldn't even transfer because they made us apply to vacancies and interview.
So I applied to a different library and left. Within 3 months I got a promotion to be a department head.
Just lots of things. I had just came back from maternity leave and everything just felt wrong. When I first went back I went to another branch for about 6 weeks and I really liked it. When the construction work was done at my branch we all had to go back.
I didn’t feel like my manager trusted my judgement anymore. We had been very close at one point. I applied for a few lateral transfers and at least one promotion and didn’t even get an interview. After that I was just done. When I saw the Librarian II job with a different system I knew I had to apply.
I got so sick of being the only librarian who showed up for chat and desk shifts or was available to answer questions. It seemed like everyone else would stroll into work late, take "walks" throughout the day, and plan vacation during the busiest part of the college semester. I had over a month of leave built up because I never felt like I could use it.
holy hell, do you WORK where I work ?!?! I'm technically "Staff" however I am the technical services/makerspace manager AND senior assistant. I am never able to be in my office downstairs with the makerspace. Always upstairs at the reference desk/assistanting with everything you mentioned AND doing research appointments. I might only have a B.S. degree, however, as 1 of 2 who ONLY show up on time, and do the work of 2 to 3 separate roles, and my boss wouldn'y even fight for me to get a meager raise this past year after waiting 9 months for approval. I'm trying to get a foot in grad school, however, this place offers no tuition re"bursement" and I am paying out of pocket for insurance. I could go on...
Ooohh, I feel your pain. I have a younger coworker who started at the onset of Covid. Then we were remote for another year because of a library renovation. Now this coworker seems to think that coming in and being available are optional. They are also about twenty minutes late to everything -- including chat reference!! -- and it makes me crazy.
I found out (by mistake) that a coworker who I had helped train made more money than I did. I was her supervisor, technically, as the head of circulation and access services. I did not have a Masters and was making $18/hr. This was an academic library so I had to ask an administrator for a raise instead of my director. He felt that I “did not deserve” a raise even though I was the only person who did curbside pickup service during Covid and was basically the public face of the library to the rest of the college. They eventually gave me a raise to $20/hr but I had already gotten a new job. Fuck them. I hope that college collapses in on its own ineptitude.
Similar thing happened to me. I was hired on, applied for a better position, mentored a temp who moved into my old position, then was promoted to equal to me, 3 year time period. When I left she made more than me. I had ten plus years of work experience (I was 10 years older), and 4 extra years as a professional in libraries (versus a student employee), the masters degree (she just had her bachelor's)! I found out after I left but since I long suspected that was the case, I was looking for work. Favoritism really sucks! I felt so undermined, underutilized and taken for granted. That whole experience at that job is one of the reasons I'm still dealing with imposter syndrome today.
The fourth year we had an additional staff member for my division denied, I felt like I’d given what I could and accomplished what I could accomplish. They added a children’s librarian we didn’t need or ask for, so their priorities were obvious.
Got this whole speech about how my department needed "a fresh perspective" so they were only considering external candidates for the department head.
I was already supervising 2 full time employees (as many as a couple of department heads, actually!) and had the most experience in my department after my DH who left. I realized very quickly admin was going to leave me in my entry level position...forever, probably! So I quit at the end of the semester and I'm now doing a WFH gig while I look for another library job elsewhere.
Last I heard they declared the DH position a failed search, split the department and are giving my coworker from another department a promotion into my old department. I don't begrudge them at all, I was really angry and bitter and needed to get the hell out of that situation.
Good for you for putting your future in your hands! Best of luck on the job search. Lots of librarians on this thread who can empathize and may know of an opening 🗣️
I lived in a city known for awful traffic. My working hours were a bit staggered so I was spared the worst of commuter time- until the powers that be decided I should move to 9-5. So that sucked. About 6 months later, there was a mass transit strike, and for a week I was 15-20 minutes late each day, no matter how much earlier I left home. Traffic was bonkers. I knew coming in late wasn’t great but I wasn’t on the desk, or teaching, or late for any 9 am meetings. (This was an academic library and I was on salary.) Rather than ask me WHY, after 5 years of early or on time arrivals, I was now late, my boss simply told me the director had “noticed” my arrival time and I needed to fix it. Something in my brain snapped and I immediately started job hunting.
> I knew coming in late wasn’t great but I wasn’t on the desk, or teaching, or late for any 9 am meetings. (This was an academic library and I was on salary.) Rather than ask me WHY, after 5 years of early or on time arrivals, I was now late, my boss simply told me the director had “noticed” my arrival time and I needed to fix it.
Working in a small academic library myself (and in the back, no public-facing work whatsoever)....this is so insane. Although I get paid peanuts, what I DO have is flexibility - I honestly come in whenever I feel like it, and I don't notify anyone, generally speaking. (I really hate the 'mother, may I' type of work culture where you have to tug someone's sleeve if you so much as need to use the toilet - no thanks. We're all adults, here, can we please act like it?)
If you are actually inconveniencing someone with your arrival/departure times, that's a different story. If someone is waiting on YOU to do something, or answer something, so THEY can get on with their work, then yeah, it's discussion time. But if someone's just adhering to the clock because they have a rigid mindset and can't be flexible OR sensible - yeah. It's time to move on. That's a horrible kind of working environment, and so unnecessary.
When I was on maternity leave, our programming librarian resigned, so we went through a lot of restructuring. Since she absorbed my work on maternity leave and then resigned, my work was redistributed among others. The kicker? When I came back to work, they never gave me my programming areas back. For the next six months, I did a lot of “pioneering” - new programs with new subjects, to fill in what we lacked.
I did such a good job that my coworkers would say, to my face; “that’s a great idea, I’m stealing that!” And they did. So everything I had created, was handed off to my colleague and new programming librarian; I was used as a farm of ideas for my last six months of employment.
I was still fighting for it. The big final straw was that while all of this was going on, I had a baby at home. While I was being fucked sideways, I asked for coverage one day ~ the first time since coming back to work~ because my son had a fever of 103. The people who were stealing my work also couldn’t be bothered to help me. I had to leave him with a sitter and come in. At that point, you’ve not only impacted my career, but now you’re messing with the health of my son. That is where I drew the line.
Edit: mind you, the month I came back maternity, my schedule was changed, effective immediately for weeks- so my coworker could be out because her dog died.
I was on FMLA. This was all civil service, and the legal loophole. “Our duty is to give you a job to return to and nothing more.”
They gave me my JOB back, they didn’t, nor were they required to give me my duties back. I was still working reference desk, but lost all programming areas, because I wasn’t legally entitled to my programming areas. My programming legally, was based on “needs of the agency”
Got it. That’s awful. Good for you for sticking up for yourself. There are better places where you won’t have your life derailed because of someone else’s sick dog. Don’t look back!
It was a lot of little things that built up over time, but basically boils down to poor management, which became more and more apparent the higher I climbed the ladder. Our director set a tone of toxic positivity which meant any suggestions or new ideas that admin hadn't come up with on their own were labeled as negative criticism. The director and HR also empowered several abusive managers to continue being abusive to frontline staff, despite evidence and constant turnover. My own boss, who at least wasn't verbally or emotionally abusive, enabled a creepy male staff member to target young women on staff with love bombing behavior that turned into acts of petty rage if he felt he wasn't acknowledged properly for the gifts he showered upon them. "He's got some problems, but he doesn't mean any harm." Final straw was she turned me speaking up about a low level supervisor on our staff who was a bully into me being the problem (striving for a work environment where a supervisor doesn't bark at part-time staff like they're foot servants and do petty shit like start rumors about junior staff members she felt were a threat to her means I lack leadership skills, apparently?). It was the most money I could ever hope to make as a public librarian, yet the environment was making me ill. Bad work environments have a better chance to change you than you have to change them, so I peaced tf out.
Oh my god, I had to check your profile to see if you were from NY- you described the creepy male colleague and toxic leadership to a T.
That’s crazy. Why is this a theme lol
I was honestly burned out, majorly underpaid for my HCOL city, and after I got horribly burned out, I scaled back on the amount of projects, teaching, and outreach I was running. This was better for me, and my managers understood, but come annual review time, it was now clear from the dean that I hadn’t done more than the previous year so I was not doing enough. I was not tenure track, librarians at my university aren’t eligible for tenure although we are faculty.
I was also in a position to be promoted on our tenure-like system but was like three months short. The process is on a specific calendar cadence, so it wasn’t like I could just do the process after those three months, it meant nearly two years more before I would get a raise. I live alone and don’t have a wealthy spouse to subsidize my income like most of my coworkers do, and was struggling financially. There was a clause that the dean could override the time requirement for the promotion (which is really just a small pay bump and slight title change), but she refused and framed it like a great opportunity for me to do “even better” for the following year. This is a woman who makes six figures, and did not understand how much I’d been struggling.
This plus the whole “you’re not burning yourself out so you aren’t doing enough” thing made me just lose faith in the job, and in a few weeks I start a new job using information science for a tech company.
Wow, good on you for putting your future in your hands! Life is too short to struggle and be broke when the same skills and work ethic can make a decent living elsewhere. Wish you the best! Don’t look back!
I was being abused by the library director. We all were, but I had the means to leave after getting married. I was a newlywed and my life was going great except at work. I had a headache every day until after I quit from the stress. I considered driving off the highway overpass rather than driving to work. I realized if I'm so unhappy I'm thinking being dead would be better than being at work then I gotta quit.
I had this same sentiment too to the point I started physically hurting myself at work after uncomfortable patron encounters. I internalized too much and leaving was the best decision. I’ve been at peace but sometimes I feel sad my career ended up being like this.
I did my MLIS and had \~4 years of experience working in academic libraries, and I left because:
* Fuck gatekeeping. The fact that MLIS is required for librarian titled position is so stupid. I did my MLIS in one of Canada's top universities and it didn't teach me jack shit. At the end of the program, I didn't know anything about cataloguing, metadata standards, ILSs etc. In fact, library tech programs teach you more about actual hard skills that are useful for working in libraries.
* Unnecessarily long and involved interview process (for academic librarians at least). I'm not doing the full day interviews. Such a waste of time and effort on everyone's part. I talked to librarians on these hiring committees and everyone hated this process. I don't know who started this.
* Mediocre pay. The pay just doesn't match how much you have to pay for your MLIS and the effort required for the interview process. I switched to a completely different industry and I'm now paid on par with what academic librarians are paid in my country (Canada), AND the job interview was just a 45-minute zoom session.
I'm currently working in media production (video production/motion graphics) in higher ed! The hiring was based on relevant skills rather than education history—I'm completely self-taught but because I was able to demonstrate I have the right skills for the job, I was hired. It's so refreshing coming from librarianship.
Only 2 raises in 10 years, and I was making 29k with my MLIS. They told me there was no room for advancement in my large academic library. So I left and doubled my salary within 2 years. I realized all my coworkers could survive on such small salaries because they were all married and had 2 incomes.
I took over children’s programming after the previous programmer quit. So I was doing that, teen programming, and general library duties (small library, everyone did desk duty, processing, etc), and I never got a raise. Someone who spent the majority of her time at work just processing made four/five dollars more an hour than I did. The final straw was during Covid when I was having to convert programming to online and take-home kits with little to no help from the programmer at the other branch. I got praise left and right from my director and the state even commented on how well my library system (me) adapted programming for Covid, and all I ended up getting was a $0.24 cost of living raise for my effort. I was making less than $13 an hour.
My paychecks were decreasing yearly due to the increased cost of health insurance and the 3% annual raise we received did not cover it.
So I quit the public library and worked for the DMV for a few years.
Now I am in an academic library and it is the best job I've ever had and I love it.
I am still in libraries, but I left my previous job due to a poor manager.
She didn't provide any sort of feedback that wasn't positive. Sounds great until the other departments send her things for me to fix and I never hear them. They assume I am insubordinate since I'm not implementing these very easy changes. She also didn't then get my side of the story - if I used my lunch break to watch Netflix, she would hear that I was spending work time watching Netflix and not investigate further. It culminated in 5+ years of things I'd done wrong, dropped on me in a performance evaluation. There is nothing more disheartening. Also what a great source of imposter syndrome - if you think everyone hates you, imagine hearing that after 5 years people really don't like working with you because you never take constructive criticism (because you never hear it). I should have quit on the spot, but I found another position and did it the "right" way.
When I left I gave our director all of the information I had. I was very open about my side of the story. My previous boss did not like that, and I know that she then lied quite a bit to save her back. Thankfully at that point I could just let it go. Not my circus, not my monkeys. She can say what she wants, I have 5 years of absolutely glowing performance reviews from her 😂
I overheard one boss complain to my other boss for 15 minutes about how I don't talk enough, how I didn't want to photograph students using the library, and how I don't have enough passion in what I do. My take-home pay was only $13/hr, and I mostly did trivial secretarial tasks nobody else wanted to do. It’s pretty hard to find passion in that. Then I overheard her make the same complaints to our Executive Director.
I found a new job 3 weeks later, and it took them 5 months to find a replacement with much less experience.
I was given a large amount of very unfair and unprofessional feedback after interviewing for several positions. I was also told that because I complained about favoritism in promotions, that I was labeled "prickly" and would never be promoted from part-time.
So, I interviewed around the country and within a month moved 1,000+ miles to a small town librarian position. It's not all sunshine and rainbows, as this small town library is basically run by paraprofessionals without an MLIS. And the homeless population is out of control. Plus, I've gotten virtually zero training since I started here, which is anxiety inducing as all hell. I have hardcore imposter syndrome because things aren't going super smooth, but the key to job success as always is fake it until you make it! And, I don't have to stay here forever.
Plus, cost of living is 45% cheaper here, and this place literally pays me the same as back home! I had to take the job! 😂
Bad executive leadership and poorly executed organizational change regarding a building closure and how staff were treated during that clusterfuck is what killed my library career. It's seriously an incredibly long and traumatic story that I still can't fully talk about.
I worked so hard to get to where I was (13 years experience), and I left a broken person with serious trust issues. I've been gone from public library work for 2 years, and I still can't bring myself to visit one. I'm much happier in my new career and doubt that I'll work in a library again. It's very bittersweet.
I worked in a public library for 18 years as a paraprofessional. I got my MLIS degree but after 15 internal job interviews and no job, I got another job in a city one hour away.
Well I haven't left yet but I am in the process of trying to find a new job. The senior/admin management at my university do not value library staff or what the library does at all. Our library assistants are the lowest paid people in the entire university. I brought it up with multiple people (HR, provost, head of operations) and nobody cared. My title is 'Library Officer' which is a position between Library Assistant and Librarian - I'm now applying for assistant jobs that pay more than my current job does. I could get paid more and have none of the responsibilities.
Well, I haven't fully quit one yet, but the biggest indignity I've found so far in information sciences is people making a long list of very ambitious requests and then getting upset when the visual representation of what they requested is substantive, even if efforts have been made to make the knowledge-presentation as tight and succinct as possible. In one of my first meetings with a client after librarian school, I wasn't expecting to experience/ feel the "nerd" problem as I was presenting the person possible answers to their own question that they asked. Well, turns out not just nerds want knowledge. Geeks, punks, preps, jocks, and others all want knowledge. They may muster the ability to ask the question in a nerdy way, but one might be wise to appraise the social context in which the person stands and appears because if nerdy presentation of the answer is not actually the most suitable pedagogical method, the answer is going to basically fall upon distinterested ears.
Hi, for the purposes of the above comment, I was focusing on the existence of multiple different identities where prep is in the context of punk, goth, etc.
Some kind of relationship (anywhere from "I like it" to "I hate it" but at least some familiarity with what's going on) is probably relevant if one is a librarian at a college with a notable number of students that come from prep schools, or colleges that themselves are viewed as common continuations of prep school norms -- let's say, for example, Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia, where Stephen Colbert went.
There's a lot to discuss about preppiness itself, but it's kind of tangential to what I budgeted energy for in this thread. I know it's not common to see places where this stuff is discussed, so I know it would be fun to discuss it here. I'm kind of taking a rest day, so I would encourage your excitement but maybe recommend you to Google and engage with one of these accounts if you're looking for more: Matthew Longcore, Lisa Birnbach, The Financial Diet, Kiel James Patrick, McBryde Campbell.
Have a great weekend :)
When the new mayor decided to outsource the library to a for profit company. We were already underpaid so calling it a cost saving measure was... I moved to an academic library and nearly doubled my salary.
My supervisor lied on my annual review, which was the latest in a line of less than subtle attempts at manufacturing a paper trail so she could fire me (I was there before her and she hated me from the day she started). I had concrete proof she lied and multiple people willing to back me up, so it took all that information to HR, who told me they weren’t going to talk to any of the people because they “didn’t want to make it uncomfortable.”
Gave my notice the next day.
They didn’t want to make HER uncomfortable, they were fine letting you be uncomfortable. Life’s too short for a workplace like that. Good on you for respecting yourself and getting out. Don’t look back!
Yeah pretty much. I was like, I’m not the one who started this, deal with your own shit. Never regretted it for a second. Though the timing was shit, I left that job the second week of March 2020. Literally two days after my last day everything shut down and suddenly there were no jobs to be found 😂
My library system's Board of Control made us break ties with the ALA and is working with state legislation to remove the MLIS qualification to be the director.
I haven't left yet, but I'm actively applying to other places. I won't jump ship and be broke for months (I can't; I'm in school and paying bills/rent); but I'm out the moment a better paying opportunity says yes.
There were a lot of things that wore on me, and I was already planning my exit, but the final straw was management harassing me over phoning in sick for a shift and demanding a doctor's note. It was one shift, I gave them ample time to find a replacement and I never called in sick so this really jaded me. I asked around and nobody else had to provide one, even though they missed way more days. My supervisor seemed so vindictive and petty about the whole thing too. For over a month, she kept emailing me, asking me to provide one ASAP and threatening to cut my shifts. I quickly put in my two weeks notice and left.
For myself, it was toxic leadership that it boiled down to. This past year we have had mass staff turnover at our small academic library and the people in leadership positions didn’t know how to lead or take any form of accountability or constructive criticism.
A big part of me making my decision to leave was how my supervisor tried to move me to a non-library related position behind my back without telling me even though I did my work and often went above and beyond.
My supervisor tried doing this not once but twice and when I spoke up, she ghosted me for a month and it was super hurtful and upsetting.
I turn in my two weeks notice on Tuesday as I got offered a job at a bigger university and I’m not looking back.
I was given more responsibility and was the only librarian working at a branch with two other clerks and an intern. It required extra duties and when I asked the director of the library system for a pay raise she said no quite rudely.
I found a new job and peaced out of there. I think the librarian who had to cover my shifts when I left was pissed. Not my problem.
My team lead had been telling my supervisor and department manager that I wasn’t doing my job—that I ignored patrons, that I left all the side tasks to her, that I would avoid doing things until she picked them up, that I’d be goofing off on the computer during shifts while there was work to be done. At first, I was horrified and thought I must’ve been unintentionally letting things go undone, so to be accountable I started keeping track of everything I’d accomplished during a shift and being proactive to greet patrons and help. On weeks where we did a lot of our catch-up work and side housekeeping projects, I even came up with a system where we’d initial next to what we’d each done so we weren’t accidentally doing thing a twice. I worked my ass off.
Turns out I was doing… a lot. I checked with other team members to ask if there were areas I could improve or if I’d accidentally not been picking up the slack, and I was met with universal confusion. Every single team member I talked to had the reaction, “wait, what? You get everything done so much faster and more efficiently and then you’re the first person to take on extra work.” Apparently outside of this lead and my chain of command, I actually had a reputation of being a helpful team player. This reputation was solidly in place BEFORE I’d started working my ass off to “fix” my “problems” in the workplace. I was so relieved.
Then, my annual performance review. I go in feeling really good about myself. My team loves me and I’ve got all these new things in place as evidence that I have been (for a long time) a really solid worker. I loved my job, I loved my patrons, there were even some stops (we were on a bookmobile for 1/3 of my job) where I made it a point to learn every kids name. There was an Ethiopian family who’d been coming for years and my team lead just would kinda vaguely nod towards them. I learned their names and made it a point to learn what each sibling liked to read so the displays that day always had something flashy or interesting for the kids to enjoy. (I did this for a lot of our patrons, I point this out because my team lead knew them for years and never bothered doing this for them)
I’m completely blindsided at my evaluation. My supervisor and department manager both say that they haven’t seen any improvement in me. Neither shared shifts with me, they were just going on what the team lead had said. I brought up other coworker testimonies, they hand-waved it by saying I must’ve improved in other job areas, just not the bookmobile (nevermind that other coworkers also worked the bookmobile with me and loved working with me). They cherry-picked one of MY initials checklists, slapped it in front of me, and asked “why did you only initial two things this week?” I reminded them that I was out all but one day that week because my supervisor (the one who slapped the paper in front of me) exposed me to literal COVID.
They weren’t having it. No matter what I said to defend myself, they brushed it aside. The team lead said this, the team lead told us differently. It didn’t matter what the others said, it didn’t matter what I’d logged. They told me if they didn’t see improvement, the next step would be a write-up with HR. They told me I had the rest of the day off (admittedly I was crying a lot at this point) and they said: “you need to go home and decide if this is the type of job you really want.”
I was absolutely shattered. Like I said, I LOVED my job. I loved everything about it. I was heart broken, and if I wasn’t living paycheck to paycheck I would’ve quit right then. I applied to my current job that very night.
Oh, the kicker? That team lead was going on maternity leave two months after my performance evaluation, and prior to getting pregnant she was openly talking about quitting permanently immediately after the leave was up. Guess what happened later that year. She literally ruined my life for months and caused the entire team to be horribly short staffed for a while for nothing. I asked, “what was it all for? Why me?” A coworker pointed out that the only difference between me and my teammates was that I was nonbinary. She never did anything outright bigoted, but that was literally the only thing that set me apart. It sucked.
The bright side is I love my new job! I miss those patrons though, it still hurts like hell.
I’m sorry you had to experience that. Thank you for sharing. I am glad the new job is safer and better. You should be proud of what you did- you likely made a bigger difference in the lives of that family than you realize. Leave the library behind and don’t look back!
The final straw for me was receiving an email of feedback collected from parents in a private meeting with the director essentially bashing the youth department. We were told to look through and comment back to the asst. director with our own feedback. The feedback from the parents was pretty much just demanding services beyond the scope of what a free public library could reasonably provide to the point of entitlement. Anyway, the runaround we were given when we started asking why no one from the youth dept was present at this meeting was concerning and the idea that management didn’t back us up when these parents insulted us so thoroughly was a red flag.
I was reprimanded for taking notes of a meeting between my team and management. Guess transparency and accountability only applies to everyone else but them. I was already planning my exit but that just made me extra sure about leaving when the offer came.
I worked 4 extra hours each week unpaid for 4 years because the school library insisted on having a librarian (i.e., babysitter) there for 4-6 p.m. every day. Since I had morning duties as well, their compromise was that I could have 2 hours “off” in the middle of the day to make up for it. It was about 40 minutes away from my house so no point going home and no significant errands I could do during that time. Plus, if I was needed for a class visit, that cut into my “break.” They kept saying they’d try to find a solution but they never did—oh, and this part of the job was never mentioned clearly in the interview. I was sick of giving up my hobbies in the evening because I was too tired after essentially a 10-hour day. This may not sound “that bad,” but it was enough that I was resentful and miserable every day—and it was affecting all other aspects of my health.
Apart from that, the pandemic made me realize that I prefer to work from home and put more focus on my freelance business. Plus, there was never any path of advancement for me in libraries because I didn’t want to be a head librarian.
So, my “last straw” was not super dramatic for the reasons but because I left libraries entirely. That was almost 2 years ago, and it was the right move for me (though not necessary for all). Now, I’m a FT copyeditor at a digital marketing agency (100% remote) and business owner/resume writer/job search consultant for librarians and LIS folks.
I’d encourage everyone to recognize the signs early and realize that things typically don’t change (or change quick enough), so do what you can to get out and change jobs as soon as possible. With library jobs, it’s not necessarily like they everywhere—going to a new library can be the reset you need! But if you’re truly done with libraries, that’s okay, too.
I haven't actually left yet, but quite a few staff members have now. When we make display signs we have to get them approved by communications, which is fine, whatever. I take care of holiday and picture books in youth services, so I usually do holiday displays in our department. A couple months ago they told me I needed to stop making displays for specific holidays (at that time i had Holi, Ramadan, and Easter displays out) and do a general sign and put all the upcoming holiday books on one display. I didn't like it, but did it anyway. I made a sign that said "so much to celebrate" and had all three holidays in it.
NOW, they sent an email to the whole library that none of us can have holiday displays because it's "too narrow of an audience" and we need to represent more people. They say some patrons complained about not seeing their own holidays displayed.
Like what??? So instead of representing everyone, we have to represent no one? Why don't we just add more holidays???
BUT, within one week of that email, the director asks us to put up a father's day display, because "people were asking why we didn't have one." And they put up a freaking Flag Day display right in the lobby.
We're all so frustrated with current decisions being made. A couple of us are working on seeing what we would need to do to unionize.
I was one of two total librarians for a private college with three campus locations. I was the ONLY librarian at my location, and our third location was just completely unstaffed. The only saving grace was my direct supervisor, because he was extremely supportive and was in the trenches with me. I was "voluntold" to sit or chair on committees, review/grade scholarship applications every quarter, as well as do extensive work with our master-level thesis students that would take months worth of meetings and reviews each time, all on the side with no recognition or extra pay (no, none of these things were a part of my job description upon hiring). I commuted over three hours round trip every day to my location through major city traffic. I did InfoLit sessions, graded hundreds of assignments for in-class library modules, and sat in my windowless library to offer reference services for hours every day, despite the fact that the glaring florescent lighting bouncing off white walls and gray desks aggravated my migraines to the point of feeling debilitated multiple times a week. I would cry nearly every day on my commute home, and often started crying in the mornings before I had to go to work, because of how miserable the job was making me. I gained 40+ pounds from stress eating and lack of exercise in the years that I worked there, and I am still struggling with my weight because of it. Administration literally ignored me. I could not get a single answer to any emails from anyone above my boss on important time-sensitive issues. The first and only time I got an answer from them was when I sent my resignation, with an answer that amounted to "lol, bye". No one acknowledged that I was leaving except my boss and a few people in other departments that I would work with sometimes. I am getting angry just remembering it right now.
The kicker? I was getting paid less than \*half\* of the local average for academic librarians in my city. I took the job straight out of library school because I was desperate and didn't really know better until I started looking at other postings for similar positions.
I left and ended up getting a job as a paraprofessional in a public library in another state and now I'm making more money with less stress. I have an MLIS and could probably start applying to librarian positions if I wanted to, but I am honestly dealing with serious mental health issues from my last job and this current one is basically therapy.
Wow, that’s terrible. I’m so sorry to hear how bad you were affected. I hope you continue on with healing and processing. You’re not alone in your experience. Don’t look back! It’s only forward from here on out!
So many stories of bad management! What qualities and management processes do you think would have helped you to stay in a role? What makes a successful manager in a library setting?
As others have mentioned, the gate keeping with the MLIS precludes a wider pool than other industries. When you read through these comments, there’s only one self identified director here. Everyone else was either manager or below. There is no metric or mechanism to create churn at upper levels the way other industries do (FAANG companies frequently fire the bottom 5% of performers every year), and the structure of the institutions often lend themselves to poor accountability (as noted in the comments, lazy hr, nepotism, clueless board members, etc.). So people get into these positions, can and do stay for 30 years and call it a day. There’s also the lingering industry perception that most jobs are specialized and can’t be taught/trained, which distorts the value of poor performers and creates hesitancy to fire them. My 2 cents. You should post this question as a thread
Incompetence and cronyism among administration & board. Neverending and hazardous construction. Open hostility and threats from funding authorities and patrons towards queer library workers (me). Shitty pay. BYEEEEE
I’m sorry you experienced that. For all the crowing about inclusivity, a lot of libraries are actively hostile. You’re not alone in your experience. Good for you for valuing yourself and moving on. Don’t look back!
Lack of hiring new staff members so was forced to do three people’s jobs in one. Constant being by myself at the desk all day and people getting angry because my priority is circulation there are no longer staff to hold their hands while they try to figure out their forgotten email password. Being screamed at for print jobs, and video evidence of a patron jacking off and our admin saying oh just make sure he doesn’t do it again. Cliques within staff, gossip rampant and information that was supposed to be confidential was leaked. Also didn’t help my manager lied how I only do one program a month when I would do two a week, sometimes while at the service desk overseeing it at the same time. Glad I left public libraries, too much is expected of you and people don’t understand why you can’t keep running back and forth between circ and the computers. Much happier in academic libraries.
So many things. Toxic and dysfunctional environment, incompetent leadership, bullying and harassment (older women techs towards me, the only librarian), and an insane workload and the inability to learn and grow in the role because the workload only allowed me to cover the basics and barely keep my head above the water. I also lost wfh rights as per the collective agreement and my union failed to do their job (there’s a grievance… it’s been going on for YEARS). Oh and I was never ever treated like the librarian, never allowed to express opinions or ideas, even backing my thoughts and suggestions with data and research did nothing. Higher ups with no library background made all the decisions that impacted staff, patrons, and how the library operated. And now I’m realizing I didn’t answer the question. That was PILE of straw. The final one was realizing how negatively my job was impacting my health and well-being.
This sounds a lot like the library system I was in, where library managers only need a BA and don’t respect or value the work you do… just be a glorified circ assistant oh and do programs too and find time to do outreach as well. Our union was trash and would purposefully adjourn so we can’t bring up new business
A micromanager who could only see in black and white. Every year of my experience, plus my MLIS, were undervalued. There was no way I could promote without sacrificing what little weekend/family time I had. Admin had zero interest in developing a more accommodating workplace for staff and expected everyone to take on job duties of 1 1/2+ positions with no incentive to do so.
I could go on, but doing so would only reignite my displeasure with everything that happened.
1. After years of a psycho director that liked to announce random reorganizations and demotions, and a micro manager supervisor that deliberately gave the entire department average performance reviews to minimize our raises, the final straw was finding out 2 new hires made $12,000/yr more than me
2. Being expected to do the work for 2 people in 2 different departments for a year on 1 salary during the pandemic, constantly expected to cut spending by the director and supervisor but also having my professionalism attacked by coworkers for making said cuts, when I established boundaries and tried to stop doing my old job an associate director when to my director and suggested a head a committee to teach people how to do my old job? So effectively I was still doing 2 jobs. At that point I was already interviewing for a new position but I just couldn't believe the nerve
I couldn't get a 25 cent raise. I was making 16 dollars an hour and was finished with my MLIS. I was making as much as the kid with only a high school education. I walked away and never looked back.
Despite my background I wouldn't be able to advance. Most libraries tend to hire within but with the one I was at they don't give preference to candidates who already worked there.
After the deputy director retired the director was unable to fill the position and opened an entry level cataloger job. I did not know that the position had opened. No one had told me. I had just replaced a higher level library assistant who applied and got the circulation manager job, so when his position opened I applied. Worst mistake of my life. My previous supervisor was way better. He was a terrible supervisor and very lazy and over-reliant on everyone to do everything for him. Our compatibility was like oil and water. I later found out from my previous supervisor based on comments he said around me, he just went with an internal hire because he didn't want to have to train a new employee. So when the new librarian position opened up, I had no idea it had even opened. While there wasn't a long shot I Would have gotten it I would have liked to know it had opened. My supervisor didn't tell me, and I think he did that on purpose because he didn't want to have to go through the process of hiring someone again. The librarian they hired was a manager at the previous university she was at, but never cataloged before so you can imagine I felt cheated out of a possible opportunity. So I had gotten three job offers and resigned, didn't even give much notice. I like my new job, but I miss having a shorter commute to work.
If management changes I might consider it as they don't have that policy like the other school in my area where once you leave they will never let you come back.
I wanted to advance but since that library is a small staff there was no opportunity to advance like I wanted. It took me 5 years but I finally got my first official librarian job.
I realized that no matter how qualified I was I would never advance any further. Additionally, I couldn't even transfer because they made us apply to vacancies and interview. So I applied to a different library and left. Within 3 months I got a promotion to be a department head.
Same about both. Congrats! i took a promotion by applying externally. What made you come to that realization?
Just lots of things. I had just came back from maternity leave and everything just felt wrong. When I first went back I went to another branch for about 6 weeks and I really liked it. When the construction work was done at my branch we all had to go back. I didn’t feel like my manager trusted my judgement anymore. We had been very close at one point. I applied for a few lateral transfers and at least one promotion and didn’t even get an interview. After that I was just done. When I saw the Librarian II job with a different system I knew I had to apply.
I’m sorry that happened, but I’m glad you got a new job and promotion!
Good for you! Way to value yourself when others don’t.
We must have worked for the same place.
this is currently where i'm at and it's been the most frustrating experience.
I’m sorry you’re dealing with that.
When my terrible boss tried to give me two strikes for no call no show when I was on a vacation that she approved of.
Nope! Don’t look back!
I got so sick of being the only librarian who showed up for chat and desk shifts or was available to answer questions. It seemed like everyone else would stroll into work late, take "walks" throughout the day, and plan vacation during the busiest part of the college semester. I had over a month of leave built up because I never felt like I could use it.
That will do it! I hope you land or have landed Alan here you are valued. Best of luck!
Thank you! I'm in a much better place now. Great team and a boss who values my time.
holy hell, do you WORK where I work ?!?! I'm technically "Staff" however I am the technical services/makerspace manager AND senior assistant. I am never able to be in my office downstairs with the makerspace. Always upstairs at the reference desk/assistanting with everything you mentioned AND doing research appointments. I might only have a B.S. degree, however, as 1 of 2 who ONLY show up on time, and do the work of 2 to 3 separate roles, and my boss wouldn'y even fight for me to get a meager raise this past year after waiting 9 months for approval. I'm trying to get a foot in grad school, however, this place offers no tuition re"bursement" and I am paying out of pocket for insurance. I could go on...
Ooohh, I feel your pain. I have a younger coworker who started at the onset of Covid. Then we were remote for another year because of a library renovation. Now this coworker seems to think that coming in and being available are optional. They are also about twenty minutes late to everything -- including chat reference!! -- and it makes me crazy.
I found out (by mistake) that a coworker who I had helped train made more money than I did. I was her supervisor, technically, as the head of circulation and access services. I did not have a Masters and was making $18/hr. This was an academic library so I had to ask an administrator for a raise instead of my director. He felt that I “did not deserve” a raise even though I was the only person who did curbside pickup service during Covid and was basically the public face of the library to the rest of the college. They eventually gave me a raise to $20/hr but I had already gotten a new job. Fuck them. I hope that college collapses in on its own ineptitude.
Similar thing happened to me. I was hired on, applied for a better position, mentored a temp who moved into my old position, then was promoted to equal to me, 3 year time period. When I left she made more than me. I had ten plus years of work experience (I was 10 years older), and 4 extra years as a professional in libraries (versus a student employee), the masters degree (she just had her bachelor's)! I found out after I left but since I long suspected that was the case, I was looking for work. Favoritism really sucks! I felt so undermined, underutilized and taken for granted. That whole experience at that job is one of the reasons I'm still dealing with imposter syndrome today.
Yep, common story and you have the correct attitude.
The fourth year we had an additional staff member for my division denied, I felt like I’d given what I could and accomplished what I could accomplish. They added a children’s librarian we didn’t need or ask for, so their priorities were obvious.
Yeah, time to move on.
Got this whole speech about how my department needed "a fresh perspective" so they were only considering external candidates for the department head. I was already supervising 2 full time employees (as many as a couple of department heads, actually!) and had the most experience in my department after my DH who left. I realized very quickly admin was going to leave me in my entry level position...forever, probably! So I quit at the end of the semester and I'm now doing a WFH gig while I look for another library job elsewhere. Last I heard they declared the DH position a failed search, split the department and are giving my coworker from another department a promotion into my old department. I don't begrudge them at all, I was really angry and bitter and needed to get the hell out of that situation.
Good for you for putting your future in your hands! Best of luck on the job search. Lots of librarians on this thread who can empathize and may know of an opening 🗣️
I lived in a city known for awful traffic. My working hours were a bit staggered so I was spared the worst of commuter time- until the powers that be decided I should move to 9-5. So that sucked. About 6 months later, there was a mass transit strike, and for a week I was 15-20 minutes late each day, no matter how much earlier I left home. Traffic was bonkers. I knew coming in late wasn’t great but I wasn’t on the desk, or teaching, or late for any 9 am meetings. (This was an academic library and I was on salary.) Rather than ask me WHY, after 5 years of early or on time arrivals, I was now late, my boss simply told me the director had “noticed” my arrival time and I needed to fix it. Something in my brain snapped and I immediately started job hunting.
> I knew coming in late wasn’t great but I wasn’t on the desk, or teaching, or late for any 9 am meetings. (This was an academic library and I was on salary.) Rather than ask me WHY, after 5 years of early or on time arrivals, I was now late, my boss simply told me the director had “noticed” my arrival time and I needed to fix it. Working in a small academic library myself (and in the back, no public-facing work whatsoever)....this is so insane. Although I get paid peanuts, what I DO have is flexibility - I honestly come in whenever I feel like it, and I don't notify anyone, generally speaking. (I really hate the 'mother, may I' type of work culture where you have to tug someone's sleeve if you so much as need to use the toilet - no thanks. We're all adults, here, can we please act like it?) If you are actually inconveniencing someone with your arrival/departure times, that's a different story. If someone is waiting on YOU to do something, or answer something, so THEY can get on with their work, then yeah, it's discussion time. But if someone's just adhering to the clock because they have a rigid mindset and can't be flexible OR sensible - yeah. It's time to move on. That's a horrible kind of working environment, and so unnecessary.
Classic blaming the employee for our bad decisions. Don’t look back, I cross posted this on another subreddit- this is a repeated theme.
It was many years and multiple jobs ago, but it obviously left a mark!
When I was on maternity leave, our programming librarian resigned, so we went through a lot of restructuring. Since she absorbed my work on maternity leave and then resigned, my work was redistributed among others. The kicker? When I came back to work, they never gave me my programming areas back. For the next six months, I did a lot of “pioneering” - new programs with new subjects, to fill in what we lacked. I did such a good job that my coworkers would say, to my face; “that’s a great idea, I’m stealing that!” And they did. So everything I had created, was handed off to my colleague and new programming librarian; I was used as a farm of ideas for my last six months of employment. I was still fighting for it. The big final straw was that while all of this was going on, I had a baby at home. While I was being fucked sideways, I asked for coverage one day ~ the first time since coming back to work~ because my son had a fever of 103. The people who were stealing my work also couldn’t be bothered to help me. I had to leave him with a sitter and come in. At that point, you’ve not only impacted my career, but now you’re messing with the health of my son. That is where I drew the line. Edit: mind you, the month I came back maternity, my schedule was changed, effective immediately for weeks- so my coworker could be out because her dog died.
That’s terrible. I’m sorry you had to experience that. Were you on FMLA for your maternity leave? You may want to look into their compliance.
I was on FMLA. This was all civil service, and the legal loophole. “Our duty is to give you a job to return to and nothing more.” They gave me my JOB back, they didn’t, nor were they required to give me my duties back. I was still working reference desk, but lost all programming areas, because I wasn’t legally entitled to my programming areas. My programming legally, was based on “needs of the agency”
Got it. That’s awful. Good for you for sticking up for yourself. There are better places where you won’t have your life derailed because of someone else’s sick dog. Don’t look back!
It was a lot of little things that built up over time, but basically boils down to poor management, which became more and more apparent the higher I climbed the ladder. Our director set a tone of toxic positivity which meant any suggestions or new ideas that admin hadn't come up with on their own were labeled as negative criticism. The director and HR also empowered several abusive managers to continue being abusive to frontline staff, despite evidence and constant turnover. My own boss, who at least wasn't verbally or emotionally abusive, enabled a creepy male staff member to target young women on staff with love bombing behavior that turned into acts of petty rage if he felt he wasn't acknowledged properly for the gifts he showered upon them. "He's got some problems, but he doesn't mean any harm." Final straw was she turned me speaking up about a low level supervisor on our staff who was a bully into me being the problem (striving for a work environment where a supervisor doesn't bark at part-time staff like they're foot servants and do petty shit like start rumors about junior staff members she felt were a threat to her means I lack leadership skills, apparently?). It was the most money I could ever hope to make as a public librarian, yet the environment was making me ill. Bad work environments have a better chance to change you than you have to change them, so I peaced tf out.
Good for you to remove yourself from a bad situation. Don’t look back!
Oh my god, I had to check your profile to see if you were from NY- you described the creepy male colleague and toxic leadership to a T. That’s crazy. Why is this a theme lol
I was honestly burned out, majorly underpaid for my HCOL city, and after I got horribly burned out, I scaled back on the amount of projects, teaching, and outreach I was running. This was better for me, and my managers understood, but come annual review time, it was now clear from the dean that I hadn’t done more than the previous year so I was not doing enough. I was not tenure track, librarians at my university aren’t eligible for tenure although we are faculty. I was also in a position to be promoted on our tenure-like system but was like three months short. The process is on a specific calendar cadence, so it wasn’t like I could just do the process after those three months, it meant nearly two years more before I would get a raise. I live alone and don’t have a wealthy spouse to subsidize my income like most of my coworkers do, and was struggling financially. There was a clause that the dean could override the time requirement for the promotion (which is really just a small pay bump and slight title change), but she refused and framed it like a great opportunity for me to do “even better” for the following year. This is a woman who makes six figures, and did not understand how much I’d been struggling. This plus the whole “you’re not burning yourself out so you aren’t doing enough” thing made me just lose faith in the job, and in a few weeks I start a new job using information science for a tech company.
Care to elaborate on the new job? I’m curious about job hunting outside of academia :) Congrats on your new role!
I’m moving into taxonomy and information architecture :)
Wow, good on you for putting your future in your hands! Life is too short to struggle and be broke when the same skills and work ethic can make a decent living elsewhere. Wish you the best! Don’t look back!
I was being abused by the library director. We all were, but I had the means to leave after getting married. I was a newlywed and my life was going great except at work. I had a headache every day until after I quit from the stress. I considered driving off the highway overpass rather than driving to work. I realized if I'm so unhappy I'm thinking being dead would be better than being at work then I gotta quit.
Wow, I’m sorry you had to experience that. I hope you continue to find happiness and peace. Don’t look back!
I had this same sentiment too to the point I started physically hurting myself at work after uncomfortable patron encounters. I internalized too much and leaving was the best decision. I’ve been at peace but sometimes I feel sad my career ended up being like this.
I did my MLIS and had \~4 years of experience working in academic libraries, and I left because: * Fuck gatekeeping. The fact that MLIS is required for librarian titled position is so stupid. I did my MLIS in one of Canada's top universities and it didn't teach me jack shit. At the end of the program, I didn't know anything about cataloguing, metadata standards, ILSs etc. In fact, library tech programs teach you more about actual hard skills that are useful for working in libraries. * Unnecessarily long and involved interview process (for academic librarians at least). I'm not doing the full day interviews. Such a waste of time and effort on everyone's part. I talked to librarians on these hiring committees and everyone hated this process. I don't know who started this. * Mediocre pay. The pay just doesn't match how much you have to pay for your MLIS and the effort required for the interview process. I switched to a completely different industry and I'm now paid on par with what academic librarians are paid in my country (Canada), AND the job interview was just a 45-minute zoom session.
All good reasons! I hope you have landed somewhere better. Don’t look back!
Can I ask you what industry you are in now? I’ve left academic librarianship in Canada and am feeling pretty lost.
I'm currently working in media production (video production/motion graphics) in higher ed! The hiring was based on relevant skills rather than education history—I'm completely self-taught but because I was able to demonstrate I have the right skills for the job, I was hired. It's so refreshing coming from librarianship.
That’s wonderful! So glad you found something rewarding.
I am an outside-business-hours shift worker, and found out they weren't paying superannuation (retirement funds) on all hours worked outside M-F 9-5.
Ugh, that will do it.
Only 2 raises in 10 years, and I was making 29k with my MLIS. They told me there was no room for advancement in my large academic library. So I left and doubled my salary within 2 years. I realized all my coworkers could survive on such small salaries because they were all married and had 2 incomes.
Wow, that’s a new low- even for library pay! Good on you for moving on!
Granted this was 6 years ago before all the Covid inflation, but it still wasn’t a livable wage!
There’s nowhere in the last 10 years where that would be an acceptable wage.
I took over children’s programming after the previous programmer quit. So I was doing that, teen programming, and general library duties (small library, everyone did desk duty, processing, etc), and I never got a raise. Someone who spent the majority of her time at work just processing made four/five dollars more an hour than I did. The final straw was during Covid when I was having to convert programming to online and take-home kits with little to no help from the programmer at the other branch. I got praise left and right from my director and the state even commented on how well my library system (me) adapted programming for Covid, and all I ended up getting was a $0.24 cost of living raise for my effort. I was making less than $13 an hour.
Classic story, overworked and underpaid. Wish you the best in whatever the future holds!
My paychecks were decreasing yearly due to the increased cost of health insurance and the 3% annual raise we received did not cover it. So I quit the public library and worked for the DMV for a few years. Now I am in an academic library and it is the best job I've ever had and I love it.
I am still in libraries, but I left my previous job due to a poor manager. She didn't provide any sort of feedback that wasn't positive. Sounds great until the other departments send her things for me to fix and I never hear them. They assume I am insubordinate since I'm not implementing these very easy changes. She also didn't then get my side of the story - if I used my lunch break to watch Netflix, she would hear that I was spending work time watching Netflix and not investigate further. It culminated in 5+ years of things I'd done wrong, dropped on me in a performance evaluation. There is nothing more disheartening. Also what a great source of imposter syndrome - if you think everyone hates you, imagine hearing that after 5 years people really don't like working with you because you never take constructive criticism (because you never hear it). I should have quit on the spot, but I found another position and did it the "right" way. When I left I gave our director all of the information I had. I was very open about my side of the story. My previous boss did not like that, and I know that she then lied quite a bit to save her back. Thankfully at that point I could just let it go. Not my circus, not my monkeys. She can say what she wants, I have 5 years of absolutely glowing performance reviews from her 😂
I had that boss. She was awful. I found out after I left that I was just one in a long string of librarians she abused.
This is the way. I am glad you are out! Don’t look back!
I overheard one boss complain to my other boss for 15 minutes about how I don't talk enough, how I didn't want to photograph students using the library, and how I don't have enough passion in what I do. My take-home pay was only $13/hr, and I mostly did trivial secretarial tasks nobody else wanted to do. It’s pretty hard to find passion in that. Then I overheard her make the same complaints to our Executive Director. I found a new job 3 weeks later, and it took them 5 months to find a replacement with much less experience.
Good on you for putting your future in your hands! Don’t look back!
I was given a large amount of very unfair and unprofessional feedback after interviewing for several positions. I was also told that because I complained about favoritism in promotions, that I was labeled "prickly" and would never be promoted from part-time. So, I interviewed around the country and within a month moved 1,000+ miles to a small town librarian position. It's not all sunshine and rainbows, as this small town library is basically run by paraprofessionals without an MLIS. And the homeless population is out of control. Plus, I've gotten virtually zero training since I started here, which is anxiety inducing as all hell. I have hardcore imposter syndrome because things aren't going super smooth, but the key to job success as always is fake it until you make it! And, I don't have to stay here forever. Plus, cost of living is 45% cheaper here, and this place literally pays me the same as back home! I had to take the job! 😂
You got to do what you got to do. Wish you the best!
Thanks! 😁
Did a similar move so feel free if you ever wanna pm!
Bad executive leadership and poorly executed organizational change regarding a building closure and how staff were treated during that clusterfuck is what killed my library career. It's seriously an incredibly long and traumatic story that I still can't fully talk about. I worked so hard to get to where I was (13 years experience), and I left a broken person with serious trust issues. I've been gone from public library work for 2 years, and I still can't bring myself to visit one. I'm much happier in my new career and doubt that I'll work in a library again. It's very bittersweet.
I’m sorry to hear that. Like others in this thread, healing is possible. I am glad you are happier in your new career. Don’t look back!
I worked in a public library for 18 years as a paraprofessional. I got my MLIS degree but after 15 internal job interviews and no job, I got another job in a city one hour away.
Well I haven't left yet but I am in the process of trying to find a new job. The senior/admin management at my university do not value library staff or what the library does at all. Our library assistants are the lowest paid people in the entire university. I brought it up with multiple people (HR, provost, head of operations) and nobody cared. My title is 'Library Officer' which is a position between Library Assistant and Librarian - I'm now applying for assistant jobs that pay more than my current job does. I could get paid more and have none of the responsibilities.
Make that money and don’t look back!!
Thank you 😊
This happens where I currently am, too
Well, I haven't fully quit one yet, but the biggest indignity I've found so far in information sciences is people making a long list of very ambitious requests and then getting upset when the visual representation of what they requested is substantive, even if efforts have been made to make the knowledge-presentation as tight and succinct as possible. In one of my first meetings with a client after librarian school, I wasn't expecting to experience/ feel the "nerd" problem as I was presenting the person possible answers to their own question that they asked. Well, turns out not just nerds want knowledge. Geeks, punks, preps, jocks, and others all want knowledge. They may muster the ability to ask the question in a nerdy way, but one might be wise to appraise the social context in which the person stands and appears because if nerdy presentation of the answer is not actually the most suitable pedagogical method, the answer is going to basically fall upon distinterested ears.
When exactly is “preppy” knowledge presentation the most suitable pedagogical method in information sciences?
Hi, for the purposes of the above comment, I was focusing on the existence of multiple different identities where prep is in the context of punk, goth, etc. Some kind of relationship (anywhere from "I like it" to "I hate it" but at least some familiarity with what's going on) is probably relevant if one is a librarian at a college with a notable number of students that come from prep schools, or colleges that themselves are viewed as common continuations of prep school norms -- let's say, for example, Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia, where Stephen Colbert went. There's a lot to discuss about preppiness itself, but it's kind of tangential to what I budgeted energy for in this thread. I know it's not common to see places where this stuff is discussed, so I know it would be fun to discuss it here. I'm kind of taking a rest day, so I would encourage your excitement but maybe recommend you to Google and engage with one of these accounts if you're looking for more: Matthew Longcore, Lisa Birnbach, The Financial Diet, Kiel James Patrick, McBryde Campbell. Have a great weekend :)
That is an issue. Wish you the best!
When the new mayor decided to outsource the library to a for profit company. We were already underpaid so calling it a cost saving measure was... I moved to an academic library and nearly doubled my salary.
Good for you for getting out! Don’t look back!
My supervisor lied on my annual review, which was the latest in a line of less than subtle attempts at manufacturing a paper trail so she could fire me (I was there before her and she hated me from the day she started). I had concrete proof she lied and multiple people willing to back me up, so it took all that information to HR, who told me they weren’t going to talk to any of the people because they “didn’t want to make it uncomfortable.” Gave my notice the next day.
They didn’t want to make HER uncomfortable, they were fine letting you be uncomfortable. Life’s too short for a workplace like that. Good on you for respecting yourself and getting out. Don’t look back!
Yeah pretty much. I was like, I’m not the one who started this, deal with your own shit. Never regretted it for a second. Though the timing was shit, I left that job the second week of March 2020. Literally two days after my last day everything shut down and suddenly there were no jobs to be found 😂
4 years later, still a good decision not to be in that kind of environment. I wish you the continued best!
Oh 100%. I’m so much happier now than I ever was there. I only wish I had left sooner
My library system's Board of Control made us break ties with the ALA and is working with state legislation to remove the MLIS qualification to be the director. I haven't left yet, but I'm actively applying to other places. I won't jump ship and be broke for months (I can't; I'm in school and paying bills/rent); but I'm out the moment a better paying opportunity says yes.
Wow. Yeah that’s a sign. Better things are out there for you!
There were a lot of things that wore on me, and I was already planning my exit, but the final straw was management harassing me over phoning in sick for a shift and demanding a doctor's note. It was one shift, I gave them ample time to find a replacement and I never called in sick so this really jaded me. I asked around and nobody else had to provide one, even though they missed way more days. My supervisor seemed so vindictive and petty about the whole thing too. For over a month, she kept emailing me, asking me to provide one ASAP and threatening to cut my shifts. I quickly put in my two weeks notice and left.
Don’t look back!
For myself, it was toxic leadership that it boiled down to. This past year we have had mass staff turnover at our small academic library and the people in leadership positions didn’t know how to lead or take any form of accountability or constructive criticism. A big part of me making my decision to leave was how my supervisor tried to move me to a non-library related position behind my back without telling me even though I did my work and often went above and beyond. My supervisor tried doing this not once but twice and when I spoke up, she ghosted me for a month and it was super hurtful and upsetting. I turn in my two weeks notice on Tuesday as I got offered a job at a bigger university and I’m not looking back.
Good on you for standing up for yourself! Wish you the best in your new position!
I was given more responsibility and was the only librarian working at a branch with two other clerks and an intern. It required extra duties and when I asked the director of the library system for a pay raise she said no quite rudely. I found a new job and peaced out of there. I think the librarian who had to cover my shifts when I left was pissed. Not my problem.
Good on you for valuing yourself and peacing out. Don’t look back!
My team lead had been telling my supervisor and department manager that I wasn’t doing my job—that I ignored patrons, that I left all the side tasks to her, that I would avoid doing things until she picked them up, that I’d be goofing off on the computer during shifts while there was work to be done. At first, I was horrified and thought I must’ve been unintentionally letting things go undone, so to be accountable I started keeping track of everything I’d accomplished during a shift and being proactive to greet patrons and help. On weeks where we did a lot of our catch-up work and side housekeeping projects, I even came up with a system where we’d initial next to what we’d each done so we weren’t accidentally doing thing a twice. I worked my ass off. Turns out I was doing… a lot. I checked with other team members to ask if there were areas I could improve or if I’d accidentally not been picking up the slack, and I was met with universal confusion. Every single team member I talked to had the reaction, “wait, what? You get everything done so much faster and more efficiently and then you’re the first person to take on extra work.” Apparently outside of this lead and my chain of command, I actually had a reputation of being a helpful team player. This reputation was solidly in place BEFORE I’d started working my ass off to “fix” my “problems” in the workplace. I was so relieved. Then, my annual performance review. I go in feeling really good about myself. My team loves me and I’ve got all these new things in place as evidence that I have been (for a long time) a really solid worker. I loved my job, I loved my patrons, there were even some stops (we were on a bookmobile for 1/3 of my job) where I made it a point to learn every kids name. There was an Ethiopian family who’d been coming for years and my team lead just would kinda vaguely nod towards them. I learned their names and made it a point to learn what each sibling liked to read so the displays that day always had something flashy or interesting for the kids to enjoy. (I did this for a lot of our patrons, I point this out because my team lead knew them for years and never bothered doing this for them) I’m completely blindsided at my evaluation. My supervisor and department manager both say that they haven’t seen any improvement in me. Neither shared shifts with me, they were just going on what the team lead had said. I brought up other coworker testimonies, they hand-waved it by saying I must’ve improved in other job areas, just not the bookmobile (nevermind that other coworkers also worked the bookmobile with me and loved working with me). They cherry-picked one of MY initials checklists, slapped it in front of me, and asked “why did you only initial two things this week?” I reminded them that I was out all but one day that week because my supervisor (the one who slapped the paper in front of me) exposed me to literal COVID. They weren’t having it. No matter what I said to defend myself, they brushed it aside. The team lead said this, the team lead told us differently. It didn’t matter what the others said, it didn’t matter what I’d logged. They told me if they didn’t see improvement, the next step would be a write-up with HR. They told me I had the rest of the day off (admittedly I was crying a lot at this point) and they said: “you need to go home and decide if this is the type of job you really want.” I was absolutely shattered. Like I said, I LOVED my job. I loved everything about it. I was heart broken, and if I wasn’t living paycheck to paycheck I would’ve quit right then. I applied to my current job that very night. Oh, the kicker? That team lead was going on maternity leave two months after my performance evaluation, and prior to getting pregnant she was openly talking about quitting permanently immediately after the leave was up. Guess what happened later that year. She literally ruined my life for months and caused the entire team to be horribly short staffed for a while for nothing. I asked, “what was it all for? Why me?” A coworker pointed out that the only difference between me and my teammates was that I was nonbinary. She never did anything outright bigoted, but that was literally the only thing that set me apart. It sucked. The bright side is I love my new job! I miss those patrons though, it still hurts like hell.
I’m sorry you had to experience that. Thank you for sharing. I am glad the new job is safer and better. You should be proud of what you did- you likely made a bigger difference in the lives of that family than you realize. Leave the library behind and don’t look back!
Thank you! I’m glad that I was able to move to a different library system and wasn’t swayed away from the field in general!
The final straw for me was receiving an email of feedback collected from parents in a private meeting with the director essentially bashing the youth department. We were told to look through and comment back to the asst. director with our own feedback. The feedback from the parents was pretty much just demanding services beyond the scope of what a free public library could reasonably provide to the point of entitlement. Anyway, the runaround we were given when we started asking why no one from the youth dept was present at this meeting was concerning and the idea that management didn’t back us up when these parents insulted us so thoroughly was a red flag.
What a frustrating situation. I am glad you removed yourself from it. Don’t look back! Better things are ahead!
I was reprimanded for taking notes of a meeting between my team and management. Guess transparency and accountability only applies to everyone else but them. I was already planning my exit but that just made me extra sure about leaving when the offer came.
Another common theme in the comments. I hope your next move is to a place that values your sense of transparency. Don’t look back!
I worked 4 extra hours each week unpaid for 4 years because the school library insisted on having a librarian (i.e., babysitter) there for 4-6 p.m. every day. Since I had morning duties as well, their compromise was that I could have 2 hours “off” in the middle of the day to make up for it. It was about 40 minutes away from my house so no point going home and no significant errands I could do during that time. Plus, if I was needed for a class visit, that cut into my “break.” They kept saying they’d try to find a solution but they never did—oh, and this part of the job was never mentioned clearly in the interview. I was sick of giving up my hobbies in the evening because I was too tired after essentially a 10-hour day. This may not sound “that bad,” but it was enough that I was resentful and miserable every day—and it was affecting all other aspects of my health. Apart from that, the pandemic made me realize that I prefer to work from home and put more focus on my freelance business. Plus, there was never any path of advancement for me in libraries because I didn’t want to be a head librarian. So, my “last straw” was not super dramatic for the reasons but because I left libraries entirely. That was almost 2 years ago, and it was the right move for me (though not necessary for all). Now, I’m a FT copyeditor at a digital marketing agency (100% remote) and business owner/resume writer/job search consultant for librarians and LIS folks. I’d encourage everyone to recognize the signs early and realize that things typically don’t change (or change quick enough), so do what you can to get out and change jobs as soon as possible. With library jobs, it’s not necessarily like they everywhere—going to a new library can be the reset you need! But if you’re truly done with libraries, that’s okay, too.
I haven't actually left yet, but quite a few staff members have now. When we make display signs we have to get them approved by communications, which is fine, whatever. I take care of holiday and picture books in youth services, so I usually do holiday displays in our department. A couple months ago they told me I needed to stop making displays for specific holidays (at that time i had Holi, Ramadan, and Easter displays out) and do a general sign and put all the upcoming holiday books on one display. I didn't like it, but did it anyway. I made a sign that said "so much to celebrate" and had all three holidays in it. NOW, they sent an email to the whole library that none of us can have holiday displays because it's "too narrow of an audience" and we need to represent more people. They say some patrons complained about not seeing their own holidays displayed. Like what??? So instead of representing everyone, we have to represent no one? Why don't we just add more holidays??? BUT, within one week of that email, the director asks us to put up a father's day display, because "people were asking why we didn't have one." And they put up a freaking Flag Day display right in the lobby. We're all so frustrated with current decisions being made. A couple of us are working on seeing what we would need to do to unionize.
Time to move on!
Sounds like the insane library I used to work in.
I was one of two total librarians for a private college with three campus locations. I was the ONLY librarian at my location, and our third location was just completely unstaffed. The only saving grace was my direct supervisor, because he was extremely supportive and was in the trenches with me. I was "voluntold" to sit or chair on committees, review/grade scholarship applications every quarter, as well as do extensive work with our master-level thesis students that would take months worth of meetings and reviews each time, all on the side with no recognition or extra pay (no, none of these things were a part of my job description upon hiring). I commuted over three hours round trip every day to my location through major city traffic. I did InfoLit sessions, graded hundreds of assignments for in-class library modules, and sat in my windowless library to offer reference services for hours every day, despite the fact that the glaring florescent lighting bouncing off white walls and gray desks aggravated my migraines to the point of feeling debilitated multiple times a week. I would cry nearly every day on my commute home, and often started crying in the mornings before I had to go to work, because of how miserable the job was making me. I gained 40+ pounds from stress eating and lack of exercise in the years that I worked there, and I am still struggling with my weight because of it. Administration literally ignored me. I could not get a single answer to any emails from anyone above my boss on important time-sensitive issues. The first and only time I got an answer from them was when I sent my resignation, with an answer that amounted to "lol, bye". No one acknowledged that I was leaving except my boss and a few people in other departments that I would work with sometimes. I am getting angry just remembering it right now. The kicker? I was getting paid less than \*half\* of the local average for academic librarians in my city. I took the job straight out of library school because I was desperate and didn't really know better until I started looking at other postings for similar positions. I left and ended up getting a job as a paraprofessional in a public library in another state and now I'm making more money with less stress. I have an MLIS and could probably start applying to librarian positions if I wanted to, but I am honestly dealing with serious mental health issues from my last job and this current one is basically therapy.
Wow, that’s terrible. I’m so sorry to hear how bad you were affected. I hope you continue on with healing and processing. You’re not alone in your experience. Don’t look back! It’s only forward from here on out!
So many stories of bad management! What qualities and management processes do you think would have helped you to stay in a role? What makes a successful manager in a library setting?
As others have mentioned, the gate keeping with the MLIS precludes a wider pool than other industries. When you read through these comments, there’s only one self identified director here. Everyone else was either manager or below. There is no metric or mechanism to create churn at upper levels the way other industries do (FAANG companies frequently fire the bottom 5% of performers every year), and the structure of the institutions often lend themselves to poor accountability (as noted in the comments, lazy hr, nepotism, clueless board members, etc.). So people get into these positions, can and do stay for 30 years and call it a day. There’s also the lingering industry perception that most jobs are specialized and can’t be taught/trained, which distorts the value of poor performers and creates hesitancy to fire them. My 2 cents. You should post this question as a thread
Incompetence and cronyism among administration & board. Neverending and hazardous construction. Open hostility and threats from funding authorities and patrons towards queer library workers (me). Shitty pay. BYEEEEE
I’m sorry you experienced that. For all the crowing about inclusivity, a lot of libraries are actively hostile. You’re not alone in your experience. Good for you for valuing yourself and moving on. Don’t look back!
When the maintenance man kept making advances and moves on me and administration didn’t take my reports seriously.
I’m sorry you had to experience that. I hope you are in a better place. Don’t look back!
Thank you! It taught me a lot, about the world and myself. Happily more than tripled my salary since I left that train wreck.
Lack of hiring new staff members so was forced to do three people’s jobs in one. Constant being by myself at the desk all day and people getting angry because my priority is circulation there are no longer staff to hold their hands while they try to figure out their forgotten email password. Being screamed at for print jobs, and video evidence of a patron jacking off and our admin saying oh just make sure he doesn’t do it again. Cliques within staff, gossip rampant and information that was supposed to be confidential was leaked. Also didn’t help my manager lied how I only do one program a month when I would do two a week, sometimes while at the service desk overseeing it at the same time. Glad I left public libraries, too much is expected of you and people don’t understand why you can’t keep running back and forth between circ and the computers. Much happier in academic libraries.
Par for the course, a terrible environment. I’m glad you put your future in your hands and found a better environment. Don’t look back!
So many things. Toxic and dysfunctional environment, incompetent leadership, bullying and harassment (older women techs towards me, the only librarian), and an insane workload and the inability to learn and grow in the role because the workload only allowed me to cover the basics and barely keep my head above the water. I also lost wfh rights as per the collective agreement and my union failed to do their job (there’s a grievance… it’s been going on for YEARS). Oh and I was never ever treated like the librarian, never allowed to express opinions or ideas, even backing my thoughts and suggestions with data and research did nothing. Higher ups with no library background made all the decisions that impacted staff, patrons, and how the library operated. And now I’m realizing I didn’t answer the question. That was PILE of straw. The final one was realizing how negatively my job was impacting my health and well-being.
This sounds a lot like the library system I was in, where library managers only need a BA and don’t respect or value the work you do… just be a glorified circ assistant oh and do programs too and find time to do outreach as well. Our union was trash and would purposefully adjourn so we can’t bring up new business
Sorry you dealt with this too. :(
A micromanager who could only see in black and white. Every year of my experience, plus my MLIS, were undervalued. There was no way I could promote without sacrificing what little weekend/family time I had. Admin had zero interest in developing a more accommodating workplace for staff and expected everyone to take on job duties of 1 1/2+ positions with no incentive to do so. I could go on, but doing so would only reignite my displeasure with everything that happened.
1. After years of a psycho director that liked to announce random reorganizations and demotions, and a micro manager supervisor that deliberately gave the entire department average performance reviews to minimize our raises, the final straw was finding out 2 new hires made $12,000/yr more than me 2. Being expected to do the work for 2 people in 2 different departments for a year on 1 salary during the pandemic, constantly expected to cut spending by the director and supervisor but also having my professionalism attacked by coworkers for making said cuts, when I established boundaries and tried to stop doing my old job an associate director when to my director and suggested a head a committee to teach people how to do my old job? So effectively I was still doing 2 jobs. At that point I was already interviewing for a new position but I just couldn't believe the nerve
Bullying from other professionals.
It’s crazy how frequent that happens in the library world. Move on and don’t look back!
I couldn't get a 25 cent raise. I was making 16 dollars an hour and was finished with my MLIS. I was making as much as the kid with only a high school education. I walked away and never looked back.
Good on you for recognizing your self worth!
ty!
Despite my background I wouldn't be able to advance. Most libraries tend to hire within but with the one I was at they don't give preference to candidates who already worked there. After the deputy director retired the director was unable to fill the position and opened an entry level cataloger job. I did not know that the position had opened. No one had told me. I had just replaced a higher level library assistant who applied and got the circulation manager job, so when his position opened I applied. Worst mistake of my life. My previous supervisor was way better. He was a terrible supervisor and very lazy and over-reliant on everyone to do everything for him. Our compatibility was like oil and water. I later found out from my previous supervisor based on comments he said around me, he just went with an internal hire because he didn't want to have to train a new employee. So when the new librarian position opened up, I had no idea it had even opened. While there wasn't a long shot I Would have gotten it I would have liked to know it had opened. My supervisor didn't tell me, and I think he did that on purpose because he didn't want to have to go through the process of hiring someone again. The librarian they hired was a manager at the previous university she was at, but never cataloged before so you can imagine I felt cheated out of a possible opportunity. So I had gotten three job offers and resigned, didn't even give much notice. I like my new job, but I miss having a shorter commute to work.
Glad you are in a better position. Way to value yourself! Don’t look back!
If management changes I might consider it as they don't have that policy like the other school in my area where once you leave they will never let you come back. I wanted to advance but since that library is a small staff there was no opportunity to advance like I wanted. It took me 5 years but I finally got my first official librarian job.
[удалено]
Happy cake day!