01: Becoming a liaison

Listen to Episode 01: Becoming a liaison

Release date: October 23, 2024. Length: 84:19 minutes.

In which we talk with Maria Atilano and Eriberto Ramirez about becoming a liaison librarian in an unfamiliar subject area. They share experiences with and strategies for managing the sometimes uncomfortable process of growing into a liaison role.

Listen to Episode 01 in the UMN Digital Conservancy.

Read the Episode 01 transcript.

Show Notes

Guest Bios

Our Current Awareness Highlights

Eiquihua, E., Adjei, K., Lyons, J., & Welsh, M. (2024). Not business as usual: Incorporating LIS student perspectives in the apprenticeship hiring process. In the Library with the Lead Pipe. https://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2024/not-business-as-usual/

Rod, A., Hervieux, S., & Lee, N. (2024). Evaluating an instructional intervention for research data management training. Evidence Based Library and Information Practice, 19(1), Article 1. https://doi.org/10.18438/eblip30439

Transcript

[intro music begins (instrumental, laid back rhythmic strings, drums, and piano)]

STEPHANIE: Hello and welcome to Library to Table Talk. I'm Stephanie Sparrow, one of your hosts.

HANNAH: And I’m Hannah Cabullo, your other host. In Library Table Talk, we’re two librarians exploring what academic librarianship looks like in the day-to-day – across different types of institutions and roles. We invite other librarians for friendly and more informal conversations about the practicalities, responsibilities, challenges, joys, and realities of academic librarianship as a job and as a career. 

STEPHANIE: Nothing is off the table. We're happy to have you here.

[intro music fades out]

HANNAH: As we got started with actually developing episodes, we just got so excited about all the amazing librarians we could talk to. And this episode about being a liaison librarian to new subject areas is one where we did not one, but two in-depth interviews. So, I am so excited to share that our guests for this episode are Maria Atilano and Eddie Ramirez.

STEPHANIE: We enjoyed talking with both of them so much that our idea of how long each episode would be kindof went out the window. SO We hope you enjoy our conversations with them as reassuring and thought-provoking as we did. Let's get into it.

HANNAH: Can you introduce yourself however you'd like to?

MARIA: Sure! My name is Maria Antioano. I am the Student Engagement Librarian at the Thomas G. Carpenter Library at the University of North Florida. We're located in Jacksonville, which is in Northeast Florida, so right before the Georgia border. And I've been in this position for just over 11 years. And at my current institution for almost 18. So, It's been a while.

STEPHANIE: So for this episode, we're talking about being a new liaison librarian, especially when working with disciplines that maybe you haven't worked with before. So can you please tell us about the liaison roles you have held and your prior experiences and or education in those disciplines?

MARIA: Sure. So when I first started as a faculty librarian, we had a one person library liaison model. So all of the faculty librarians and we're non-tenure track, but liaison roles were built into all of our job descriptions, but each librarian had to be a liaison to one department. As far as I know, back then, maybe there were people doubling up because of vacancies.

But I knew that when I started I would be a liaison and my *hope* was that I would be liaison to the English department because that's both my bachelor's and my first master's background. So I've got two English degrees! I actually got my master's in English from UNF when I was still a staff member. So I knew the faculty, I knew the department very, very well, and that was just sort of my hope and dream. And it happened! Yay. Turns out the previous English liaison was retiring and he had been the only sole liaison for as long as the liaison project existed for our library. So I was able to shadow him, teach a few classes, go to a department meeting and sort of just learn the ropes from how he had previously done it.

I would say maybe a couple years after I got that position and became a liaison in English, we decided to do a co-liaison model, move from the single to the co and then most of us would have two, three, maybe four different departments. So we were sort of given a, uh, say in which departments we would prefer, but we were told by our previous, than current, faculty outreach library and that not everybody would get their first choices. I was just sort of, I'm open to anything.

And I ended up landing on keeping English, which is very exciting, but I also got our sociology, anthropology, and social work department. I call it ESWA, whatever, probably not really called that, but it's that the three areas all together in one department and Communication, Which I have *no* background in.

I took an intro to SOC class when I was undergrad and I took a communication 101 class when I was undergrad as well. So it was just sort of 'Sure, why not?' And then a couple of years ago our Music liaison left UNF and then I got added to Music. So until very recently, I had four departments. Only one of which I had any sort of expertise in -- and that was pretty much how most colleagues were. We were just sort of thrown in and just ‘figure it out’. Uh, do as best as you can.

And the co-liaison model has changed a little bit. We have a new faculty outreach person and she's sort of *fine tuned* the process where we don't have one person whose public services and one person who's technical services. It could be anybody. And anybody can teach the classes, but really the preference is given to the public services librarians. So it's been an interesting change the last year, especially. But now I'm down to three departments. Still have English, thank goodness. Communication and then sociology, anthropology, social work. And that's it for right now.

STEPHANIE: Um, I'm curious, so with English, it's a discipline you love. You have lots of experience and you have degrees – multiple in. How did you feel, comparatively, navigating being a new liaison to the English departments like, still with that relational dynamic of former student/current collaborator, but then compared to the unfamiliar disciplines or the new disciplines, were there any challenges that were either like highlighted in the English department or in the others? Was there a clear divide there between your comfort levels?

MARIA: That's a great question. Honestly, no. Because I felt like I was faking it all three, even though I had experience with English. And if I was teaching a class on YA literature, I could go, oh yeah, I know this topic. I took classes on this. I wrote a paper on such and such, but I still had to do the communicating with the professor one-on-one. I still had to do the creating an outline for all my classes. I still had to do all the research consultations with the students who needed more help, even if I knew what I was doing with English as a topic, it was still the exact same steps and the same process that I had for social work, which I have no experience with whatsoever.

MARIA: It also came down to the departments that needed more. So English actually, 10 years after the fact, is my, uh, least needy department (laugh). I get more from sociology, more from communication as far as the they're reaching out, they have questions, they need help than I do English. So it's been the-- I quickly learned to handle the department even though I had

no information to go from for my personal experience *because* they were so hands-on and me fielding questions.

Social work just recently went through a reaccreditation, so they needed a library report.  With multiple pages of questions about the library has this many resources specifically about social work. And so going through and coming up with numbers and emailing my colleagues saying, hey, can you provide the information about interlibrary loan and how many requests we've got from social work faculty?

That kind of stuff really sort of opens your mind to not only what do they need, but what you can provide. So even if you take out the whole, I've never had one class on social work, but I've taught enough classes, and I've communicated with the faculty enough, and I wrote that report for them that suddenly it's like, oh yeah, I feel as if I know what I'm talking about when I  reach out or if they reach out to me and have questions. Honestly, it just took time and me faking it until  I felt like I was making it, (laughs) I guess.

HANNAH: When we reached out to forums for this episode, we got lots of responses back, including yours. And so we're hearing a lot of similar, I don't know, feelings of being overwhelmed by unfamiliar subject areas, navigating a new role, new subject areas. You know, having a growing list of things to learn. What were some of the helpful things for you in kind of facing the unknown or things that might have been overwhelming When you started working with new departments. you've already mentioned some about existing skills or processes that you could use kind of. What were some of the things that helped you manage taking on these new and unfamiliar, at least in subject area disciplines?

MARIA: the number one thing for me was to find the interest point. Even though I'm open and available to research consultations or to teach for any class if any of my colleagues are out sick or something, for the what can I actually find interesting about this so that when I'm teaching or if I'm helping, if I'm researching for an hour with a student. what am I going to find about this topic or this subject that's going to make me go, Ooh, I'd like to know more.

 That's my number one advice that I give to students when they're going, 'I'm in this class, I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know what my research topic should be. I kind of like this, but I also kind of like that.' Find something that's going to make you spend all these hours, And all this time researching and then writing about it. So you don't want to pick something that makes you go, 'I don't care because you want to care.' You want that A. You care about the A find something that's going to make you care about the topic.

So for example, Communication. Even though I just took the one intro class, I do marketing and I run our social media account. So whenever I teach a class or whenever I meet with a professor or a student it's always trying to pull back on the what I find interesting about communication. I might have forgotten all about the communication theories and stuff that I learned about, but I know, oh yeah, so TikTok and all this, you know, the Gen Z versus the millennials on social media. This is the stuff that *I* find interesting. So if I can use that as my research keyword examples when I'm teaching a class or if I'm talking to a professor and I ask, what's your book on? I can go, oh, I know what you're talking about because I read an article X, Y, and Z.

So finding that interest point has been a godsend, honestly. When you first look at it, you go, “I don't know anything about this. I didn't take a class on this, but at least it's interesting.” So I'm going to put my whole body and soul into finding your answers or getting the resources, the services that you need from the library.

HANNAH: I think that's a great connection to make explicitly because that's something I've definitely talked with students about of “make sure you're interested in what you're researching because you're going to be spending a lot of time with it.” So like figuring out how what you are already interested in *personally* connects with the subject area or the class that you're going into, I think is a kind of a great explicit connection to make in your mind of like, how can I motivate myself to be interested and engaging because teachers who are engaged in what they're talking about are always more interesting to listen to.

MARIA: Exactly. And it's all about practicing what you preach, right?

HANNAH: Do you feel more confident now than when you started going into an anthropology or social work class? And how do you feel like that came about?

MARIA: Oh, yeah. I do definitely feel a lot more confident now, but I don't think it was anything that I planned for. Thankfully, it happened just over time. And I don't know if it was osmosis or me just sort of putting my nose to the grindstone and figuring stuff out. But I definitely do feel more confident in these subjects.

HANNAH: I think that's some great encouragement to hear. I'm the engineering liaison, and I have no educational background in engineering. So I've been like trying to find how my life connects with engineering. And make those connections, as you've said, and, you know, just feeling confident that, you know, if I keep working at it, I will certainly feel more confident than I do at this point with the subject area. 

MARIA: So all it takes is time. And I'm sure, so I've never been a STEM liaison, thank goodness.

But I have had research consultations with our engineering students and even a couple of faculty that were working on like promotion and they needed metrics and impact factors. And it's interesting because it's completely different. I'm mostly social sciences and humanities.

 So hearing the way that they talk about their discipline is fascinating. 

If nothing else, I knew if you know something happened and I ended up being our College of Engineering and what was it computer science, the math and all the, you know, the whatever– If I ended up being their liaison, I could fake that I think, but I don't know if I would want to stick with it. It's hard some of these subjects from my background would be very different than what I'm currently doing. It's interesting at least.

STEPHANIE: I-I totally feel this whole sense of, um, 'Fake it till you make it.' You know, you just kind of got to do the things. (Laughs) And using your curiosity to make those connections I think is really valuable and especially for some of us out there who also do not have any experience in, um, specific disciplines.

I was curious though, so how did you or did you find yourself, carving out a place for yourself, in the disciplines like participation in organizations that are based around subject, or even around like conferences or committees, and organizations around outreach and communications and marketing for library services. How did you end up making those decisions to really make something for you within your liaison roles and areas?

MARIA: Yeah, so a few different things as far as getting involved with the discipline. I've been a member of the LES [Literatures in English] – the English section for ALA for a while now, so I'm on the listserv. I get the connect emails, went to one meetup ALA 2016 in Orlando, just sort of to get my, you know, my feeling for it. I was also part of the sociology discussion group for a while, but I don't think it's active anymore. But honestly, most of the -- most of the, I would say the affiliation work that I do, has been related to communication, strangely, even though, again, I took that one class in undergrad, but I do communications for the library and I do marketing.

So I am currently president of the library Marketing and Communication Conference group board. So any sort of information about trends in communication or specifically library marketing I know of. So I know when professors are talking about new platforms or new ways to reach, especially like students that new Gen Z generation. So I feel like I know more about that as opposed to my academic background being mostly English. They use MLA, and the different citation changes and stuff abreast of that It's only because of me being the English liaison from Paris.

MARIA: But as far as other ways that I've become involved in the discipline, I never really felt a need to go above and beyond in that way. And it's maybe it's because I have three departments. I feel like if I only had one department and I could really put energy into getting more involved and getting on lists and listservs and newsletters and three [departments], there's just no way. So I sort of just pick and choose and then I put more of my work into getting to know the professors and their classes and then the students that come to either my classes that they do the one shots with me, or if they schedule research consultations. Because it's more about the impact that I'm having individually, very small groups and the professors themselves, because that's really what they're looking for is that individual need.

If there's something going on in the discipline, they'll let me know. If there's the change in gen ed that we had here in Florida and the whole threat to sociology being part of the jet, I knew about that not because I was on some listserv or something, but because I had faculty emailing me going, "look, I'm not teaching that class anymore because I can't. Because Florida," but I knew about it because of my friendships slash working relationships with faculty here on campus as opposed to anything I'm doing off the grid, as it were.

STEPHANIE: I think that's helpful to hear from another librarian who liaises with multiple departments is you can't necessarily devote the same amount of time and energy to everyone of like, you've got to pick and choose because, you know, I'm only one person serving eight or nine departments and....Yeah, just picking and choosing like where we're going to devote our time and energy to.

I'm really curious. Sorry, Hannah, this isn't something that we had written down but one thing that I've been really keeping up with lately is how statewide bans have impacted academic librarians in the role. So especially as liaison to sociology, you've mentioned that you're experiencing this, but also I know you do a lot of outreach events around drag events. And so could you speak a little bit, if you feel comfortable about how that has impacted your role in how you experienced it and what you are or are not able to do and how you navigate that?

MARIA: Yeah, it's…It's been an interesting few years here in Florida. Specifically with my job, so I do student outreach, I plan our events. We have had drag queen story time events in the library pre-COVID. We did those events and other events as well in the library in coordination with our LGBTQ center on campus. And we've also had partnerships with other centers like Interfaith and the Women's Center. Those have all shut down. So as of, I think it was May this year, they are no longer funded. So if you can't fund them, which means you can't pay staff.

They shut down the LGBTQ center, the women's center, the Interfaith Center, and a couple other things on campus. So we no longer have those partnerships or that support. So the main thing being that if you can't use state funds to pay for DEI, which is very broad initiatives, that impacts not only the events that I can do or the displays I want to put up because you know, we were told to be told careful from legal counsel because -- it's not saying that you can't do these things, but we can't pay for it.

And then I was told that just to be on the safe side, try not to plan or promote events that would even touch upon DEI so it's been a little scary, but trying to you know keep my job and for me to keep getting paid, that just means that I've had to back away from certain events or certain promotions, even if it's just putting something on social media.

In the past, I would do a display in front. For in June, for Pride Month, I just decided not to do that because I didn't want to invite maybe some of the questions. And that doesn't mean that we did the opposite of that. We just quietly did not do that this year. As far as how that's impacted my liaison work. I know that there's a couple classes I've taught in the past that are not going to be offered again. One of them was one of my favorite classes it was um sexualities um I think it was sociology and sexualities or the sociology of sexuality, something like that. But there was a professor who that was her work you know she wrote her dissertation and all of her research is on that area. And so she taught a class and I used to do a one shot for them, showing them how to use the sociological databases that we've got, how to use our OneSearch research consultations.

MARIA: And again, to be on the safe side, UNF has not been offering those types of classes for the last year or so. So I wish I would have known the last time I would have taught that one shot class because it was always really interesting. The students always had fascinating research questions and topics and whenever they booked me for a research consultation it'd be like "Let's go! I have so many ideas. This is great, here's Social Index. Ooh, let's play!" But don't get that anymore so it's it's it's hard to know that it has happened, but really it's the loss of it and the fact that we're all sad that it's gone away and it hit mostly the humanities and the social sciences, but I know education was also impacted. Our education college, because there were a couple classes specifically about DEI and how to teach it, teaching people how to teach those sorts of areas you're just sort of not doing that anymore. So, it's the lack of it, and knowing that it *used* to be there. To know that we used to have 10 classes across curriculum that were related to DEI that we're just not going to mention anymore. And we've got professors on campus who, that was their their background, their specialty their, you know, life's work and we're no longer allowed to encourage that.

 It's been sad. I wish we could do another drag story time event in my library. We talked about it after we got back from COVID, but we kind of saw the writing on the wall. We knew that the LGBTQ Center was going to be shut down. All the staff had left pretty quickly even before that happened so at the moment, no.  But things change and, you know, it's an election year and maybe Florida can look forward to something like that in the future.

STEPHANIE: Thank you for speaking to that. I know it wasn't something that we initially said we were going to speak about, but it just kind of came up and I was like, ah, must ask.

MARIA: Yeah, it's a downer. But it's important to talk about it though because If you don't, again, it's just going to go away. And we've got students now who are starting who don't know what UNF used to be like before all this legislation.

And it's impacting not only the classes we teach, but also the faculty. There's been a lot of anti-union laws that have passed. And I know the SUS, the State University System in Florida has been struggling really hard. Because we have faculty leaving. And if we don't have those faculty here to support change in curriculum then you know what's going to happen to Florida higher ed in the future? I don't know. We have the attack on academic freedom, specifically what we can teach and what we can share it's just...I can't do my silly little pride flag made out of bound journals for my June display, but I did two years and I know it's gorgeous and I love it. I miss it. But I couldn't, I didn't feel comfortable doing that. So it's more about the chilling effect in state universities specifically, but I'm sure, you know, colleges here are feeling the same sort of pressure to just don't poke the bear. And so a lot of what we're doing is just sort of like, you know, we used to do it, but maybe not now. Let's just keep our head down and it'll go away eventually. But I've kept every single note and everything that I've done from previous events or displays that I used to do that I didn't feel comfortable, or feel like I can do with any sort of sport, specifically financial support, this year. But it doesn't mean I couldn't pull out my banned book display plans for future years if I'm allowed to do that.

STEPHANIE: So as new liaisons, Hannah and I both started almost a year ago with departments we have no experience in. And so we were like, let's start with new liaison. Because we feel this one hard. And so, as I said, we're like just about to reach one year in our current roles as liaisons. We have no prior experience. As Hannah mentioned, she's an engineering librarian and I work with agriculture and some social sciences and some interdisciplinary units and Minnesota Extension, which is kind of like a mixture of lots of things as well.

STEPHANIE: And so this past year has been interesting, full of learning, at times challenging. Thinking back to the disciplines that were new to you, trying to get into, like, that mindset of like your first liaison role, perhaps. And do you have any anecdotes about the early days of working with either a discipline you're familiar with, to some degree communications or English, as opposed to social work?

MARIA: Oh, I have so many. Let me kind of try to pick a couple. The first one that comes to mind is, so when I became liaison to English, I was really sort of co-liaison because, as I mentioned my colleague who was English liaison he was retiring. So, he invited me to join him

for a presentation during the English department faculty meeting. So back then it was all sort of, like chummy. Again, he had gone through the program years ago. He got his bachelor's from UNF in the English department. And so he knew everybody and I knew people. I was literally like in a class with them like you know a few years ago, some of them were previous professors, or I just knew them from working in the library for so long.

So I thought we would just go and sit for the whole meeting because he had sent me a calendar invite and it was blocked for a couple hours. But he said, 'no, actually, they're just going to give us time in the middle. So I'll come get you. We'll have some bookmarks that we can hand out with information that he made with like contact information for the English department. And we'll do a little song and dance. I'll talk. Feel free to jump in if you have any thing. And yeah, and then we'll just do our spiel and then we'll leave."

It was very awkward. I don't know if either of you have had a chance to go to a department meeting with faculty. Each department's different. Some of them are just sort of like, you know, sitting around very lackadaisical kind of like, "hey, you know, so how are your kids? You know, how's the cat" kind of thing but we were waiting outside and we could hear them talking. And the chair of the English department, was one of my least favorites but he was only chair for a few years before he retired. But I remember I took a poetry class with him one year and he was a very, very hard grader and he had his romance poets and if you tried to say, "well, actually, I think...." he would say "no that's not right No," you get a B, whatever. It was very, very hard.

So he was sitting at the front at the lectern, basically leading the meeting. And I could hear him talking to everybody and every now and then I could hear another voice pipe in,but it sounded like he was giving a class. So we were standing outside for about 10 minutes or so before another professor opened up the door and said, "hey, you guys can come in." The chair of the department did not leave the lectern. He's still sat there and my colleague and I also stood near the front and we had our little bookmarks and I passed them around while Jim, Jim is my colleague, he was talking about, "oh, the library, here's what we've got going on. And I'm going to step down as liaison because I'm retiring and Marie's going to take over and here's some of the new resources we've got. And you can always reach out to us."

Sort of very like, positive, and I was sort of standing nearby holding the rest of the bookmarks, feeling kind of awkward because again, half of this class of the audience I'd had classes with and the other ones I kind of knew, and just sort of smiling and then Jim was finished. Any questions? Dead silence. Everybody started looking at the chair of the department you know, waiting what's happening now? And so just "okay great well you've got our information. So feel free to reach out and we'll see you. Okay, bye." And then just turned and started walking to the exit. And so I sort of awkwardly turned as well and left and that was it.

 That was my first, like, you're the newly as well. experience is this weird sort of tage on the stage while the chair was breathing down our necks very awkwardly. Nobody said anything, barely made eye contact. It was so weird. Oh, God, that was so weird. It was very much like teaching a class where they're all just sort of looking at the ceiling and spinning around and obviously texting somebody or listening to music while you're trying to teach them stuff.

MARIA: So that was my first experience as a new liaison. I hope that nobody else has that experience where, I don't know if there was any impact or change or direct response from it but... yeah.

HANNAH: thank you for sharing that because I feel like the at least for me, I feel like being able to attend a department meeting is like kind of the ideal of like you've got, you know most of the faculty there, And you can, you know reach them face to face instead of an email of like, you know, here's all the things I can do for you. But yeah, like we totally don't, especially if we're new or maybe there's a different department chair that we're not familiar with, their style is we're walking into an unknown dynamic and

MARIA: I would say very rarely do go to meetings now. I do mostly just send emails at the beginning of each semester, copy my co-liaison. We have a model where we don't just email

all the faculty, we have a department rep, so it's somebody from the department, not always the chair, where we send them something and then it's their job to send it to their colleagues, which is good because we know that we get a response. They do have certain responsibilities that they have to do as a department rep.

But the liaison or the other faculty will email me directly if they've got questions or they'll email their department rep who will forward. So there's sort of like hierarchy. So very rarely now do I go to meetings.

HANNAH: So that idea of a department rep like within the faculty of that department is intriguing. Could you talk a little bit more about like that, how that came about and how you feel like it works compared to like, you know, emailing everyone in the department versus having one of them kind of funnel your message.

MARIA: So our previous faculty outreach librarian created the co-liaison model, which also included a department representative. So I don't know where it came from. I just know that we've had it for I think eight years now. Like I said, it's interesting. Some faculty librarians, again, do their own thing, but I follow the “there’s a department rep for a reason.” I will email them and then they'll send it out. And in my email, sometimes they'll say, would you mind forwarding this to your department?

That also includes sometimes adjuncts or visiting faculty and not just full-time teaching faculty. So I understand that I'm not always going to have an up-to-date list of who's on sabbatical and who's not. So I just find it a lot easier to go through the department rep than I would trying to email everybody individually. But each liaison model is different each, you know, each institution's different

I would say that that might be easier at larger institutions too, because we're only in R2, we're barely in R2 at UNF. And I know that there's other places like R1 that have hundreds and hundreds of faculty. We've got about 600, I think. So it's easier the more faculty you have to deal with to just email one person and then they communicate it out as needed, but that's just my opinion.

HANNAH: Could you give us like a brief synopsis of what the co-liaison model means at your institution?

MARIA: So our co-liaison model started off where we had two liaisons per department. So one person from public services and one person from technical services and systems. So we've got most of the people in the public services faculty were instruction librarians. So I'm not in the instruction unit, but I do teach, so I'm on the instruction team. So anytime that there was a request that would come in for an instruction session, one shot class or a video tutorial or something, it would automatically go to the person who was on the instruction team. So very easy. 

Sometimes it'll be emails or requests for materials that would go to both liaisons but some departments, the person from technical services and systems would be the default to put in that request officially or, you know, oh, you're having database issues. Here's X, Y, and Z. But that didn't really work well depending on the librarian, because it ended up being whoever was the most public facing person would get all the emails. And so in practice, if a faculty member would email me, which they usually would because they know me and they see me and I do all the instruction and stuff, then I would copy my co-liaison on the email and then respond. Or sometimes I would forward it to my colleagues and saying, “hey, I'm completely booked today. Could you take care of this?”

Unless it were an instruction session, then I would say “I'm going to fill out the form on your behalf.” to the faculty member and then teach this class for you. But it ended up being the public services librarians would do most of the work. And I think even some tech services people would recognize that the co-liaison model didn't really work because it was mostly people like me, who like to get in the thick of it and answer a whole bunch of emails, communicate, because again I do communication and marketing. But we would end up doing most of the work.

MARIA: So, our current co-liaison model is we have a primary liaison and a secondary liaison. And either of those can be public services or tech services, but most of the primary liaisons, because we're teaching, are from public services. We don't really have a public services/tech services anymore, but it's still understood that there are specific units that are public services facing.

And then there are other ones that are more sort of downstairs closed off, and nobody sees them. So that's how we've kind of changed over time, but the practice is still pretty much the same where I'm the only instruction librarian for Communication English and Sociology, Anthropology of Social Work so i end up doing, Listen to the emails, all of the instruction sessions, all the research consultations. 

And if I'm invited to go do something outreachy, it's going to be me because I can invite my co-liaisons who are technical services folks to come to my classes, shadow, co-teach if they want. But usually that's not – or we used to do something like that and then we just didn't do it because it's just too much work.

HANNAH: Yeah and that kind of work is more outside of the normal day-to-day tech services people.

MARIA: Exactly. Yeah. There was some pushback at first when we did include the co- liaison because there were a lot of tech services, some of which are, you know, they retired and they're no longer here, but a lot of the, “this isn't my job, this is what I was hired to do”. But they changed, administration changed our job description so every faculty librarian has liaison work in our job. So it's part of it. It's all the way down at the bottom, but it's there. So, and I think a lot of it was because that pushback from some of the old-guard librarians where "I don't want to be on all these emails. I don't want to teach classes. I don't want to go to meetings or do events for this department because I'm a librarian,” but it's very much become our jobs because if you don't have those relationships then you're not going to get the instruction requests, the research consultations, the invitations to events or meetings. 

You're not going to be able to talk about the cool new things we're paying money for. We're not going to be able to do surveys for faculty and find out what else they need. So it's just all these other things that the liaison model whatever it might shake out to be, there is an impact and there has been positive effects from it. But unless you get buy-in from the librarians, it's not going to happen. And the only way to make them buy-in was to make it part of your job.

STEPHANIE:  So let's say you were giving some advice to early career you. What would you want to say or what would you want to hear?

MARIA: (laughs) I would say be patient. A lot of, again, maybe it's just me being at the institution for eight years before I was hired as a faculty librarian. I wanted to just like throw myself at everything, having to be a faculty member now. “I'm legit on the board, starting from the bottom, working my way up. Let's make it happen now!” But some things take time and especially liaison work, but learning about anything, you have to be patient with yourself and also others as well.

Things are going to come to you and you'll learn how to do it. You'll have your own outlines of how to get things done, but you can't do it all from the very beginning, you have to be patient and take your time and figure out what works for you. Trial and error. It's the only way to get by.

STEPHANIE: Thank you. I appreciate hearing that from someone who has also gone through that process because sometimes I hear advice and they're like "oh just wait. It'll be better." And you're like "But when?!!" (laughs) Like, just slow down. Take a breath.

MARIA: (laughs) Well… I mean, “wait, wait”, but also like “be proactive put yourself out there”, but also try to be a little bit more gentle with yourself because if something doesn't happen right away, you send a bunch of emails and nobody responds to you, that's not on you. You put the work in but just be patient eventually people will know who you are and what you do and then they'll come to you!

STEPHANIE: (laughs) Thank you for that advice. Well, Maria, thank you so much. This has been so lovely to meet you and to hear about your experiences and your library and your work.

Maria: (laughs) You're very welcome. Yeah, it's been fun.

[end of first interview]

[Brief music begins (instrumental, laid back rhythmic strings, drums, and piano) to segue into next interview]

STEPHANIE: After we had talked to Maria, we interviewed our next guest. We'll let him introduce himself more in a moment. You'll notice that our next guest has a very narrative way of speaking, which may talk to him sound like a story. So you'll be hearing less from Hannah and me. With that, let's meet our next guest.

EDDIE: Okay, so my name is Eriberto Ramirez. I do go by Eddie. Currently, I am the librarian at Mount San Jacinto Community College at their Menifee campus. And I'll say it like this: I first stepped into a library at a community college as a student while being homeless. So for me, that was very powerful, both in-in terms of understanding that there was a place on campus where I felt I belonged, and the one I also felt safe. And I think ever since there, I've always worked at a library whether i was going to law school, whether I was pursuing San Diego State, Cuyamaca College, California Western School of Law.

I also have some experience at the San Diego Law Library. I was at Point Loma University being a liaison for both the undergraduate master's and doctoral level Nursing program, Education, Business, along with a few others, all health sciences. So by health sciences, not only do I mean Nursing, but I also mean Occupational Therapy, Physician Assistant program, Anatomy, a lot of the sciences, if you will, that are related to health.

EDDIE: So with that being said, now I'm currently at Mount San Jacinto and my specialization right now is actually making sure that they have the LibGuides and adequate resources for their Nursing program that they're building up. And working with this specific population, I feel is really bringing me full circle to now be in a place where, the same way somebody helped me, now in a place to help somebody that was in that same age group and demographic where I once found myself in.

HANNAH: Yeah, that's a wonderful full circle story. So thank you for sharing that.

STEPHANIE: Based on what you were just telling us, can you tell us a little bit more about the roles you held as a subject librarian and a liaison to departments, and to what extent you had prior experience and education in those disciplines?

EDDIE: Yeah, great question. Being a liaison was something completely new to me. So I had previously gone to law school. And while I was in law school, my mentor, Robert O'Leary was the one who actually said, why don't you become a librarian? And because of that, I became a law librarian and something that really stuck out to me or that was so so powerful. And if you'll hear me, if I may, I'll just tell a short story about this where I think that I really noticed that there was a particular type of person in the law library.

And what I mean by that is that there's a common misperception that everyone has legal rights. And that because you have legal rights, it's like they are your rights and you could learn about them. And there is some truth in that. But there's also needs to be an understanding that the law, very similar to like health you know anything health sciences related, really is going to require a niche language, right? It has its own jargon. And at the Law Library, what I noticed was that there was a certain type of person, that person really put in the work.

And to be specific, I can tell you that there was a difference between someone who said, you know, “hey, I'm here because I want a divorce” my spouse, whether, you know, regardless of gender someone that says, “I want to get a divorce”. And someone, and again, this is my experience, right? So the experiences, the situations I've been put in, that there was a difference where there was a difference there was a single mother let's say who was a migrant, who was then using their children to help translate this stuff. Because the household was a little bit violent, or a little bit –And I just want to, because I don't know the situation and I try not to pry– but there was something amiss. And for whatever reason, that parent says, “I will sit here all day if I have to and learn this, even if they don't speak English”

And what I noticed in just kind of observing the children, was that certain children really had at some point been told “Well, you can do it!” And even if they didn't get it, they had that belief system in them. And there were times where I would leave work and it would really hit me because, the same way for me, it was a librarian who told me, “I believe in you, you can do great things in school.” 

I felt like into some regard, I was being that mentor, or maybe that child and letting them know, oh, of course, here's how you search. And they appreciated it and they wanted more of that. But then sometimes maybe there was a parent or a child that really felt discouraged, and making my transition right from being a law librarian to saying, well, what kind of librarian do I want to be? I immediately made that move into Education. And the move to education came from that kind of me wanting to help those young kids; making sure they had that belief in them. Making sure that if I was going to be their librarian they knew that for one, I was there for them, and I was there to help them understand that unlike everything else in school, right, where two plus two equals four – Part of the core of for me being a librarian means not just teaching traditional boolean operators but teaching some of those fundamental ACRL frameworks, one of which says Information is inquiry.

EDDIE: So when we take it to information as inquiry and information is a process. That's different than teaching someone. Because you're not teaching them how to do something black and white. You're teaching them the process, and a process that's going to continue to exist regardless of the domain. In everything you do. Whether you're trying to figure out a landlord tenant issue. Whether you're trying to change your name because you want to change–you want to change your entire gender. Whether you want to change your name, your gender, you're in a divorce, landlord-tenant issue, or whether, let's just take it here.

If you're a student who has an assignment. And maybe it was my hallucination that somewhere along the way students were being given assignments, and the professors almost assumed that they had already been taught this.

EDDIE: So then moving into Point Loma and moving into that role of a liaison, what I'm hearing you ask specifically is how did I become comfortable becoming a liaison? And this is where I always try to be very honest with people and - and I think there's two ways to approach this. One is to say, well, of course, there's that imposter syndrome that we speak of. There's an imposter syndrome. I think what's been helpful for me, is sometimes to really feel the pain that comes with feeling inadequate. So I think there's something that I know, and this is where I try to be very careful about giving advice….

Because if someone else were listening to this based on their personality type, if they're a little bit more introverted I would say “don't do what I do!” I am an extrovert. To some extent, I enjoy being in that classroom and telling students, I have something to tell you, and I know it has value. So for me, I take these things that imposter syndrome, given my personality type and my upbringing of a very traditional Latinx household, right, being raised in a multi, and I come from a household where I was raised with different fathers even. So there was a little bit of that multicultural aspect where I really had to rise to the occasion. And I embrace that about me, right? I tell myself, “I am someone who wants to rise to an occasion.”

So when I moved into being a liaison I had to have a very serious conversation with myself about what I don't know. My previous background is in law. Now I'm being in charge of the MBA program, the DNP program. The undergrad level for education orientations, just everything. So there's a spectrum of people I'm helping. Some people I'm talking to about levels of evidence, right? And different, very specific, niche areas of research, occupational therapy, nursing. With other students, I'm talking about just traditional boolean searches on EBSCOhosts along with metadata and using the org to come up with related metadata.

EDDIE: One, my first plan of attack was “I have to learn these databases.” And I'm someone…I know I get overwhelmed. I'll tell you this right now. I have no shame in telling you some days I'm feeling a little poopy. I wake up in the morning, I try to wake up feeling like I'm going to make it a great day because I believe it is my choice. But some days when you're sitting in your office and you're new, you're like, “what am I doing here? Do I even know enough?”

And I'm in charge of 3,000 undergrads and let's just say, and I'm making these numbers up, right? Because it's going to change across campus. But let's just say, and the larger the number is, the more intensity I feel someone should have about it, because we're in charge of these students lives, right? We're being put in a role as educators. So for me, I have to say “I feel overwhelmed.” 

First thing I'm going to do is – I'm not even going to reach out for help. I'm just going to start watching YouTube videos on different databases and just kind of listen to them at different. And I was in charge of different subjects too “Oh, here's one on exercise science. Here's one on business. You know what? Let me go for a little five minute walk, come back. Now it's nursing.” So it's like it really was this kind of like “Well, let me keep trying to move forward” while also trying to maybe let me take a stretching break. Let me foam roll on the floor a little bit. Let me try to stay focused.

So for the first few weeks I was fighting that imposter syndrome with a passion, right? With the fiery rage in me. I wanted to fight it. I told myself I'm going to fight it. I fought it in the most minimal way. I fought it by understanding I was scared. I felt uncomfortable and I had to have a certain element of grace for myself. And I felt so inadequate, so bad. I didn't ask for help for the first two weeks. I ventured to say maybe even the first month. I just wanted to move forward in the smallest way possible. And so I took the YouTube self-education route, right?

EDDIE: But now let's say a few weeks went by, I'm really starting to to be at–I've been there for a few weeks. I've shadowed my boss once or twice. I've shadowed one of the other librarians once or twice, just to see how everyone teaches. And I remember reaching out to my boss asking her, “do you have the previous recordings for classes that the previous librarian did for some of these different subject areas?” And she said, “I actually do. They're in a file that we all share. You can start looking through them.” And so aside from the self-education route, then personally, within my liaison role, I was able to go internally to like, internal, opportunities to become self-educated

Given that kind of scenario, once I went kind of self-education, I took it a step further. Let me become internally self-educated a little bit, right? Given, again, my personality type, my understanding of myself, and this is where I would encourage people, you need to understand yourself. You need to understand yourself. And what I mean by that is this: I started reaching out to individual companies. I started reaching out to like EBSCO, Lexus–the one we had was Lexus Uni–but there's LexisNexis, Westlaw. So yes, I started reaching out to certain people saying, hey, I need help and they were able to provide me with trainings, whether it was going through a vendor training or whether some individual people met up with me one-on-one.

Now, if someone else were becoming a liaison, I would say this goes back to one, understanding yourself and two, understanding the people around you, and three, really asking yourself–and this is something that I think we all have to do as librarians or even just as people, right? This is just universal here–”how do you want to show up in the world? What type of person are you? And how well do you hold yourself to that standard?”

EDDIE: Because there's a difference between, and this is where I take it, right? Because a librarian, right? And this goes back to my lived experience, a librarian really did change my life quite literally. Not only did she give me my first job, down the road, she actually even said, you can come live with me. Right, like that's how much this woman changed my life. And to really have that kind of understanding about people and oneself, and I struggle with this too, but but I don't want to be one of those people that says, “I'm just passionate about my job.” I want to be a person that says “I hold myself to a certain standard regardless of what I do, not just in my job, but in my life.”

And I would like to think that I'm someone that says that when I'm put into a role, I told myself, well, “I'm going to step up to that challenge” And if I'm going to be put in a similar charge now, which is maybe where you can understand my seriousness where it comes from to now be in a situation where I'm helping a possible youth through their tumultuous times potentially, I take that with a very grave level of seriousness. Because I want to hold myself to that standard. I needed to ask myself, “is this something I really want to do?”

EDDIE: This is real life. This is real life. And you have other people's minds who are paying tens of thousands of dollars, and let's say their parents, right? They're not paying it. And we always talk about money. Let's just take it here. Money is actually time. Money is time. So people are paying this, right? Childrens’ parents are paying this with years of their lives. And if not, they're taking out loans that they're going to pay years of their lives to pay back.

Once you understand yourself, then I could talk to you about an actionable plan to move forward in that liaison role. So for that little bit more highly anxious personality, introverted, and maybe you move to another state, whatever the case may be. I'm going to say first things first, you got to take care of yourself. Once you get past that, and we really want to start talking about educating yourself in your liaison role, self-education is key. Make sure you, yourself, the person who you're looking at in the mirror, is at a place where you feel proud of just taking that actionable step.

And I've seen this happen where I'll talk to someone, I'll say, “You know what? Watch a few YouTube videos, whatever, whatever,” and I'll tell them “it's too much for you.” Because they'll tell me, oh, I didn't watch them. And now we have to go all the way back to step one where it's like, well, what kind of person do you want to be? Where you can, putting mental health as part of the equation I'll say what do you have to do to yourself, get your mind right to be able to watch a YouTube video little by little – while also feeling inadequate. I think the answer isn't just telling yourself you're great. You're a superstar. I think the answer is really being intentional and purposeful and present. And then saying, “hey, not only am I going to take this actionable step but now that I'm going to take these steps, here's the smallest way I can do it.”

EDDIE: We think it's going to be solved with one video or an overnight thing, and it's a process.

And that actually goes back to, I think, is very unique to this profession. Everything about being a librarian and everything we teach others goes back to that research as inquiry, research as a process. Understanding that our own roles is going to be also a process. So I think there's so many similarities between what librarians do, in order in terms of like what we teach, and also how we teach what we teach students and how we take those skills and apply them to our very own lives. We become just a better student of life the same way we become a better student within our professional domains.

STEPHANIE: Eddie, I like that! This little librarian over here is just like all goosebumpy, like, of course you brought it back to researchers inquiry. I'm also thinking about how research is not linear and like same with life you know sometimes We think we know something. We think we have the answer. We think we have the greatest research question, and then through the process of doing your research, you're like, okay this isn't working out. “What do I do?” And it's not go back to the drawing board because you're still in this–still in the process of it. I really like how you brought it back to not only is it does this impact the way we work with our department areas and specifically like try to share and encourage students to think about information literacy and research and what it actually means, but that it also applies to us internally when we show up for our roles in terms of “what is our research question? What is our goal here and what are potentially our objectives for it?” How are we going to assess it and then when it doesn't work, you can feel bummed for a bit, but also that doesn't mean you are bad, you failed. It just means you got to try another thing so like, take that pause and take that reflection to come up with some other small next steps.

EDDIE: Right. And maybe…Let me also say this, because I did take it to–I gave one example that I feel is much more my route, which is I call it extroversion with a little bit of introversion, right? And I'm just going to use myself as an example here

So when I started at the San Diego Law Library, my big thing was I'm going to learn the law, right? I went to law school. Now I'm here. It's like I know so much and now I can teach others. And at the same time, when I first started, I was in outreach. I was the outreach law librarian. And then I moved into public access, to justice librarian, right? So I moved into the technology team. I ran the gamut a little bit in terms of what I did there. But when I first started there, just being a little bit more extroverted as I am, I asked too many questions. And again, I don't think this is just librarianship. This is life. This is relationships. This is everything. If you ever meet someone new, don't ask them too many questions!

I'm just saying there's like, if you're trying to court someone don't just barrage them with questions, right? If you're trying to talk to a loved one, and really listen to them, don't just barrage them with questions. But being a little bit more extroverted and maybe higher energy, I really went in there, and I started reaching out to CEB and Westlaw and Trellis and all these different reps and being like, “well, I'm going to learn this!” And to some extent, someone had to come along and say, “hey there, actually, I appreciate you really being so 'gung ho' and passionate wanting to learn all these databases, don't reach out to the reps, right? That's my job. And actually my job also entails covering their bills and stuff, right? The rep you just reached out to is actually the billing rep. That's not the right rep even.”

EDDIE: It's just, I could laugh at myself now, right? So, and then I'm getting other people involved that are not like, did you just reach out to this person? Why are you reaching out to them? And then, so apart from that, because I was also part of outreach, I was like, well, I'm going to reach out to the San Diego Volunteer Lawyer Program and Legal Aid. And I'm going to ask everyone in the office, “Yo, what have you done? What do you do? I'm trying to understand the organization because I want to be good at my role!”

And during this time, there was a–someone else worked at the San Diego Law Library named Zaryl. And Zaryl was not a librarian. He was actually third-party contracted. He was a security guard. But he had been there for over 20 years, let's say. He had been there for a good–you know, a good minute, a good chunk of change he had spent his time there. I remember him pulling me aside a little bit and just slowing me down and just being like, “hey, man, you need to slow your roll a little bit. You know, I've been here a while. I've seen a lot of librarians come and go.” 

And one, he was also looking out for me, right? So I was the only minority there. And he was one of the only minorities there. And he didn't even work for the library during this time. Someone else later on who was there was named Lucia Lobos, and she was also a minority, right? She was a Hispanic woman. And she also, I remember, so eventually after Zaryl pulled me aside, Luce even pulled me aside, right? Her name was Lucia Lobos. She's actually the person who taught me everything I know about outreach. And both these individuals pulled me aside and said, “Hey. Slow down, do a little bit less. You know what? Just go to the meeting and listen. Ask questions.”

And I'll tell you this, just to bring it to where I am right now at Mount San Jacinto, right? I'm in charge of the peer research assistants. I'm in charge of building these connections. I'm in charge of different people and things. Now, even when I showed up there and I met with a lot of the student employees and everything. Some of them asked me questions. And one of the supervisors even said, you know, “hey, this isn't my job and I don't want to step on your toes but this is kind of the way I've done things.”

When I was younger, I would have really said, “well, these are all my ideas. Here's what I want to do. Here's what I want to bring to the table.” Now, I actually looked at her. and it was Ashley and I was like, “you know what, Ashley, thank you so much for telling me that. I'll tell you that everything you're doing, the instructions you provided me with, everything that you're doing with the student employees. I find nothing wrong with this.” I'm a bigger believer in safety than I am about going things by the book. “So I know that it says here in line three, the students employees are not allowed to stay after, you know, if their shift ends at five they have to leave that pipe. I'll tell you this. I looked through the entire handbook. This is the only rule I have a problem with because if you're in this library by yourself, and it's only you and student employees, let me tell you, you have my permission to ask them to stay until campus security arrives.” I do not want to – i do not think as a boss I should be so by the book hat I'm going to sacrifice someone's potential safety for $17 an hour. So that's kind of that's the seriousness

But I got to share with anyone that's a liaison who's a little bit too extroverted on all accounts, look at me – look at me in my eyes. Do less. And you're going to do it–you're probably going to say, “well, let me do a little lesser”. Do less than that. In the next few meetings, all you're going to do is listen and understand your workplace first. Understand your role first. And what your company or organization is asking you to bring to the table.

HANNAH: I hear you saying of, like, making sure you slow down and understand your environment, and your context and the history that you're coming into before jumping in too deep.  I think for the sake of time here, I want to change gears a little bit. You've talked some about steps you've taken to learn things that you didn't know coming into a new role. What were some of the skills and abilities that you already had that you were able to lean on, like, let's say when you started your new liaison role as health sciences or business librarian, you knew the areas that you needed to learn? Were there things that you felt like, okay, I don't know about this, but I like I have some existing skills and experiences that I know I can lean on to start being successful in certain areas.

EDDIE: This one's a tough one because I-I-I tend to err on the side of, to say that the most helpful skills in my life have just been really just understanding and being okay with being me.

And the skills that really came with that, I would say, really came from places around unrelated to my profession and that's the importance of what I mean by mental health even, right? So there's a certain element when we talk about even becoming a liaison or something, for me, the biggest thing that I always tell mentees, usually that the first thing we have to work on, is the person in the mirror. Are you ready for this challenge? And I need to start preparing you for this challenge. Resiliency.

EDDIE: Now, the other thing that I could really share across the board that I could say this one I've really developed even as a child, is curiosity. So as a young boy, I was taking things apart, this and that and I think a lot of the times as adults we lose kind of who we are sometimes in terms of playfulness and actually science is on my side on this one too. And I'll tell people, if you learn to make these things like a game –when you look at the neurocognitive science behind this, if you treat things through the lens of play you learn it like at an exponential rate. And I mean exponential like it might take you 20 times to learn something through play. It would take you like three or four.  So that is also another skill that I would say is highly undervalued.

Because when you start to really develop that kind of understanding of yourself and you're able to really make it into a game with yourself where you're like, “well, I'm not good at this, but you know what? I would try.” You know what? You know how to be your best friend and then you know how to even be your own hype man where you're like, “yo, I did that!” And then when you set the goal and you meet the goal I would say like there's certain things like this is a skill that I would say really feel the emotions. Feel the small wins. Because if you're so busy on the big picture, you're never going to get there and you're going to get–and this goes back to feeling burnt out–and I deal this with, this is one that I'll say I deal with liaisons all the time.

I'll have a colleague reach out to me or someone that I've met at a conference or someone else and say, “I'm just getting so burnt out. I'm just getting so burnt out. It's just, I have to do this and the databases and I feel inadequate and this and that. And it's just too much!”

When you turn it into a game where it's like okay, well, it's like I just need to level up. I need to be like Super Mario and dododododo [sound effect of Nintendo’s Super Mario consuming a mushroom and growing] need to get my you know, then you're really like nanananana, [Super Mario sound effect] you know. Then I would say when you have that kind of grace, and that's why I use the word grace almost, I don't know what other words to use, humility or yeah, humility maybe, but with that kind of skill set. I would say if you're becoming a liaison you're going to need that. 

EDDIE: You're going to need the ability to become your own best friend, your own hype man, your own your own cheerleader to really move forward because it's a long journey. It's a long journey with a lot of micro goals. So skill setting, for me is my faith. And at this point, I'll say this is, uh I'm not talking about faith just in religious context. I'm talking about faith for everything, right? Like the same faith we have that our parents love us. The same faith that we have when we say, well, I know my dog loves me. You say that with a certain conviction. When you have that conviction about your own self. And you're going to say, actually, “I am someone who doesn't give up.” And actually, and this is where the goal setting really comes in for all liaison. That's the one thing I can't emphasize enough. No matter what your personality type.

As a liaison, I could tell you what my goal setting was. I could tell you that when I met with the databases, with different database vendors, I only reached out to one a week. But again, that's what I thought I could handle. Now I'm in a place where I could make it into a little bit more of a game that I could really, I don't mind reaching out to five, six. Different database vendors at once in a week. But we need to start small. And for people that are new to liaison, so now let's let's take it back to someone that's a new liaison, right? That's new into the role.

This goes back to if I was your mentor or I was just your friend or someone that was really trying to help you. I would really create a variety of micro goals and the timeline for that would vary, based on where the individual is at. But that's kind of where I will say like, once we kind of get like big picture here, bringing things all together, one of the key things I always think that is a highly underrated skill is being able to really treat um our profession has a little bit game with ourselves. Because the learning, just like with many other games, Monopoly or anything else, it's a process, right? I'm going to keep going back to that, right? Research as a process, life as a process.

EDDIE: Librarianship is something that isn't just about research. Like I tell students, it's something that changes lives. Something that I'm just going to share with you real quick is I'm often asked, what do you do for a living? People will ask me, what do you do? You're a librarian. What do you do? My answer is always something like this. And I have a variety of answers, right? But it depends how spicy I'm feeling. You know, sometimes I'm poke level two spicy. Sometimes I'm poke level five spicy. Okay, so when I'm feeling level five spicy and someone says, what do you do? I'll tell them something like this… You want to know what I do? I literally…help students to use technology rather than letting technology used them like that. 

STEPHANIE: That sounds like such an epic mic drop moment right there where you're like, boom. Spicy Eddie says, "there's my answer. Let you sit with it. Reflect."

EDDIE: That's how I usually end the class. That is one of the ways. So I have a few different ones where where I say stuff like that, where I'll be like, “Ultimately, I know that I said a lot during this class, but I know that of all of you, If I were to share something with all of you, it's that currently, you are given the title of user by corporations. So for example, you're an Instagram user. But I'm here to tell you that, that you’re not the user, you're the product. And I'm here and I'm so passionate about what i do because I'm tired of people being used by technology. And I want you not just to have the title of user, but to know what it means to become one. Dang!

HANNAH:  You're getting to those higher level concepts. I think one thing I really appreciate about, like, your storytelling style and everything you have to say and have been framing things is, like the strengths and skills and qualities that you bring to your work are not what is on the job description or the job posting. It's, I don't know, like maybe they would be called the soft skills, which I feel like is so like demeaning to all these – like they're important and like anybody

So, yeah, or like you're taking time to reflect on who you are, who you are what, what are your qualities and skills as an individual in your life, like as in your integrated life, and you're bringing your full self to your job, and doing your job with integrity and authenticity and there is no division between like your professional self and like who you are inside. And so I really appreciate that. And it's like I think that's something we're trying to do with this podcast, not talk about just what are those hard skills, or like things that are listed on the resume. Like what is happening beneath the surface, between the lines, as people, you know, not just as a librarian of whatever our job title is. So I really have appreciated that about this conversation.

EDDIE: Well, let me share this with you because I really feel like you, you really touched on something, and i – because i get asked this a lot, I get asked this by students a lot too. I'll have students like even now, I'm at San Jacinto right, so i'm– because i'm new. And then they'll be like, you're the librarian, right? And I'll be like, yeah.

And even the wake, I kind of really try to show up and really talk to the employees and let them know, like, I'm here to help you. Right so like my conversation with Ashley where it is a little bit more like I appreciate you letting me know, but I'm also here to let you know that I don't know who was the previous librarian, but unlike, I'm here to let you know you do have a say. Especially if it comes to certain safety things. And after speaking with certain employees, students typically tend to be a little bit more, let's just say like courageous and sometimes asking you a report so 

I've been asked by many students, “why are you so passionate? How are you, or like why? Like, you must really love libraries.” And again, for anyone that's watching this, I can't emphasize enough. I feel like we talk about mental health like we do about hydration. You just need to take care of it. You just need to do it. You just need to drink your water and your mental health will be okay. And I tell people that, I really don't know what it is, but there's something greater in me once I actually learned what empathy was. Once I actually started practicing compassion. So I'll share this with you, just to even provide you context into a glimpse into my own life.

EDDIE: Where you're a librarian, like, why do you do this? And I'll tell them, like, I don't wake up like this, right? So my passion, right, doesn't come from just being a librarian. I don't wake up in the morning and I'm like,” ah, yes, I'm a librarian and I am going to go about my day!” I think it goes back to really understanding and being present and understanding how i want to be. And I think I really grew up with a certain level of dysfunction where I told myself I really want to learn how to be compassionate. And a big part of that was the relationship with myself. 

So I'm going to say a few things here. Feel free to stop me at any point in time but one thing for anyone who says, or like, let's say anyone who's really listening to this podcast that says, “wow, that's a lot of good stuff. I really need to work on myself.” And now they're thinking to themselves, well, “now I'm not so great at my job, apparently.” They're like, “oh man, I have so much work to do in my job. But apparently I got to work on myself too! Geez, wow, what a podcast. Wow, I feel great, right? So let me add it to the list. I need to see a therapist.”

So one thing that I share to people is really understanding who they are, right? Really understanding. So I don't wake up like this, but it's because I tell myself “I want to learn what it means to be compassionate. I want to learn what it means to try to actually practice empathy.” And understanding, I don't have that all the time. because of my own pain. So I need to deal with that so, the key thing and uh so I really don't want people to listen to this podcast without understanding that there is a way to go about that. and really work on yourself.

EDDIE: And again, this isn't me here. This isn't me. This is people coming back to me And unfortunately, this has been my lived reality. I'm someone that was more okay trying to improve because something outside of themselves demanded it, rather than me demanding it. So becoming a liaison, and I'll tell people, have no mistakes about it. I'll tell people, if you want an easy librarian job, becoming a liaison is the wrong one. That's the worst one you could pick. You want an easy librarian job? Do not become a liaison. 

You want one that's rewarding. You want one that'll challenge you, one that may be down the road years from now, and you might not see it now, but maybe a student remembers that interaction you had. Maybe now you empowered that person. So next time when they're going to the law library, they've already had that college professor that let them know, yo, research is a process. And then when they're going through that hard time, they're going to be able to call back and be like, oh, this is just like that. Of course, it's a process. I know both of you are a little bit newer into the profession and uh, you know you’re liaisons yourself, so to try to end it on like a really positive note but, I hope you really recognize the impact that you're having, not just with students. The impact you're having on yourself. Most importantly, the everlasting impact we have on each other as human beings. Maybe this is just a great place to end it, but that's the last thing I just kind of wanted to end it with. Well, thank you for also having me and thank you so much for listening and I really hope that this benefits other people and they're really able to draw something of value from our conversation.

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STEPHANIE: Sometimes it can be hard to stay up to date on things happening across the field.

So we thought it could be fun to do a brief segment highlighting some recent library and information science publications, open access, of course!

HANNAH: Since we had such a long interview portion this time around, we decided to each just highlight one thing we read. Stephanie, what do you want to talk about today?

STEPHANIE: In one of the journals I follow, Evidence-Based Library and Information Practice, I read "Evaluating an instructional intervention for research data management training" by Alisa Rod, Sandy Hervieux, and NuRee Lee. I personally enjoy learning about research data management. And especially since I feel very new to instruction still, this jumped out to me. In the article, the two liaison librarians and the research data management specialist created a short research data management activity.

In this case, students were asked to name an image file of a dog. The same image was then used as a pre and post test, which gave students the opportunity to apply what they learned about data management practices, especially around file naming conventions that they learned during the session. The other part of this article that really interests me looks specifically at the creation of the rubric used to assess whether the activity increased proficiency and demonstrated understanding.

Since I still feel like such a new librarian, and more so an instructor, I first really appreciated reading about how the authors approach developing an activity for the class. And then developed a way to assess the effectiveness of the activity. I now want to spend some time to create my own short and targeted activities with an immediate assessment component….Or at least #goals. So thank you, Alisa, Sandy, and NuRee.

STEPHANIE: Hannah, what do you want to share? 

HANNAH: Yeah, so I really enjoyed an article from In the Library with the Lead Pipe from June 2024 called “Not business as usual: Incorporating LIS student perspectives in the apprenticeship hiring process” by Estefania Eiquihua, Karen Adjei, Janelle Lyons, and Megan Welsh.

The subtitle is nicely descriptive, but the article describes the process of how the hiring manager for the Ask a Librarian Apprenticeship at University of Colorado Boulder University Libraries, how she involved current apprentices in the search and selection process for a new apprentice. And this is a paid remote apprenticeship for current LIS students, recognizing how the lack of paid opportunities to get real world library experience before graduating can be a real barrier, especially for students from historically marginalized groups.

So besides hearing about this wonderful apprenticeship program, what I really appreciated about this article is that it demystifies the hiring process from both sides for librarians looking for jobs and for hiring managers and committees. And even having been on both sides myself, it was so great reading other experiences. It really gets into the details of what kinds of decisions the hiring committee makes and the processes it goes through on the back end to choose a final candidate. And in this case, with equity and inclusion in mind, really keeping counteracting bias in the forefront. So thank you, Estefania, Karen, Janelle, and Megan for taking us through your experiences and not just the process, but your thought processes. It was really enlightening and I hope our listeners get a chance to read the full article in In the Library with the Lead Pipe, and you can also find the link to this article and the article Stephanie talked about on our website. 

STEPHANIE: If you made it all the way through, [whoops] Woooo whoooooo! Thank you for listening! We have a survey posted on our website about the length of the episode. We'd love your feedback. If you liked having two long interviews in one episode, or if you'd like shorter episodes, maybe even episodes at a variety of lengths.

HANNAH: We don't quite have our podcast set up to distribute to a podcast app near you, but we didn't want that to keep us from releasing our first episode. So if you'd like to be updated about episode releases, 

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you can sign up for email updates on our website.

STEPHANIE: That brings us to a close here, folks! Thank you for listening.

HANNAH: Library Table Talk is produced by me, Hannah Cabullo,

STEPHANIE: and me, Stephanie Sparrow.

STEPHANIE: This episode was edited by Stephanie. We hope you'll consider subscribing. You can also find us on our website at z.umn.edu/librarytabletalk 

HANNAH: This work was made possible by our employer, the University of Minnesota Twin Cities and University Libraries.

STEPHANIE: Music is by Blue Dot Sessions, Town Market, and Dirt Bike Lovers.

HANNAH:  Best,

STEPHANIE: Stephanie,

HANNAH: and Hannah.

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