Dr. Abigail Leigh Phillips

Tag: conferences

  • 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!”

  • 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.

  • I learned even more things this year

    About a year ago I wrote a post reflecting on my experiences as a first-year doctoral student. I’m keeping the tradition alive by posting about my second-year in the doc program! I’ve grown significantly, both professionally and personally. Maybe even more in my personal life. But I’ll stick to the professional ups and downs in this post (since this is an academically minded blog and all).

    This past fall semester marked my first appearance TAing in a face-to-face course, an undergraduate core class called Information Science. One major duty I had a TA involved leading a twice weekly break-out session. I’ve written about my struggles presenting and introversion tendencies in earlier blog posts, so these sessions weren’t easy. Public speaking doesn’t come naturally or calmly to me. But being pushed into teaching on a weekly basis has been incredibly helpful and terrifying. At the end of fall semester, I wrote a post about what I learned from my undergraduates. I’m always learning from my students. For example, last semester I found out that there is a popular song about selfies. Who knew?! Undergrads (and normal people who listen to the radio). This semester, through student blog posts, I read about boxing, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and Ramen recipes. Stuff I’ve never had much of an interest in investigating. While teaching, I’ve discovered that each semester can be very different, especially with student engagement. This summer I’ve experienced a disconnect with my students that I haven’t in the past. Maybe it’s because of the shortened summer semester, my own work load, or just sheer exhaustion. I’m not sure how to overcome this feeling of disconnect.

    Learning is Fun!
    Odd Learning Related Image.

    Over the past year, I’ve become a published author. In May, the Journal of Research on Libraries and Young Adults (JRLYA) published my first article, More Than Just Books: Librarians as a Source of Support for Cyberbullied Young Adults. I have three more articles that will be published within the year. Two as the sole author and one that’s a collaboration with one of my advisors, Dr. Lorraine Mon.I’ve learned just how time-consuming, frustrating, confusing, and spirit crushing the publication process can be. To add even more confusion, there’s publishing agreements to consider. Since the legal language and I aren’t very friendly, I reached out to the FSU’s Office of Scholarly Communication for contract hand holding. A very, very good idea. As harsh as it is to get back peer reviews, I’m still proud of the work I’ve produced; and I don’t want to sign away everything just to get my article published. The contracts I’ve received so far, except for JRLYA, want to take everything. After recently dealing with my third contract, I’m slightly more comfortable asking questions about what I’m signing and what I can argue for. Slightly.

    I’m still learning to deal with rejection. Over the past year, I’ve had several rejections for conference submissions. I always take it personally, which I know I shouldn’t do but can’t seem to resist. Like many academics, I struggle with the impostor syndrome, that feeling of never being good enough or smarter enough. These self-defeating thoughts aren’t rational, but they are very powerful. Kate Bahn wrote an excellent article for Vitae about women, academia, and the impostor syndrome. It’s not just rejection and criticism that’s hard to accept, it’s accepting and internalizing praise too. Something to work on over the next year.

    For the next year, I’m expecting to make some serious progress in my doctoral program. I’m taking my preliminary exam in September and (please please) defending my prospectus in late fall/early spring. Also, throw in a couple of conferences, potential publications, and a research assistantship and there you have my oh-so-easy third year.

    What have you all learned this year? Any suggestions/comments/tips for me?