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From teaching to leadership
I regularly talk about how my leadership style builds on my work in critical pedagogy. But if you haven’t had the opportunity or a reason to spend as much time immersed in learning to be a better teacher as I…
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Developing a Coaching Approach to Leadership
Developing a coaching approach to leadership provides skills to help you build a kinder, healthier working environment. Low morale is a huge issue across different types of libraries, for workers and for leaders. Coaching won’t fix every contributing factor, but…
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July 2023 Updates
The past two months have flown by! Big personal news first: I have officially submitted my resignation as a library faculty member at the University of West Georgia, and my house is up for sale. I’m taking a gigantic leap…
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May 2023 updates
I have an accomplishment and some projects to share this month. First, the accomplishment – earlier this month, I officially completed my ICF-accredited professional coach training program. This included a performance evaluation that determined that my coaching practices meet or…
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Representation is not enough
This weekend, there are protests, demonstrations, and vigils being held across the country in response to the release of the video recording of another horrific incident of police brutality, in which police officers beat Tyre Nichols to death. The twist…
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From mentoring to coaching
One of the things I have most loved about my academic librarian job has been mentoring junior colleagues. Each relationship has differed, of course, but they have always felt rewarding. So when I started exploring what else I want to…
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Thinking about toxicity in libraries, and what to do about it
Back in January, I wrote about a major project I’m currently working on: a comprehensive review of library programs. Through a really extensive schedule of meetings, I’m mapping out the major work done across the library to achieve programmatic goals,…
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Editing books
Two of my favorite projects I’ve worked on as a faculty librarian have been the two books I’ve co-edited (one of which is still in progress). The first of those, Critical Approaches to Credit-Bearing Information Literacy Courses, was a collaboration…
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2021 in review
As part of the annual evaluation process at my university, we each draft a self-evaluation describing our major accomplishments over the past year in the three big areas of librarianship, service, and professional growth and development. Every year I tell…
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Comprehensive review of library programs
I’ll start this new series off with this project, since it’s currently in progress. So, if you’ve worked on a project like this before and have helpful suggestions and things to watch out for, I welcome hearing from you! This…
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A new focus in 2022
I’m not big on New Year’s Resolutions, but a lot of little reflections really coalesced for me around this new year. Until the past year or so, I was planning to spend the rest of my career where I am.…
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Ch-ch-ch-changes…
This past year has brought a lot of changes for me professionally, without even getting into the influence of the coronavirus! For a long time, I really enjoyed being just a run of the mill faculty librarian – there’s a…