Narratives of Academic Librarians: Chapter 4: Feeling the Flow

Chapter 4: Feeling the Flow

Feeling the flow. Yeah, things are just going really well. 

With the  [institution-wide improvement plan] work that I was doing with the assessment and that team, I felt like all of the parts in the heart- my teaching, research and service- all of that was just coming together. 

It all felt like it fit. Even the service stuff that others might have argued, “why are you doing,” maybe with a good point, “why are you doing so much service” or “don't you want to get off some of these teams?” 

And I'm where I'm better about it now, I guess.

If I'm doing some service commitment that doesn't make sense, I can drop that.

But there's so many things I did with service too during this time that was helping. 

It's informing my teaching, my librarianship, my scholarship. It's all going together. 

So that was just a real feeling of flow. There was no wasted energy.

The [institution-wide improvement plan] has been really successful, at least for me. 

I'm trying to think of a timeline here. I was moving up in leadership positions and faculty governance. This was a pre- [faculty leadership position]. I served as a [faculty governance position] for a couple years, which sounds like a boring and not important job. 

However, as part of these [faculty governance positions], I was getting to go to meetings and learning about stuff that was happening at the institution at a very high level. And I had the fortune to work with previous [faculty leadership] who were just like really either open and transparent and wanted to include people. 

Two of them that I worked with said, “yes, I want to include everybody in these conversations, and everybody has a voice, even you little librarian person.”

I was feeling at that point, I knew about everything that was kind of going on. I could see how we as a library fit into things. 

Did I enjoy feeling like maybe others were recognizing me for some reason? 

Yes, I did.

The first time I became [faculty governance position], it was a job nobody wanted. So, we're in a meeting and we're going to be taking nominations and people were pointing at people and nominating them, “hey, maybe you”. 

And then they go, “oh, no, no, I don't want to do that”. 

And someone pointed at me and said, “how about you?” I thought, oh, I'm not sure I've ever spoken in one of these meetings before. Why would I do that? 

I hesitated for a minute and they moved on because they assumed that I didn't want to do it.

And then I thought, “wait a second. I didn't say no. Yes, I'll do it.”

That also sent me on a path- when there were times that someone asked me to do something or I thought maybe I could do something in a leadership role. 

I thought, “well, that sounds hard and I don't know how I do that”. Or “that's not for me.” I realized sometimes you just say yes and try something that you think maybe you're not going to be good at or maybe it's not for you. 

I'm not sure if I have examples of how I've done that specifically in librarianship.

Maybe... yeah, probably the last chapter.

But that was just sort of a period where I realized, let's just.... let’s challenge. 

I'm going to challenge myself. I feel I know what I'm doing.

I feel I've got enough experience behind me to try some news. stuff.

This was probably all about up to the COVID times. 

What was going on with the library and technology?

I'm trying to think of what I was actually supposed to be doing in the library at the time. Because faculty stuff took over. 

Maybe my identity as a librarian got a little shaky.

I think I'm ready for the next chapter.