(via Nicole Swanson, CARLI)
Registration has opened for “Over-servicing at your Library at the Expense of a Healthy Life Balance”, the first webinar of the Honest Conversations about Finding Personal/Professional Life Balance Series available to CARLI members and those of the Professional Development Alliance.
In 2016, Fobazi Etarh, an academic librarian and a queer woman of color, coined the term “vocational awe” to describe, “the set of ideas, values, and assumptions librarians have about themselves and the profession that result in notions that libraries as institutions are inherently good, sacred notions and therefore beyond critique.” While the strain of vocational awe can be universal to any library professional, how is it unique to those who serve historically marginalized, particularly vulnerable populations and communities in crisis?
Let’s have a frank discussion. As librarians we are also activists, representatives and direct caregivers to our service communities. How does vocational awe inform sacrifices to the self-care and mental health of those that assist these communities? Usually while working within organizations where they are often marginalized themselves? And what can we do to acknowledge, hold organizations accountable, and understand how to best provide support?
Angelique Carson is the Shared Collections Librarian at the Washington Research Library Consortium (WRLC). She holds an MLIS from Louisiana State University and a B.A. in English Literature and Theater Arts from the University of Virginia and finds good use for her A.D in Apparel Construction from the Fashion Institute of Technology as often as possible. Angelique has held Librarian positions at Southern University of New Orleans, the Southern Food and Beverage Culinary Library and Archive, the Catholic University of America and Howard University. Her greatest professional passion is OER advocacy and how it can meaningfully impact campus community EDI initiatives in higher education.