Dr. Abigail Leigh Phillips

Category: doctoral life

  • How I’m Dealing With Burnout and My Progress So Far

    How I’m Dealing With Burnout and My Progress So Far

    I’m in the home stretch of my dissertation (and that is the lone sports reference you’ll find in this blog). Currently, I working on the final chapter of my dissertation and set to defend in early February. Of course I’m also juggling writing job applications for faculty and librarian positions and teaching undergrads. How am I coping so far, you ask? As well as I expected to be honest. After receiving some words of wisdom from a friend and current faculty member in Illinois, I focusing more on my dissertation and less on the job hunt. My dissertation is, after all, my number one task this school year. My undergraduates students have been surprisingly understanding when I gently explain to them that the grades for their assignments may a bit late because I am simply too overwhelmed by everything. One person can only handle so much. I know my limits. Well, now I do after lots of hits and misses along the way.

    However, despite this shift in focus, I am still suffering from burnout. I think that it is critical that we are all honest when we experience spells of burnout, depression, anxiety, panic, and frustration. I’m sure we all suffer from these feeling. Maybe in varying degrees but we all do. This blog has been one source of relief from burnout. Even sometimes when I don’t actually write a post, simply constructing a free-form written post in my mind is helpful and somehow relaxing. The other ways I’ve been coping with burnout are not really surprising (if you know me) running, yoga, weight lifting, pleasure reading, and therapy. Something I try to do each day is do one thing that brings me joy. It can be something as simple as going to a bookstore or getting a pedicure. But one thing that makes me happy and takes my mind off of my work and burnout. All this thinking and talking about burnout and stress has made me curious about how others manage (and how well). It’s not an easy thing to do. Avoidance is one path but that path eventually leads to something much darker such as a breakdown, quitting a job, or being fired from a job. Below, I’ve included a short list of some helpful sites about burnout, self-care, and such. Self-care is so important but often overlooked or seen as an indulgence. Making sure you are happy and physically and mentally healthy is not an indulgence.

    Helpful sites on burnout and such:

    LifeHacker’s Burnout and How to Deal With It

    Preventing Burnout: Signs, Symptoms, Causes, and Coping Strategies

    Job Burnout: How to Spot It and Take Action

    Refueling Your Engine: Strategies to Reduce Stress and Avoid Anxiety

    45 Simple Self-Care Practices for a Healthy, Mind, Body, and Soul

    The Internet Wants to Help You Take Care of Yourself

    What do you do when you suffer from burnout? Any helpful tips or suggestions?

  • Guest Posting for Letters to a Young Librarian!

    Guest Posting for Letters to a Young Librarian!

    On Thursday morning, my guest blog post, “Worrying About My PhD Life“, for Letters to a Young Librarian went live. I received so many wonderful comments from fellow librarians, library directors, and doctoral students through the LTAYL blog, Tumblr, Twittter, and Facebook. Just as surprising AL Direct, the weekly e-newsletter from American Libraries, picked up my post. I’ve has no idea so many people would be interested in my stresses about doctoral work and librarianship.

    Here’s what I said in my post! Please read more of the wonderful posts to Letters to a Young Librarian. LTAYL is managed by the fantastic Jessica Olin, who has been kind enough to allow me to guest post twice over the past two years.

    Worrying About My PhD Life

    “At the moment, I’m in the final months of working on my dissertation. This means writing and crying and writing (and if we’re being honest, whining sessions while drinking with fellow doctoral students). When I entered the PhD program, I had the lofty goal of becoming LIS faculty. Now, I’m uncertain. But why else would you get a PhD if not going tenure-tracked? Why don’t you want to work in academia? A not-to-be-named faculty member has asked me this question recently. Unfortunately, I’ve had a few eye-opening experiences while presenting and attending academic conferences. I’ve also had a few eye-opening experiences while living and breathing academia for the past three years. Articles like this one by Oliver Lee about leaving a self-proclaimed “best” tenure-track faculty job, or this one by Claire Shaw and Lucy Ward about the high rate of mental illness among academics, haven’t exactly encouraged me to seek out faculty positions for post-PhD life.

    Instead, I’m wondering how or even if I can go back to public libraries. While working on my PhD, I’ve applied to a few librarian positions without much luck. Maybe I talked about my research too much. Maybe my local library system is tired of doctoral students abandoning positions once they graduate. There are a lot of other possible maybes. I honestly don’t know. Before entering the doc program, I worked for six years in a small, rural public library system in Southwest Georgia. First as a library assistant while I worked my MLIS and then as a librarian. I miss you, public library work. I miss you so much. But how can I express this to public library directors? How can I convince you that although I’m probably overqualified and definitely overeducated I still want to work in a library? What do PhD holders offer public and academic libraries? How do we apply to librarian positions?

    Here’s where the “selling the PhD” part comes in. I think.

    First, we’re trained researchers. We can construct, plan, and carry out an entire project essentially by ourselves (this is also called a dissertation). Often this research involves interviewing people, statistics, community assessments, marketing, and management (aka handling participants and doctoral committees). While academic librarians are known to conduct research, research by librarians is undervalued in public libraries. This is disappointing, because public libraries NEED research. They need more researchers researching them (this is me), but public librarians also need to be conducting research themselves. A recent post on this blog highlights the importance of research for public libraries. Research can mean many different things within the context of public libraries. A few examples: A lot of the wonderful work EveryLibrary does is research-based. Carrying out community assessments is a type of research. Using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is research, which more libraries should know about and use.

    Second, we are AMAZING at project management. We did complete a dissertation. Our levels of amazingness may vary, but at the very least we successfully defended our dissertation, which means we convinced a small group of people we can manage a project and write about it.

    Third, we are trained instructors. We’ve taught and maybe even developed courses while working on our PhDs. Through teaching, we’ve learned the delicate balance of classroom management, lesson planning, evaluation, and incorporating technology into education.

    Fourth, we are skilled presenters and great at self-marketing. Okay. Maybe. Maybe not. However, we have presented our research, our passion for libraries, and ourselves during conferences, class sessions, informal meetings, professional networking and weird conversations in bars.

    Some final thoughts:

    Librarians with PhDs have so much to offer the practitioner world of librarianship. We just have to figure out how to promote our degree as an advantage not a disadvantage. It sounds weird to say that having a doctorate opens a lot of doors, because it closes almost as many. I wonder if there are other LIS PhDers like me out there. We have experience in the field, working as librarians, but then we veered towards academia, and then veered (or are in the process of veering) away. This is another situation when I honestly don’t know the answer. For the most part, everyone around me still seems to be striving for a tenure-track position at a Research I (R1) university. I would love to hear from those who aren’t going that direction or who aren’t sure if they are!”

  • Presenting Empathy at Annual

    Presenting Empathy at Annual

    I had a wonderful time presenting my Conversation Starter, “You Have My Empathy: What Does Empathy Look Like in the Library?” during Annual. I’m slowly becoming more confident at presenting. I spilt up my session into half overview in presentation form and half group work. I asked the audience these questions:

    • Should librarians be empathetic to patrons? Is this an additional role for us? Is it already a part of what we do?
    • What does empathy look like in the library? Some examples please! What are some of your concerns in being an empathetic librarian?
    • Describe a situation that might provoke a librarian’s empathy that could occur in a library. How would you respond? Is there a right and wrong way to respond?
    • Can empathy be taught? Could library staff be trained to be empathetic? Or are empathetic people naturally drawn to the profession? How are we taught to be empathetic in LIS? How could that teaching be improved?

    In a sneaky way, the audience served as my informal focus group. Through our discussion, I wanted to get some insider knowledge about what role librarians believe empathy plays in the work we do. The Starter format worked well at getting us all thinking and talking about the “invisible” service of empathy. I’m planning to submit a program proposal for the next Annual and expand on this topic. Maybe even answer some of the questions I asked, especially regarding empathy training for library staff.

    For me, this presentation helped reinforce my passion for researching empathy within the context of libraries. So often the dissertating process is a lonely experience. Sure you have a committee and advisors, but the dissertation work is all you. ALL ON YOU. No one knows the particular area you’re researching better or feels as intensely about your dissertation as you do. While dissertating, I’m sometimes overwhelmed by feelings of insecurity and doubt. But the wonderful feedback I received from the audience gave me a much needed boost!

    If you missed my presentation or missed Annual entirely (poor kid!), don’t worry! Below you will find my slides, presentation notes, and a handout for recommended readings about this topic. One day I will figure out how to embed PDFs and other docs in my posts so they looks lovely and techy. But not today. Technology defeats me again! Please let me know if you have any questions, comments, or just want to say “hello!”. You can always e-mail me at alp07@my.fsu.edu or tweet at me (@abigailleigh).

    Empathy in the Library powerpoint
    Empathy in the Library notes
    Recommended Readings handout

    What do you all think of my questions? Do you have a thought or two you would like to share? Am I leaving anything out?

  • What if academia isn’t a good fit?

    What if academia isn’t a good fit?

    This question has been on my mind for the past few months, even more so after attending an academic conference in January. As a first semester doc student I would have been confused at my internal debate over this question. When I began the PhD program, my thinking sounded something like this: “Of course academia is a good fit. It’s the ONLY fit and the ONLY reason to get a PhD is to become a tenure-track faculty member.” Still, I kept coming back to this question until two months ago when I realized that I don’t want to go tenured-track. Once I made this decision, I felt an immense sense of relief and, surprisingly, more confident and determined. I don’t HAVE to go down that path. And getting one of these positions appears to be more and more challenging.

    I’ve spent a good chunk of this past year watching friends who are finishing up their dissertations apply for faculty positions. Just the thought of putting myself through that makes me queasy. How much rejection can I deal with while also managing the stress of dissertating? How many cover letters can I write, applications can I complete, jobs can I seek while still giving my dissertation the attention it needs? I’m also researching a sensitive issue (cyberbullying) with minors (teens), which I know will be emotionally, physically, and mentally challenging for me (expect a blog post about conducting sensitive research in the near future). Too much to deal with over the course of one year.

    There’s also this cult of busyness that seems so pervasive in academia that frustrates me. This feelings of “I must be busy or I’m not a worthwhile person” is shared in other professions, but it seems endemic among academics. And it’s happening to me. I’ve begun to notice that I feel guilty when I’m not working and that I worry about my work almost non-stop thorough the day (and night). Of course, I also need to inform people of how busy and stressed I am via social media. None of this is healthy and not how I want to live my life. Not matter how much I love my work (very much!), there still must be a balance between my work and personal lives. I’m a person outside of my work but sometimes I forget.

    Well, what do I want to do? I get asked this question frequently now that I’m dissertating (ABD!). I still want to do research. I love it, and I think I’m good at it. But I want to be more involved with libraries and serving young adults. Much more than is possible in the “theoretical librarian” role I’m playing now. Advocacy and outreach have always appealed to me, or maybe some type of administrative position. If I decide to return to library work, there’s the possibility of my developing research partnerships with LIS schools. There’s so many directions for me career-wise right now. It’s exciting and scary! I’m figuring out another direction for myself instead of focusing so intensely on faculty jobs. The one direction that is encouraged in LIS doctoral programs. It’s too much pressure.  Not every PhD is meant for academia. Thankfully, I’m no longer limiting myself to faculty work.

    I also realize that, six months or so from now, I may decide that I do want a faculty position. There are a few schools who have amazing researchers where I believe my work and interests could be supported. Maybe a position will open up at one one of these schools, and maybe I’ll apply. We’ll see! But right now I have a solid plan of where I want to live, what jobs would be a good fit, and how to make this plan happen. I’ve only sure this plan with my family and a few close friends. Keep this plan private feels necessary right now for some reason.