Dr. Abigail Leigh Phillips

Category: Uncategorized

What to Expect When You Expect Too Much

I try not to assume that the world is talking about me, let alone whatever room I walk into. But I do. More recently. I don’t know if this is a product of my (multiple) mental illnesses, a new mental illness, or a normal human conundrum. People, in my mind, never say kind and uplifting things about me. Hell, even mind numbingly boring. It is always negative or critical. This is my internal debate. And I don’t know why I care so much or why it hurts me to my core.

It seems arrogant. Why would you be the focus of attention? “Why do you, of everyone else, matter?” I mutter silently to myself. “People have their own lives, at best, or are self absorbed, at worst.”

But I work in an industry, being academia, that seems to thrive on appearances. Publications numbers and citation counts are regularly asked during annual evaluations and certainly the tenure track process. Colleagues appear to almost supernaturally known what to say during committee meetings where I stumble at best. One colleague is asked to be the speaking head on a local news channel, because they are an expert in some obscure field that relates to a hot-this-moment story. Representation of your university, school, and college is critical. You are your institution.

Logically, I know that I’ve push myself to some sort of limit work-wise. I have cut back on outside work – i.e. the work that isn’t academic or the work that won’t get me tenure. Recently, I’ve dedicated myself to focusing on the work stylings I knew as a PhD student. None of which were healthy. Much of which helped me end up in ER for suicidal ideation, depression, and panic disorder two weeks before my dissertation defense.

Despite all this, I continue to strive for some sort of ‘laudable’ goal. It may not be achievable. It’s enviable to many (I’ve heard), but I’ve seen so many suffer so much as a result of the hunt for this prize.

I started writing this brief post, because I felt inexplicably that the world was criticizing me. By that I mean academically, appearance-wise, my every day humanness, my writing, and/or whatever it means to be me. I know (or partially know) that this feeling may come from my non-stop and relentless criticism of myself. I do not entirely know. But it has lead me to more complex thoughts. Particularly regarding academia and my fledgling lifeline in it. But what else am I good at? I’ve spent over a decade in this bubble of higher education. I know the joys and the sorrows of a life lived within it (if I can steal a phrase from somewhere). I don’t want to give it up. I just want to survive it.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/30/opinion/dark-academia-halloween.html

2023-02-03
Guest Blogging: Connecting Research to Practice and Practice to Research: A Brief (Fun!) Introduction, by Abigail Phillips

Recently, I’ve been having fun writing for practitioner-focused blogs about topics. It always a challenge to learn to move from academic-speak to librarian-speak and back and forth. Here’s my guest post for Letters to a Young Librarian. You can find the original post here.

Back when I was in library school, I had few expectations concerning what I would learn or how it would apply to my previous experience work in libraries. (I didn’t plan on beginning this post the way it happened, but here we are.) I started my MLIS program in what was then the School of Library and Information Studies at Florida State University with the goal of becoming a librarian, learning whatever I needed to learn to become that librarian. I wish I could say that I had an interest in LIS scholarship beyond what an instructor required me to read as part of a course. But I didn’t. That’s why I think it’s a bit funny that I ended up with a PhD in Information Studies.

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2018-02-02
What to do with the, “What I didn’t learn in library school…” conversation.

Sometimes it’s just meant as a helpful conversation starter. “I didn’t learn this in library school, but now I know….”. Sometimes it’s a statement of fact. “I didn’t learn this in library school.”. Yet often it seems as a criticism of the LIS education experience. It’s a complicated discussion among librarians, expressing both disappointment and frustration with the ways in which MLIS programs educate future librarians. I’ve witnessed and participated in these discussions via social media, discussion boards, and listservs over the past few years since I left librarianship (oddly enough, not when I worked as a librarian).

There are so many crucial things you don’t learn in library school that become part of your day-to-day life as a librarian. Some days you have to serve as replacement janitors. Other times you are dealing with a local political figure who is hell bent on cutting your budget and staff. Maybe you need to find businesses to sponsor your library’s Summer Reading Program or run into rude and critical patrons. Who learned about that in library school? Why did I spend time reading about information science theory, information architecture, and information ethics if I couldn’t even manage patron relationships or create a storytime?

As a young librarian, with a brand new, framed (by my parents) MLIS diploma (and student debt), I found myself becoming confused and overwhelmed by how much I didn’t know about librarianship or library work. Despite having spent the majority of my life either patronizing, volunteering, or working in public libraries, I felt completely lost. Politics is a thing? Community assessment? Outreach and marketing? While programs vary, there is a lot that left out of the library school experience. But is it a LIS graduate program’s responsibility to teach the nitty gritty of librarianship?

Librarianship Class c. 1949

To me, no. An LIS program should (ideally) lay the theoretical and philosophical groundwork of librarianship and the provision of library services. These programs provide us with a better understanding of not only what our field encompasses; but also the history of our profession and its framing (You know, Ranganathan, Buckland, John Budd, Marcia Bates, Kuhlthau). The models and theories created by these information scientists inform how we conduct an reference interview, deconstruct information needs, assess an information request, and even view the profession.

Another question is what should MLIS programs teach? Obviously, there’s no such thing as the perfect program, the perfect course schedule, or the perfect faculty. More practical versus more philosophical versus somewhere in-between. So much of the practical, day-to-day library responsibilities and tasks you learn on the job through mentorship, experience, or sometimes just plain failure.

Within the library community there is also the recurring argument about whether a master’s degree is necessary or if an ALA-accredited MLIS really matters. Recently, I’ve considered applying to be an external review panelist just to learn more about the accreditation process. There is obviously a lot of work to be done to regarding LIS education to make coursework more relevant to contemporary issues and questions.

Librarians Wanted!

I know there are so many library workers who disagree with me. And I understand their arguments. Grad school is expensive; both financially and time-wise. Especially if you’re doing it as a distance without the possibility for graduate assistantships to help with tuition and expenses. Or if you’re already working full-time and looking for a new career path. Taking courses one at a time, at night. None of this is easy.

There are other barriers that exist for some of those interested in pursuing an MLIS. There’s a serious lack of diversity in librarianship. This is an overwhelming problem that must be addressed. Also working in libraries often times doesn’t pay well. Depending on where you live, what type of library work you do (academia, school, public), the changing nature of state and local budgets, etc., you may struggle just to pay for daily necessities. The clichéd statement that you don’t go into the libraries for the money is kinda true but also kinda terrible to tell MLIS students and young librarians (actually any library worker).

I’m not the only voice in this discussion (I kinda pointed that out at the beginning). What am I missing or overlooking? What other questions, opinions, or insights should I be thinking about?

Here are a few other interesting posts on the topic:

I Need a Library Job: “Why do you need a master’s degree to be a librarian?” Crowdsourcing an Answer for an Irritating Question

Locked in the Library: Why Does a Librarian Need a Masters Degree?

Bookriot: On the MLIS: Why I’m Getting the Library Degree

Thank you for reading!

2017-09-21
Guest Blog Post: Youth Activism Through Community Engagement—YALSA’s Presidential Task Force

I thought I should share this article I drafted up as a member the YALSA’s Presidential Task Force. Please let me know if you want to chat more or have any questions or concerns.

After the horrors of Charlottesville unfolded, we saw powerful and moving responses via social media, petitions, and public demonstrations. Recently, YALSA President Sandra Hughes-Hassell wrote a blog post about what library staff can do to help. The 2017-2018 YALSA Presidential Year theme of Youth Activism through Community Engagement is an appropriate call to action for library staff to support teens in developing the necessary skills and confidence to engage in their communities.

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2017-09-07