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gutted interior of the JHU library

News and announcements

📚🤫 We’ve all been hearing about how “analog is back!” Well, the Jean and Alexander Heard Libraries at Vanderbilt Libraries are putting that to the test by declaring 2026-67 the “Year to Unplug.” Working with a variety of campus partners, the library is hosting a series of events and challenges to foster a culture of reading on campus. A cornerstone of the programming is a series of silent reading clubs taking place at designated times and locations around campus. And don’t worry: ebook and kindles are entirely fine. There will also be a series of talks by prominent authors (seriously, what is their budget!?!), workshops on how to “dumbify” one’s devices, and reading challenges (strikingly similar to the old Pizza Hut model) with chances to win prizes, like a Brick or retro media.

📈🔍 Northern Illinois University Libraries, in partnership with Northeastern Illinois University Libraries and the Library at Harry S. Truman College of the City Colleges of Chicago, received a $232,583 National Leadership Grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services to reexamine student research behaviors in light of artificial intelligence. This is an update to the 2011 Ethnographic Research in Illinois Academic Libraries (ERIAL) project. The ERIAL project had a huge impact when it was first released, and this iteration of the project will update those original research methods and tools, which can then be utilized by librarians across the country. Congrats Kimberly and team!

👊🪧 Students at Wake Forest University now have a guide to help research the history of student activism on their campus. The ZSR Library has pulled together archival materials from their university archives documenting how their campus reacted and responded to national calls for justice and equality. From the first women admitted to the university, through the Civil Rights sit-ins and Vietnam War walk outs, through vigils for the soldiers of Gulf Wars and boycotts against apartheid, the guide connects the WFU campus to global events across the century.

☀️🌖 The 182,000-square-foot Milton S. Eisenhower Library at Johns Hopkins University is getting renovated and, in what seems like a happy accident, a lower level that was previously described as a “morgue” and a “dungeon” will for the first time be seen in natural light. That’s because during construction, a vertical shaft needed to be cut to the lower level in order to bring out mechanical equipment. Rather than replacing the removed floors, the renovations team decided to keep the shaft so light could fall all 50 feet down. Some shelving space had to be sacrificed, but I’m sure the students will appreciate the new vibe (and they are compensating with compact shelving, so everyone wins a little!).

Notable mentions

On social

I didn’t notice as many trends across academic library social media this month as we saw over the summer, which is likely being driven by AcadLib’s over-reliance on programming and events to determine their content calendars (that’s a separate post I need to write at some point). There were, however, a few gems worth highlighting.

I really enjoyed this format from University of Minnesota Libraries for introducing new library student employees to their followers. It seems like a format that could be replicable and easily adapted to highlight a range of student workers. Obviously, D’Angelo has some SM editing chops and a distinct Gen Z/Alpha vibe, which works perfectly for the format.

Virginia Tech Libraries gifted us this shot for shot parody of The Office opening credits which… chef’s kiss. The video makes the library’s spaces look inviting and full of interesting people. The printer was a nice touch, but that iced latte does not have nearly enough espresso in it.

Speaking of coffee, Syracuse University Libraries posted a “sounds of the library” video to promote the opening of its new Starbucks. I’m not sure what they’re doing differently in upstate New York, but my library’s Starbucks is always loud and rowdy. This is so calming and serene!

Other notable content from the past month:

banner image: Milton S. Eisenhower Library

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ATTN: Higher ed leaders,

Step away from the generative AI. Put it down. That’s it. Now, slowly back away. You didn’t need AI before this moment. And now that it’s here, no one wants you to use it.

According to Pew Research, as of August 2026, 52% of Americans say they are more concerned than excited about the increased use of AI in daily life. That’s up from 37% in 2021; this is especially pronounced among younger generations. The concern about AI among folks ages 18-29 (you know, the ones that make up most of the campus communities we serve) is rising faster than all other age groups. Contrastingly, excitement about AI among all age groups has fallen since 2021. And in light of recent announcements, I suspect public confidence in companies like Anthropic will continue to plummet. 

But who needs rigorous survey data and whistleblower reports when you can just look at all those college graduates booing pro-AI speakers at commencements last year. Students don’t trust AI: it is a threat to their careers and they are notedly aware how it undermines their confidence in their own critical thinking skills. Sure, talking to a chatbot feels less risky than asking for help from their faculty, but it turns their educational experience into something devoid of value, hollow and empty.

It’s not just students. It’s your colleagues and all folks who make up your organization. Using generative AI might save you time, but your employees are gonna hate it. Messages thought to be generated by AI are rated as less helpful, less trustworthy regardless of whether they came from a real human or a chatbot. So if you’re using AI to write your missives for you, you sure as hell better not let anyone know it!

I know, I know. You’re dedicating as much as 24% of your day to electronic communication. If only you could free up that time for more important work! But remember: you were hired to be a leader. Leaders are expected to communicate effectively to their organizations; and effective leadership rarely happens via proxy. It might have worked for Grima Wormtongue, but only up to a point. (see also: Gen-AI is the One Ring)

I don’t want a leader who sits in their office pontificating all day (ok, “strategic thinking”. You say potato…). I don’t want a leader who uses technologies to further ensconce themselves from those of us here on the front lines, working directly with students day in and day out. I want someone I can trust. Someone to inspire me. AI-generated pontifications do not inspire. Like the students mentioned above, it leaves me feeling hollow and empty.

Besides, I get enough emails throughout the day. The last thing I need is you having the ability to triple your word counts. Personally, I have no intention of reading, much less caring about, something that wasn’t written directly by the person I’m communicating with. If you didn’t take the time to write it or make any of the intentional choices that come with putting thought to page (writing is thinking, after all), why should I take the time to read it? There is no “you” there.

“In simple terms, people place more trust in and find more value in statements they believe come from a human rather than technology. This suggests that while AI can produce helpful information, people’s perceptions play a big role in how it is received” (HBR).

And that may not matter if it’s an email from Joe in accounting. But if you’re a CEO, VP, or in some other leadership position speaking to direct reports, then that perception matters. Optics. It always comes back to optics.

I’m reminded of a recent quote from Clay Shirky in the Chronicle of Higher Ed: “AI decouples output from effort, which threatens learning.” In the context of higher ed communities, I would take this even further:

AI decouples decisions from discernment, which threatens conviction. 
AI decouples action from information gathering, which threatens understanding. 
AI decouples agency from reasoning, which threatens everyone.

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outside of the Lemieux Library building with grassy lawn in foreground

News and announcements 

🤖✊🏼 Sarah Watstein, Dean of the Lemieux Library at Seattle University, has another post in her ongoing series exploring artificial intelligence and Pope Leo XIV’s 2026 encyclical, “Magnifica Humanitas.” In it, she questions and reflects upon the meaning of the phrase “AI for the common good,” something which the American Library Association refers to in its recently published guidelines on the use of AI in libraries. It’s encouraging to see library leaders practicing discernment on this issue, and I would expect no less from a leader at a Jesuit institution. 

✒️📑 Boston University Libraries is celebrating the grand opening of the Nikki Giovanni Papers. In addition to the exhibition, “Poetry is the Culture of a People,” BU Libraries will host a reception, a film screening of “Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project,” a discussion with the filmmakers, and a poetry reading. While the exhibition focused on the first 10 years of Giovanni’s career, the collection includes photographs, journals, manuscripts, artworks, personal and professional correspondence, professional records, memorabilia, drafts of poetry, and other writings. The collection is the result of an ongoing relationship between the poet and BU that began in 1970.

🦠🎞️ In this donor-funded contest, Indiana University students are invited to use images from IU Libraries’ Moving Image Archive to create a “short, compelling video about the importance of good health practices that help prevent illness and promote collective care within the community.” This is the program’s fourth year and the top prize received $2,000. It is not lost on me that this project began just a year after campuses began returning to in-person classes post-COVID. What an amazing way to promote community health and explore digital collections!

5️⃣🧑🏽‍🏫 The ZSR Library at Wake Forest hosts an early career workshop series for faculty. “First Five” is open to faculty within their first five years at WFU and covers topics including finding resources for courses, designing research assignments around AI, evidence synthesis, and open access publishing. What an amazing resource for new colleagues that would be a relatively low lift for any university library team to create!

🐝🍫 Three library school interns are conducting a deep dive into UC Davis Library’s agriculture and food and drink collections using data-driven assessment methods to determine its scope and strength. The first post, by Mei Chin, explores bees and honey (and also mead. Yum!). The second post explores chocolate and cacao. The next post(s) will explore tea and beer. As part of the analysis, the interns are identifying peer institutions with similar collecting strengths. What a great project for a new MLIS student!

📖🆓 Finally, a little bit of self promotion here. A group of librarians at Loyola Marymount University and Saint Mary’s College of California published a free and open toolkit for “Growing Your OER Program.” The book, published on Pressbooks, contains practical guidance for growing OER awareness, OER marketing and promotional materials, and frameworks and templates for self-advocacy within the reappointment, promotion, and tenure process. The templates can be used to promote OERs to faculty, students, and administrators. 

Notable mentions 

  • UNC Chapel Hill’s Wilson Library shows off it’s 500-year old copy of the Odyssey.
  • In the real world, the 1817 voyage of the USS Ontario to the mouth of the Columbia River is recounted in a logbook owned by SMU Libraries.
  • Indiana University hosted BINGO with the dean for grad students
  • Tired of having to “deal” with AI in your everyday creative work? Rowan University Libraries hosts an “Avoiding Unwanted AI” workshop.
  • Cornell University Library is expanding its Critical AI Literacy Program.
  • After long last, the new Carrier Library is open at James Madison University. (video above)
  • The names and stories of more than 4,500 Georgians who were enslaved can now be discovered thanks of the University of Georgia Libraries.
  • The University of Cincinnati Libraries’ Student Innovation Grant provides funding for students to explore ways to expand the library’s impact.

On social

The “Kinda chic” trend was undoubtedly the most popular meme to emulate this past month, with dozens of libraries jumping on it, including University of Buffalo, Marriott Library, UNF Libraries, Western Carolina, DePaul University, University of Hawaii Mānoa, and University of Michigan Law (above). This style of “pretty library photo + text” meme regularly tends to gather speed among AcadLibs and reminds me of past trends like “This and…” 

As much as I love the quiet focus that summer time brings to the academic library, it’s just not the same when the students and faculty are all away. A library is nothing without its people. So it’s no surprised the “we missed you so we drew you in” meme took off across both university main channels and libraries themselves. Here’s one from University of North Florida, Salisbury University, BYU Idaho, Central Oklahoma, and my own library at Loyola Marymount University. 

Finally, a few notable posts worth mentioning:

@gvsulib

BOOKMARK CHALLENGE IS BACK! Submit your design(s) from August 12 through September 5, 2026 – then come back September 6th and vote on your favorite! The top three vote getters will be printed and handed out at the library service desks for the academic year. Winners announced on September 11! HOW TO ENTER 1. GET THE TEMPLATE! You can download the bookmark template or stop by any library location to pick up a printed template sheet! The bookmark is 6 inches by 2 inches, vertical layout, if you want to measure it yourself!) 2. DESIGN! Create your bookmark design! You can draw or collage, go analog or digital – just make it your own! 3. SUBMIT! Upload your design online or drop it off at a library location to enter. Hi-resolution scans are preferred to photos! (If in doubt, drop it off and we can scan it for you.)

♬ Small Change – DON WEST

banner image: Lemieux Library, Seattle University (source)

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black and white photo of Bacon Hall, and large brick building with three main sections, and a large tower in the center

News and announcements 

🤖 Every academic library is struggling with the question of how to approach artificial intelligence, especially within the context of information literacy and research. So I applaud any library that has the fortitude and focus to develop an AI strategy. The Lemieux Library at Seattle University has created “an intentional, structured response to the challenges and opportunities we face in assessing, integrating, using and supporting artificial intelligence.” This statement sits alongside their vision statement, their EDI action plan, and other documents that outline the general mission of the organization. I don’t believe that AI will always always occupy a special place alongside our core strategic documents, but it’s a good place for time being. 

📞 When I was in college, there was a help desk you could call to ask research questions, but that’s not what they were known for. They had a reputation for being able (or at least willing) to answer ANY question you threw at them. So it could be something related to financial aid, or it could be “how many Hummers could I fit inside the football stadium.” Their student staff were trained to diligently try to answer anything. The new “Answer U” service at the J. Willard Marriott Library reminds me somewhat of that: a one-stop shop for college students to get answers to any questions about the college experience. Though maybe not as silly as my experience would suggest, I like this idea of academic libraries functioning (from a service point of view) more like public libraries do for their communities. 

🔋 Now this is cool. Yale Library’s Environmental Monitoring Data Project is gathering data about the display and storage conditions for its cultural heritage collections. The collected data will help the library refine its energy consumption levels. Instead of a using a one-size-fits-all climate system to what amounts to acres of collections storage, the EMDP recognizes that some objects may tolerate less-energy-dependent environments. This project is a university-wide collaboration of conservators, IT experts, and collections and facilities staff.

📝 Rutgers University Libraries is helping researchers make sense of the rapidly evolving intersection of copyright law and generative AI. They provide a practical overview of how countries are approaching AI regulation, highlighting debates over text and data mining exceptions, compulsory licensing, voluntary licensing agreements, and the use of fair use as a legal justification for AI training. As they emphasize, the legal frameworks remain unsettled worldwide, with more than 150 AI-related lawsuits already filed globally, most of those in the U.S.

📚 Ann Glusker from UC Berkeley Library wrote about an oral history project documenting how librarians have adapted to decades of technological and organizational change. The “Librarians Navigating Change” project features interviews with long-serving UC Berkeley librarians, showing how library work evolved alongside changes to information technologies and campus needs. Glusker highlights interesting finds, like a 1991 notebook of training handouts from Berkeley’s Moffitt Library. The collection serves as a time capsule of library services before the web, featuring guides for CD-ROM databases, dial-up catalog access, early online searching, and more. (Hm, I should do digging like this in my own university archives!)

Notable mentions 

On social 

Maybe it’s just because I’m a millennial, but the Tulane University Libraries’s take on the Oregon Trail brought back deep childhood trauma. Consider me overly citation-cautious now. I don’t want to see my name on a tombstone!

Aside from the trends I mentioned in my previous post, AcadLibs were all over the memesphere this month. We had: 

But of all the content this month, it was this post from Hampden-Sydney College Library that made me laugh out loud because… well, it me. I feel the exact same way every time I go into the special collections vault.

@hscbortzlibrary

It’s not everyday that the instruction librarian gets to go into the archives. #archives #trending #library #treasure

♬ original sound –

banner image: “Bacon Library, 1901”, retrieved from Calisphere

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Social media happens so fast. I mean, just a couple weeks ago, none of us had considered that we could be asked to be in a Netflix documentary. So in between the monthly “Recently in Academic Libraries” posts, I pull together regular updates on what AcadLibs are doing on social. Please enjoy these recent highlights.

When I said last month that I had not seen academic libraries rally around a viral trend the way they rallied around the Backrooms in some time, I did not know the Netflix documentary meme was coming. Many libraries did their own takes, but UVU Library, true to their form as the GOAT of all AcadLibs on social, delivered what is, in my opinion, the chef’s kiss of this trend. I’ve watched it a dozen times and it never gets old.

@uvulibrary

Librarians may not know what it’s like to be wrong…but on the rare occasion that we don’t know an answer, we’ll help you find the right information! Whether you’re stuck on a research topic, can’t find a credible source, or are confused by citations, we’ve got you. Make an appointment today via our website, or stop by the first-floor Research Help Desk. #UVU #Library #Documentary #Trend #Academia

♬ original sound – Fulton Library at UVU

If you’re like me, you’ve been living and breathing World Cup for the past month. We’re a few days away from the final match, and libraries have been leveraging the beautiful game to promote policies, spaces, and staff. UT Arlington Libraries used a soccer ball to take a tour of its campus. Riccardo from SJSU Library gave us a tour of the library without dropping the ball! LSU Libraries explained what might get you a red card in the library (though, not off sides). And then the University of Florida Libraries had this banger.

Finally, in the “fun and unique” category, we’ve got William & Mary Libraries asking staff to try and guess how many books they think their colleagues have read this year (oh my goodness, 145 books!!!). A good reminder that asking simple questions to a handful of your colleagues can always make good, low-lift content.

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black and white photo of student back diving off a dock into the water. Other students on the dock with boat in background.

News and announcements 

If, like me, you work at a Jesuit or Catholic institution, everyone has been talking about the Pope’s recent encyclical on artificial intelligence. Seattle University was the first academic library that I noticed to post on the topic. Their first post frames the document as a call to centering human dignity over technological efficiency; and it asks us to think critically about how AI is reshaping education and work. It’s somewhat of an orientation piece. The follow up post explores one of the encyclical’s most poignant themes: “digital slavery,” outlining how AI often relies on hidden labor (e.g., data labeling and moderation), exploits personal data in ways likened to “digital colonialism,” and depends on harmful supply chains for materials like rare earth minerals. We need more critical analysis of AI like this in higher education.

A Duke University Libraries post by two student interns takes us on a deep dive (haha) into their Marine Lab archives, where students have been digitizing materials that capture more than a century of marine science research and campus life. Along the way, they’ve uncovered everything from early 20th‑century studies of crustaceans to mid-century lab bulletins and quirky glimpses of scientific life on the North Carolina coast. Equal parts history lesson and archival adventure, it’s cool to see this type of labor and reflection get surfaced (see what I did there?).

The University of Ottawa and Vanderbilt University have established a new partnership focused on advancing Indigenous digital archives and mobile history research. The collaboration emphasizes Indigenous-led knowledge preservation, prioritizing community engagement, data sovereignty, ethical stewardship, and reciprocal knowledge exchange. The partnership reflects a shared commitment to preserving Indigenous histories and also building long-term, respectful relationships between universities and the communities that build knowledge.

The University of Utah’s Indigenous Storytelling Camp marked its 10th anniversary, having grown from 27 participants to nearly 100 Indigenous middle and high school students from across the region. The week-long program brings students to campus to create stories using various media, e.g. podcasting, photography, mural-making, and animation, while also introducing them to college life and library resources. The library provides makerspace tools, instruction, and a welcoming environment, but it sounds like it’s a truly interdepartmental initiative, bringing together over a dozen campus units. 

Really love this idea: DePaul University Library expanded their collections by purchasing nearly 200 books and 50 vinyl records from local independent businesses, as part of a broader commitment to support the Chicago economy and align with the university’s mission. The program prioritized in-person selection, allowing staff to browse with input from store employees, respond to patron requests, and quickly add materials to the collection (and avoiding long shipping times). The team focused on finding items with local connections, including works by Chicago-based creators.

Notable mentions 

Twelve students standing in front of a mural showing one large female face on left, a tree on the right, with rays of light streaming from it.
  • A conservation study at Northwestern University Libraries analyzes red inks in West African manuscripts.
  • Seton Hall University Libraries has a brief World Cup guide.
  • In another life, this would be my job. UC Davis has a wine writer in residence.
  • And speaking of UC Davis they have a new mural! (seen above)
  • Wake Forest is still helping students critically find, evaluate, and use information, but with AI now in the mix.

Finally, it’s Pride Month! So a number of libraries posted recommended resources on LGBTQ+ collections and research, including: Villanova, Fordham, Loyola Chicago, Seton Hall, Loyola Marymount, Emory, Wayne State, Binghamton, and University of Utah.  

On social

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sully and mike from monsters inc hanging on doors

The raison d’être of library outreach isn’t to get students to attend events. It isn’t to sign them up for our newsletter or get them to follow us on social media. It isn’t even to get them to use library resources [insert pearl clutching]. The goal of library outreach is to start the conversation. It’s a handshake… maybe it becomes a bridge, but at its simplest, it’s an entry point. As an outreach librarian, my role is to build the door, to always keep it open, and (as far as my department’s time and resources permit) to continually find creative ways to build new thresholds for discovery. In the world of Monsters, Inc., I run the door factory (well, as it was at the end of the film with Sully and Mike in charge).

Students arrive at college with varying levels of academic preparation. There are first gen students, international students, students from small private high schools, students from rural communities, transfer students, students coming back to college later in life (as grad students or otherwise), and a dozen other common demographics to which we pay close attention. Regardless of where/when/how they show up, library outreach ensures that students start engaging with the system of scholarly inquiry early enough to be successful. We focus much of our energy on the early weeks, through orientations, resource fairs, open houses, and low-barrier events; but because we know students often wait until the point of need, our work is year-round. Always holding the door open. Always extending our hand.

The library offers early engagement with academic expectations, scholarly terminology, writing and research workflows, and habits that will sustain students for the length of their campus experience. Moreover, the means of that engagement exist in a space that is less intimidating than the classroom but nonetheless structured in ways that go  beyond mere informal support. 

Our work speeds students along their journey towards increased confidence, belonging, and perhaps most important of all: an ability to thrive in a specialized—perhaps even rarified—environment with its own special codes and customs. Library success leads to college success. 

What I’m reading

‘Talk to My A.I. Twin’: Busy Executives Have a New Productivity Hack by Sarah Kessler: We all know where this is going, right? 

No, Artificial Intelligence is Not Conscious by Ted Chiang: “The primary difference between deepfake photos and LLM conversations is that the people who generate the former are deliberately trying to fool others, and many of the people who elicit the latter from LLMs have inadvertently fooled themselves.”

The Shell University by Rory Truex. “If I’ve learned one thing this year, it’s that we need recenter the human part of the university: the student-teacher relationship.” 

If there’s a single takeaway from all these articles, it’s that human connection is going to be the new “value add” for any university, business, or service. The rarity of that experience, in a market that’s surfeited in AI outputs (AIs talking to AIs talking to AIs), is only going to increase its desirability. 

Links to the past

  • 1 year ago: There were more mentions of AI than I remember.
  • 5 years ago: I was doing more gardening than doom-scrolling. Can’t sat the same is true these days.
  • 10 years ago: ““As long as Google has a commercial interest in appearing omniscient, it probably won’t work to improve knowledge panel transparency.” Still true.
  • 15 years ago: Teaching college students how to manage personal information (beyond research needs) is still a worthwhile program to pursue.

Overheard online

“I can definitely walk and chew gum at the same time,” claims my LLM, as it lies bleeding on a pile of unchewed bubblegum. – @hotdogsladies on mastodon

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images of typed letters arranged in a grid

News and announcements 

🪑🥤🖥️ Drexel Libraries hosted a student-curated exhibition of everyday objects from university dorm rooms, “Dorm Objects 101.” Most of the objects on display, photographs, and labels came from about 70 students who took either a “Visual Culture” or “History of Modern Design” class. The university loaned standard-issue furniture to be included as well. Some of the photographs came from greek life scrapbooks and handbooks from the University Archives. What I love most of all, some of the student contributors also served as docents leading tours of the exhibition. 

🤖📚🤔 The “AI Framework” from ZSR Libraries at Wake Forest has to be one of the most thoughtful and insightful policies that I’ve seen come out of an academic library to date. The framework— which includes an Engagement Framework, a Values Statement, and a Guide to Using AI— was the result of an AI Engagement Task Force. As Dean Lauren Pressley writes: “The Values Statement names the foundation. The Framework translates that foundation into eight engagement principles. The Guide takes those principles into the texture of everyday decisions.” 

📚📚📚 The nearly 18,000 books once owned by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Cormac McCarthy are currently being cataloged by University of Tennessee Libraries. McCarthy was a Knoxville native. Processing the collections is expected to take around 10 months, but once it is publicly available, will be an invaluable resource for scholars of McCarthy’s works. Not all the books, however, went to UT Libraries. A couple thousand with annotations went to Texas State University at San Marcos.

📖🪡✂️ The Dartmouth Libraries Book Arts Workshop partnered with a geography professor to design a course in which students create a handmade book about a chosen city. Students used the medium to highlight social justice issues, like redlining and gentrification. This tactile approach increased student engagement with the research. As one student noted, “I had to be more thoughtful and intentional about what I wanted to communicate as a result, and I was conscious to try and design a progression of pages that—whenever possible—show before telling.”

📜🕵️🤖 Now this is a usage of machine learning that I can get behind. The University Libraries at Carnegie Mellon University partnered with their college of humanities and social sciences to create the Catalog of Distinctive Type, a digital resource that helps identify letterpress printers. By digitizing 20,000 individual letters from more than 240 printers in 17th century London, scholars can use machine learning to help identify unique characteristics (like errors in the type) that will help uncover the identity of unattributed works. (sen above)

Notable mentions 

printing plates housed in corrugated box with custom corners holding them in
Housings for Northwestern University Libraries printing plates 

On social 

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John holding an ND filter

This is the last post in a weeklong series offering a snapshot of what a day in the life of an academic librarian, specifically an outreach librarian and department head, looks like. Here was Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, and Day 4.

8:30a: Arrived at work and immediately had to troubleshoot an HR issue regarding student hiring. Once I handed that off to one of my team members to manage, I checked in with the campus children’s center to make sure story time was going ahead as planned (the air quality was almost poor enough to cancel their walk to the library).

9:00a: Because of meetings later in the day, I took advantage of my free morning to go to the gym.

10:00a: Cleaned up my email. Reviewed notes from the latest Faculty Senate meeting. Ordered gifts for my graduating senior student employees. Added an ND filter to my camera equipment inventory (pictured above).

11:00a: The leadership of the library met with the leadership of ITS. There were a number of issues to discuss, including cybersecurity of library systems, printing modernization, AI workshops, and digital assets management.

12:30p: Drafted the agenda for my department meeting on Monday and shared that with my team. More email (I always make sure my email inbox is cleared before the weekend). Emailed a student who won a raffle item by filling out a library survey. More coffee.

1:30p: My son was performing at his school today, so I hopped over to watch that.

2:30p: Went through my students’ project boards (we use Trello) and cleaned up their unassigned tasks, archived their completed work, and prioritized their projects for next week. I also scheduled their end of year performance review meetings.

3:30p: Committee on Committees meeting. We’ve mostly completed assigning all faculty volunteers to open committee seats, but there were a handful of unresolved issues to discuss.

4:30p: For the rest of the day (until about 6:30), I did my “Weekly Review.” I’ve discussed this before, but essentially it’s the time I set aside to review all my notes from the week, capture any action items, plan my priorities for the week ahead, and make it possible for me to go into the weekend without any hanging fire.

6:30p: Done and done. That’s it! If you were along for this whole ride, thanks for sticking around. Maybe I’ll do this again sometime. 

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view of Marina Del Rey from the LMU bluff

We’ve made it to Thursday. This is the fourth in a week-long series of “Day in the Life” posts for those considering a career in academic libraries, specifically working in either outreach or managerial positions. Here was Day 1, Day 2, and Day 3. 

8:30a: Arrive at work. I spent the first 30 minutes trying to film a piece of video content that refused to work the way I envisioned it. This is a sad reality of working in a creative position: sometimes the first four drafts are all complete rubbish. I decided to shelve the idea for a later time. 

9:00a: Scheduled three future meetings: one for a committee, one for a photography shoot with a faculty speaker, and one prepping for the launch of a new digital archive. 

9:30a: Meeting prep (see next item). Coffee.

10:00a: Our library is currently working with a consultant to do some thinking around stakeholder mapping and strategic communications (internal). Two other department heads and I met to brainstorm all the key players on campus and arrange them according to “low/high power” and “low/high interest.” We then went through a series of questions that helped us to articulate the level of influence those stakeholders have vis-a-vis the library. 

12:30p: I had planned to go to a pilates class, but the meeting before ran over so I took a walk around campus instead. Breaked for a lunch. More coffee. 

2:00p: Met with two other colleagues to draft a proposal for an upcoming conference.

3:00p: My two student workers arrived for their shift. We spend the first hour brainstorming a [different from the one this morning] video idea: this one to promote the use of study rooms during finals. It took us a good while to figure out the best format, script, and audio. 

4:00p: Filmed and edited the video. We’ll post it tomorrow.

5:00p: Left work to pick up my son from school and take-out Thai food. 🤤 

6:00p: Spent about 30 minutes catching up on emails and Teams messages I missed throughout the day. 

Because of all the creative and brainstorming work today, it took me longer than usual to wind down. I don’t think I fully shut off until almost 7p. This is one of those days when I come home feeling worn out, but not overly productive. However, I know from experience this is all prelude to something better. It just takes time and a few false starts for some good ideas to fully gel.  

banner image: view from the campus bluff during my walk