Dr. Abigail Leigh Phillips

Category: fears

  • 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?

  • The Mindful Presenter

    The Mindful Presenter

    For as long as I can remember, I’ve had an almost paralyzing fear of speaking in public. Despite the fact that I sung, acted, and improvised on stage while growing up, the idea of presenting my own thoughts and opinions to an audience terrified me. Then, once I became a librarian, that changed. Maybe because I played the role of a “librarian” to an audience instead of “Abby”, but whatever the reason, public speaking didn’t scare me. I loved doing television spots for the library, presenting in front of any age group, promoting the library during public events, and presenting one-on-one with patrons and staff. This confidence vanished when I left the library and became a doctoral student.

    I don’t exactly know why, but I have some ideas. There is something incredibility personal about what you chose to research, especially once you reach the dissertation stage. At least this is the case for me. I’m passionate about what I research. My dissertation consumes most of my waking thoughts, so the idea of someone criticizing my research and calling me out fills me with fear. I also worry that the audience will “see thorough me” in some way and realize that I’m a fake, a terrible researcher, writer, and generally bad person. The Imposter Syndrome is strongly at play here. I’ve written about my struggles with it before. I know logically that these feelings and thoughts aren’t true. But emotionally I don’t. I definitely don’t. This is where mindfulness helps.

    I’ve practiced mindfulness meditation for years following the suggestion of a childhood friend and now practicing therapist. (Well, attempting to practice for the most part. It’s hard.) But I never connected the usefulness of mindfulness to public speaking. Several months ago, one of my committee members recommended the book, Public Speaking for Psychologists: A Lighthearted Guide to Research Presentations, Job Talks, and Other Opportunities to Embarrass Yourself by Paul S. Silvia. Geared towards psychologists but helpful to anyone in the academic world, I love this book.

    Along with many other helpful reflections, the author discusses the use of meditation for reducing public speaking anxiety. He offers up a body-scan approach for use before presentations. Occasionally in yoga, I’m lucky enough to have an instructor who will end the class with a guided body-scan meditation. It’s amazingly relaxing and particularly helpful for those (like me) who have trouble shutting off their mind. I never would have thought about using this type of meditation to combat public speaking anxiety, but it has helped me more than I can express. According to Jon Kabat-Zinn, apparently a fancy name in meditation,

    When we practice the body scan, we are systematically and intentionally moving our attention thought the body, attending to the various sensations in the different regions. That we can attend to these body sensations at all is quite remarkable. That we can do it at will, either impulsively or in a more disciplined systematic way, is even more so. Without moving a muscle, we can put our mind anywhere in the body we choose and feel and be aware of whatever sensations are present in that moment.

    Basically, you slowly scan your body step-by-step, beginning with your head and working down. You pay attention to areas that feel tense or uncomfortable and become aware of what you’re feeling where and why. This slow progression helps keep the mind focused on the meditation and not distracted by everything else in the world (my normal problem with meditation). Better descriptions and free video/audio guided meditations can be found all over the internet. Like here, here, and here. Body-scan meditation is also really helpful for insomnia (Been there too.).

    I have a major presentation coming up on March 16. My prospectus defense! At least a week before, I’ll begin a daily body-scan meditation session. Then, the morning of my presentation I’ll have one more. I realize that for many people mediation can seem wishy-washy and completely useless. I’ve been that person. But for me, this helps. And that’s something.

    Helpful reads!

    • My current read: Dan Harmon of Nightline and Good Morning America fame recently published a book called 10% Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in my Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Actually Works — A True Story. He had a severe panic attack in front of a national audience and now uses mindfulness to deal with stress. I’ve had one major panic attack in front of a much much smaller audience. Worst experience EVER, but I lived.
    • The wonderful Sarabryce, a fellow librarian, recently wrote about her struggles with shyness and public speaking on her blog, Bryce Don’t Play.
    • Thich Nhat Hanh is probably the most well-known voice on mindfulness. He’s written several books including The Miracle of Mindfulness. Such a wonderful read! I go back to his books again and again.