One of my long-standing and favorite professional practices is reading books, reviewing them, and having those reviews published. I’ve dozens on my CV, and while I’m a full professor with no real need to continue “publishing” I can’t stop with the book reviewing because it’s so important as a professional practice.
And when I spoke at the Library Marketing Conference this month I mentioned ACRL’s cultural competence values as a way that the DEIA piece aligned with the sixth trauma-informed framework principle: cultural, historical, and gender issues, but actually regret doing that because now I’d change that to cultural humility. I’m not steeped in the ACRL framework like some college/university librarians are; just peripherally aware.
I learned from the book that cultural competence fails to analyze structural and institutional roles and hold them accountable for harm. Clearly, cultural humility promotes that essential component of structural and institutional accountability.
Cultural humility aligns perfectly with the sixth trauma-informed principle.
There are three or four main points to cultural humility:
don’t be defensive
recognize other pespectives
practice critical self-reflection
hold institutions accountable
Anyway, I’m excited that I know this concept and will incorporate it into my learning, practice, and presentations. While referencing the sixth principle I talk about things like segregated libraries in the Jim Crow South, Native American Boarding Schools and their deployment of education for cultural genocide, library buildings being named for white men (sometimes enslavers) as reasons why people mistrust institutions, including libraries. On a more positive note, I stress the way that libraries serve as sanctuary for LGBTQIA+, immigrants, the unhoused, etc.
Answering this question will be different for everyone. No two libraries are alike. No two or three libraries employ the same demographics or experience the same organizational behaviors, and so while we can say that “Caring organizations feel safe to library workers,” or “Caring organizations feel welcoming and supportive to library workers,” what that looks like or how it manifests within the organizational dynamic differs greatly.
Given that, what actions can library administration and library leaders take in their creation of a caring organization? Obviously, my first answer is “look to the six principles of trauma informed care.” And yes, those principles guide the majority of my responses.
Safety is critical. I’ve worked with people who shirk in meetings because they expect personal attacks from more senior individuals. When leadership allows bullying, blame shifting, and other negative elements to take root within libraries, library workers don’t feel safe, they experience very limited trust, if any, and they realize that their voices are unimportant. That’s how a culture of silence and complicity permeates some workplaces. And how an organization feels uncaring to its workers.
Feeling cared for is relative. We all respond to different means. Having an extra day off is nice. Since COVID my university has granted us one or two paid days leave in addition to the time we accrue and paid holidays. Those were appreciated, but not every library or its parent organization can extend that kind of largesse to workers.
Isabel Espinal suggestions that microaffections and microaffirmations can go a long was in reducing the chilly work environments that POC experiences. Libraries maybe too sterile, too brisk, too “professional.” And as a Latinx person the lack of personal warmth in libraries affects how she feels at work. She recommends that we warm up the library for POC with pleasantries. Pleasantries create connection and caring.
Showing appreciation equitably is another means of spreading care around to everyone working in libraries. It seems as though one of two of the superstars or favorites receive all the accolades from leadership. Library leaderships shouldn’t let opportunities for everyone’s strengths to be acknowledged publicly pass them by.
My library has always been broke, so while there was never an abundance of swag or catered events celebrating library workers, there were times when we felt appreciated. When we were celebrated for no special reason by the dean treating us with a catered sundae bar. Food in workplaces can be tricky (as I wrote a few weeks ago), but, for me, it comes down to intent: Was leadership intentional about demonstrating their care and thoughtfulness for workers? Does leadership care about the impact of their actions? Are library workers invited to the table for the main event, or are they emailed when leftovers are available?
Who hasn’t struggled with disordered eating? American culture foments it with our advertisements about food and sex and food and fitness and food and thinness/obesity.
How does disordered eating feed into wellness this month? And how do our library workplaces create cultures of wellness for those with food trauma?
Food trauma occurs with specific types of food and usually stem from an event someone experienced that causes them to feel anxious, insecure, and possibly surveilled when eating.
Someone with a high ACEs score may be more likely to experience anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, to being eating disorder. Caitlin Beale describes several types of food trauma:
It’s very easy for those with disordered eating to be misunderstood. When we avoid parties, potlucks, or receptions, or situations wherein food is present, our absence may be noted. Absences around team eating and socialization can be perceived poorly by supervisors. They may request that you be more “present” and appear at team-building events. And unless we disclose about our disordered eating and why workplace events with food may unsettle us, our absences could be counted against us or viewed as our not participating in team events. Or that “so and so” is a curmudgeon and doesn’t like to socialize with everyone else. When, in fact, the food may be the issue, not the emotional labor socialization entails.
Certainly many people are aware of how loaded that baked potato may be. Our greater awareness about dietary differences and how we accommodate gluten-free, vegan, vegetarian, pescatarian, etc. preferences is essential in promoting inclusion and belonging in our library workspaces.
Creating an affinity group in which library workers with disordered eating can support one another, and share and crowdsource strategies and tactics for dealing with this issue in the workplace is one idea. Convening a monthly trauma-informed/responsive book/information group with library workers may be another idea for stimulating conversations about food-related experiences.
This is one area in which trauma informed/responsive leadership can raise awareness of food trauma in the workplace, discuss this sensitive issue, take an environmental scan of food issues affecting their specific demographics, and model thoughtfulness in this domain.
Somewhat unrelated food for thought: public library workers are involved with summer feeding programs in their communities, which seems like another example of job creep, of library workers being all things to all members of their communities. More and more, library workers are expected to fill all the gaps that our social infrastructure is failing.
As someone who promotes boundary-setting as an essential element of self care, I am pleased to see that August is National Wellness Month, and I’ll be posting about wellness during its span.
Taking all your federally-mandated breaks–including two 15-minute breaks and an hour lunch break?
As a trauma-informed and/or trauma-responsive library worker, modeling wellness in the workplace may be within your wheelhouse.
Wellness includes work/life balance. That slash [/] between the two words is a powerful symbol of separation. Of boundaries. Affirming and embodying that separation can be tough. My tendency to ruminate over past and present and future work happenings in the evenings and weekends at home robs me of my precious free-time and also makes focusing on my family challenging.
A few weeks ago I responded to an email late on a Friday night, after our traditional workday ended. I included a statement about the uncommon late email, and for others to respect their work boundaries and not feel pressured to read or respond to any email outside of their paid work time.
Recently I referred to someone’s “meeting the library family” with CRINGE. I wasn’t ready to share my thoughts about that term being used in a workplace/organization/institution, but some weeks ago I watched the docu-series Working: What We Do All Day on Netflix. Barak Obama follows up on Studs Terkel’s 1974 book of interviews with working people, today’s working people.
At some point in Episode 2: The Middle, Obama says something along the lines of “this is a family and folks look out for you…” And this is a total paraphrase from Luke: “When somebody says you’re in a family, usually that’s a bad job.“
I forget when someone in my workplace described us as “library family,” but it was early in my career. We “take care” of each other. Love each other. Words, but no caretaking from the powerful. Everyone working in the library was expected to take care of one person. You couldn’t say no. We were told via email to sign up for transportation shifts to take this person to physical therapy, the grocery store, feed their cats, run errands on their behalf, and it would be counted as part of our work time. We were told to visit this person in the hospital and see what items to fetch from their home for their use in the hospital. This person called their staff when they had a leak or an emergency at home. Their direct reports came to their home and helped them.
Maybe some people, somewhere have warm fuzzy feelings about their “work fam,” but I never have because my experience of that was manipulative and compulsory. And for a decade or so, I was the only person of my generation working amongst the librarians. They were cliquish and excluded me, even when I asked to join their writing group.
My first response to nearly every question is “Review The Literature,” but I haven’t in this case. I like to back up what I write with data.
If you’re on the job market and hear the library, the workplace, the organization, the institution referred to as a FAMILY, this is a red flag. The way I read it is: You/I am the child in this dynamic. You/I will be parentified. This is when parents expect children to be the caregiver. In the workplace, this means that all the sacrifices are made by you, because we’re a family. We’re tight. We’re in this together.
Surely some people, like those in marketing and PR, use this type of branding to signify some kind of down-homey close-knit feel, they’re selling a potential experience of familial warmth and belonging to lure in the unwitting and I believe that is disingenuous.
I think of Leo Tolstoy when I think of families. He wrote, in Anna Karenina, “Happy families are all alike. Every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way,” which I paraphrase as “every family is dysfunctional, some more than others.”
My families–birth and blended–failed me in a lot of ways that I’ve spent my adulthood recovering from. Invoking the “we’re a happy family” card, if you will, to describe a workplace clangs alarm bells in my brain. I love my birth and blended fam but I don’t have to like them. And I don’t have to love OR like my work fam. That seems like an idyllic dream. I can/do dream.
What’s unusual for me right now is the amount of television/streaming that I’m consuming. Loving The Bear for so many reasons, but it’s a great example of toxic kitchen workplaces. All the yelling, the screaming, the violence, whoa.
Some of the phrases that came up in seasons one were “You can’t start with fucked” meaning that when you inherit a fucked up organization, you’re bound to fail.
Another was “The chef was a piece of shit” regarding why Carmine experiences tremendous anxiety, nightmares, and what looks like PTSD from workplace abuse.
And the last thing, that I identify with most strongly is “A big part of the job is taking care of people.” And that makes me think that if you aren’t a people-person and lack empathy, then I’m not sure what workplace is a good fit.
Also picked up on a lot of “workplace culture” by watching FUBAR, the new Arnold Schwarzenegger Netflix series about a father and daughter who learn that they’re both in the CIA after he’s sent in to rescue her before retiring. Obviously, I don’t know how the CIA works. But some of the situations and humor visible in this show…. far-fetched, I’m sure.
Two of the CIA operatives are always “sack tapping” each other (not the father/daughter), which is such a vile bodily violation, omg. Still unpacking this show, but the people working together are bio and work fam, which promises (and delivers) fascinating dynamics and situations.
After nearly every talk/workshop/presentation I give I’m thanked by the organizer/facilitator for my vulnerability. Sometimes I feel as though I’m oversharing. But mostly, I’m just honest about the everyday mental health struggles I experience in my library workplace and how I establish boundaries with others to protect myself and my energy. Last blog, I shared about my library-induced panic attacks.
Here, a back channel exists in which check in with each other to learn about the “mood of the day.” Sharing this information with each other helps us pre-game meetings by taking anti-anxiety meds. Incidentally, centrally organized library back channels exist for BIPOC who want information about safe places where one can thrive: Greenbook for libraries.
Today I read Karina Hagelin’s “Surviving to thrive: creating a culture of radical vulnerability in libraries” which exists withinLIS Interrupted. I’ve co-presented with them and admired their work a great deal and was pleasantly surprised when I saw their essay in the collection. Karina inspires my professional vulnerability.
Yet, I’m also exhausted by remaining silent, pretending, and performing collegiality in the workplace. Those actions, or lack of actions, daily impinge upon my sense of integrity. Martha Beck and Gabor Mate both write about how both our integrity is tied to our mental/physiological health. They’re negatively affected when we revert to our socially constructed “good girl” “good boy” “good child” personas instead of speaking the truth.
Karina defines radical vulnerability as “a praxis and a strategy of sharing openly about experienced, identities, and satires that have been stigmatized and weaponized against us, in order to keep us quiet, small, and powerless.”
How often do you surface act? It’s part of the emotional labor that many of us are expected to perform daily in our workplaces, both with the people we help as well as our colleagues and administrators. Karina describes this as “forcing a smile during a challenging experience” when actually you don’t want to smile. You want to scream or cry or leave the space immediately. They also write that answering something as simple as “How are you?” is stressful.
We follow social scripts in our lives. We’re programmed to ask others “How are you?” and the expected response is “Fine, how are you?” Admittedly, it’s a struggle for me to answer this honestly. I’m usually not fine at all. Yet I don’t want to share how I’m really feeling for a variety of reasons. First, it’s a matter of privacy; it’s not everyone’s business. Second, I don’t feel safe sharing how I truly feel, especially with an abuser. Keeping my boundaries engaged takes so much energy and forethought. I spend some time fabricating a benign yet truthful answer when an abuser asks “How is your Monday?” My answer: “Well… it’s a Monday…” which answers vaguely, and truthfully, so I’m not lying or pretending, or performing collegiality.
Karina recommends we act in a manner that contributes to a culture of empathy and vulnerability. This includes showing up for others, holding space for others, and letting co-workers know they’re not alone, that we are someone whom they can trust.
Rebecca Tolley 