Professional Identity in the Library

Public libraries have historically been seen as warehouses for resources with library staff to help search. This is reflected in formal library education, which emphasizes organizing and searching skills. However,
libraries have evolved to become community spaces that house makerspaces, social groups, music  events, and job fairs. Libraries meet the needs of their communities as spaces for socializing, exploring, and learning. Library staff are at the crux of the tension between an old model of quiet individual learning and the new model of social and collaborative learning. This case study attempts to understand how this tension plays out in an urban library system. We interviewed 16 youth services library staff as well as 2 administrative supervisors using a new, meme-based tool for eliciting conversation around these tensions. Library staff feel pressure from the community to provide access to electronic resources while keeping youth quiet and pressure from the library to meet externally defined goals such as workforce readiness and academic proficiency. At the same time, the staff see inherent value in connecting with and building relationships with youth. The resulting tension is associated with feelings of being overwhelmed, overworked, and burned out. Looking forward, it seems that public libraries such as this could benefit from a facilitated learning model that values relationships as part of the collaborative and active learning process. Focusing on relationships as the crux of the work may help alleviate some tensions that staff experience.