>> My name is Jennifer Peterson 
I'll go ahead and get our recording started.
And welcome.
Some of you maybe attended our last session with Kaetrena and Sunnie.
Sunnie is the library director now at WallingFord public library in Connecticut.
And these wonderful folks have been joined by our three additional panelists today Ann Glusker is the social sciences librarian at the university of California and Berkeley.
Lauren Comito is the branch manager at the Brooklyn public library and executive director of urban libraries unite.
And Angelica Rodriguez is the assistant branch manager at the Hartford public library.
The park street library at the Lyric in Connecticut.
Welcome to all of you.
I'm thrilled to have you here.
 I'm going to go ahead and shift us on over to our video only view.
Give me one second here.
And I'm going to go ahead and have us get started by asking each of you to share a little bit more as part of our introduction to get a sense of how you've come to this work.
How did we come to you to share your experience in this area?
And I'm going to go ahead and start with Kaetrena because you have been doing some deep work in this area as folks know in our work in the last session.
So let's go ahead and have you get us started.
Welcome.
>> KAETRENA: Excuse me, thanks so much, Jennifer.
Hi, everyone.
My name is Kaetrena Davis Kendrick.
I'm happy to be talking with you again and delving deeper with our panelists today.
I'm a researcher, leader consultant and coach and that researcher part is how I'm in front of you really.
I've been doing work on low morale and looking at the experience of low morale in library and information science archives, the GLAM field really as I move forward into more slices of the experience since 2016, my first article was published, study was published in 2017.
And since then, I've looked at black indigenous and people of color, their experiences, public librarians, how to lead the experience and how people decide to lead the experience and my most recent study was that published was early this year in Spring on the experience of formal leaders, their experience of low morale.
I'm conflictually excited to continue this work so we can surface the concerns and move forward to improve our workplaces and I'm excited to talk to everyone in conversation.
Thank you.
>> Fantastic.
Thank you so much.
Let's go ahead and Sunnie, we'll move over to you.
I know folks that were at our last session have already been introduced to you.
But let's hear a little bit about how you've come to this work.
>> SUNNIE: Sure well,I started my career in public libraries and have worked my way up.
I started as a volunteer at my local library at the age of 8 and I went to grad school and I worked in urban, suburban, different size libraries, union, non-union, and when I became a department head several years ago, I got really interested in management and leadership which was not particularly on my radar before then.
But I just realized I had moved up and I was really interested in it.
And just started geeking out on management and leadership topics and started speaking a little bit on podcasts and panels about communication.
Managing up and managing down.
And that sort of thing.
So Jennifer sort of found me via one of those opportunities.
And paired me up with Kaetrena and it's been just great to continue -- continue diving in.
So that's me.
>> Fantastic!
Let's jump on over to Lauren.
Let's hear a little bit about how you come to this work.
>> LAUREN: Executive director and one of the founders of urban libraries unite and public library manager at the moment.
We started here and it tended to turn into the war stories where we'd get a double of something, and then just let go of all the things that had happened in the month between the beer and tacos.
And over the years, we started to realize that everybody had sort of their horror work stories of the time when someone had thrown something at them or had pulled a gun on them or those are some of the more egregious examples.
But like I've recently in the last year had someone try to assault me at work.
Try.
It's OK.
I'm good.
And so we started the urban library trauma study and actually applied before COVID for a grant and then COVID happened while we were finishing the proposal.
And then it partly became about like the trauma of working with the public and working through COVID.
But that's pretty much how we came to it was from experiential research and having it be about us and looking for solutions for the problem that we all knew was happening because there was so many beers and tacos.
>> Thank you so much.
We'll hear more about the research Lauren mentioned.
Another person that's been doing research in this area and let's hear a little bit more about how you've come to this work.
>> ANN: Thanks, Jennifer.
So I actually worked for five years at a public library in Seattle but then became an academic librarian and eventually I landed at U.C. 
Berkeley.
And I had a colleague there who had been a staff person and later became a librarian.
And she and I loved Kaetrena's work and so excited by it.
But we did think to ourselves, well, what would happen if you kind of applied the same questions to the lives of library staff?
And so we decided to go ahead and research it and we added two people to our team.
And between the four of us, we interviewed 34 academic library staff people nationwide.
And it was such a rich experience.
People were so generous.
We were not really focusing on low morale in particular.
So we did speak to people with all levels of morale.
But we just got so many ideas about how we can sort of help people and suggestions for organizations and people to work on this very important issue.
So that's why I'm here today.
Thank you for having me.
>> Fantastic.
And Angelica, let's hear a little bit about how you've come to this work.
>> ANGELICA: Hello, everyone.
So as a child, my mom who was --
or is still a Spanish speaker would take me to our local library branch where she would take us to children's programming and years later, she'd bought home an application to work for the summer.
And I applied and I got my first summer gig at the age of 14, I understood the importance of how vital libraries are.
And I wanted to be part of helping the communities that look like my moms, single mom, only Spanish speakers, no type of tech experience.
And I just knew the importance.
And I've been with Harper public library since the age of 14.
And I have worked in many different positions, part time.
I was one of the first employees hired for new media.
I'm sure you are aware of that.
So I worked with teenagers, adults, children and now I'm an assistant branch manager at the Park Street location where majority is Spanish speakers so full circle.
>> Fantastic.
Yeah, and I think Angelica, you definitely bring a view across all those different roles that we're going to be touching on today.
So it's really great to have you here.
All right.
Let's shift over here.
I know that we, for some of you that joined a little early, we had put out a question, an initial question for you all.
I'll put into chat again.
We were asking about some of the communication challenges you all face when dealing with low morale and turnout.
Or burnout, sorry.
So I know that there have been a number of responses already coming in, Kaetrena, do you want to jump in with some of what you saw come through?
>> KAETRENA: I'm writing things down and taking broad notes about what everybody is talking about.
We asked everybody a question as you showed up today.
I'll repeat it here in case you aren't able to scroll back up.
We asked the group, what are some communication challenges you face when dealing with low morale and burnout?
I've been doing some scrolling and see some frameworks here.
Not just that we're having trouble literally communicating, there are some barriers culturally with just talking because of emotions, right, I see anger, lack of trust.
I see overwhelmed.
OK.
I see not being able to say what one needs which is a part of burnout and overwhelm when you know you want something, but if someone asks you, there are a couple of things that can jump in.
One, oh, they're asking me.
What do I want?
Hmmm.
And there's the other piece that I see here is I know what I want but I don't trust to know that if you'll listen.
Or if you'll act on it.

Does anyone in the panel see other things they'd like to comment on when you go through the responses?
>> SUNNIE: There are a few that have to do with practicalities and logistics working very part time.
Part timers maybe don't have to work E-Mails and difficulty of getting everyone together at the same time.
Different comfort with technology, maybe checking with E-Mails, that type of thing.
So there is a small logistics aspect as well.
>> KAETRENA: I see some nods to power, a person says and in conjunction with psychological safety, there's an actual power dynamic.
A person is saying in mediation, the mediator establishes the ground rules.
So there's a power dynamic so if a mediator is the one establishing the ground rules, those ground rules may hinder the way that the person who needs to communicate would like to communicate and the message that needs to come through might not get through.
There is some -- there is some calls to have mediation, I think that conflict resolution skills are great.
But that might -- every tool that we use has its own up and down, right?
Yeah.
Anything else here?
I think I want to, as you continue -- if you all would continue putting in to that initial question, I'm going to add a layer here.
What do you think of when you hear the term or the idea concept assertive communication?
What do you hear?
What does that mean for you?
And I'll start with this.
I might do a little two-parter.
But for now, we'll give you a few moments.
What does assertive communication mean?
When it comes to talking with folks.
Ooh, speaking up to power.
Nice.
Nice.
That's really great when we think about mediation conversation, right, because mediation, is it really?
Maybe, maybe not.
I don't know.
Let's see what else.
>> LAUREN: Trying to speak up in a way that the other person needs to hear it.
I think sometimes we talk past each other because we have specific communicate styles.
I'm very direct.
People hear undertones in my speech that aren't there.
It's just what I'm saying.
That's not something people believe me, you know, so you end up missing out on a couple of things.
>> ANN: There could be cultural aspects to that, too.
My mother is English and you just direct is not the way.
>> LAUREN: No!
>> ANN: I very much appreciate it.
But sensitivity to the other person's style is another.
>> KAETRENA:  Reducing room for objections.
Interesting.
The person that wrote that, if you would care to share what that -- share a little bit more about that, that assertive communication means reducing room for objections.
I'd love to hear more.
That's an interesting one.
If you'd like.
Not using gossip as a global communication strategy.
Ouch!
I want to ask the question on that.
Is gossip a survival mechanism for people dealing with low morale?
Which is neglect at work.
I'm going to put that on the floor.
Going to put that on the floor.
All right.
>> LAUREN: Whisper network.
>> KAETRENA: There's a recent article talking about the positive impacts, too.
Yeah.
>> LAUREN: Yeah, I mean, there's at least one person in my library sphere who is handsy and who is that going to be.
Gossip is the one that is going to tell us.
Somebody is going to be like this guy.
You know?
>> KAETRENA: This is the person.
I see some polite and respectful.
The word polite means different things in the south, polite means something else that it doesn't mean in New York.
What does that mean when we have our cross, you know, different folks coming, working together?
Transferring from library to library.
Some really good things.
If something is not communicated, gossip is what they will go to.
OK.
So that's a great thing for being psychologically safe and a great communication parameter.
That we want to think about.
Particularly those of us in formal leadership roles when we're often waiting for someone else to tell us when to talk.
That can be tricky.
It's a 432 folks in here, you all.
Let's see.
>> Couple of reminders about that, we are going to be using chat, obviously to gather your thoughts and questions and comments so it's going to be a busy place.
But also, we are mindful that some of you maybe don't feel comfortable posting either because it's associated with your name, so here in this environment, you can either privately chat to me, you can also leave and return and put anything you want in that name field.
It's associated with your E-Mail to log in.
And then when we post the chat later on today, we are going to remove everybody's name.
So just know that we'd love to gather all this input.
We want to make it safe place for folks.
>> KAETRENA: It sounds like there's a touch point here with gossip.
So we really appreciate that.
And as a person who is studying low morale, I have two views on gossip.
One is it is an abusive technique that abusers will use through the -- through the lines of something we call mean girls.
That's also called relational aggression so it can be used as an abuse tactic like a literal abuse or bully mobbing tactic through social networks.
And also, it can be used as a survival network against known abusers in a dysfunctional toxic workplace or environment.
So I see this -- and then also, there's this third sphere where it can be used positively like I mentioned earlier.
I'll see if I can get that so through the resources that I bring that to the group for you to look at after our time together.
So I just want to acknowledge there seems to be a touch point.
Is gossip, though, assertive communication?
Which was the original question.
Is that a definition of assertive communication?
Is gossip communicating assertively or is it something else?
How spicy is the gossip?
Stop it.
Yeah, gossip is passive, right, the person who needs to know might not know.
The person that we really want to talk to is usually out of the picture.
So hold on to those thoughts right now because we're going to talk about some of that here and some barriers to assertive communication outside of power dynamics.
There's some other larger spheres that come along with low morale and burnout.
Why assertive communication can be difficult.
So I'll share with you right now.
We'll go ahead and talk about some assertive communication and I'll share with you some markers of assertive communication.
So when I think of communication that is assertive, it is nonhierarchical.
It is nonhierarchical.
I can talk to the president of my organization and tell them my boundary the same way I can talk to my 8-year-old son.
You're not going to -- my son says something to me.
I'm going to walk away if you keep talking to me like that.
We're not having a conversation with that tone.
Right?
I might say tone with him.
Might not say it to the president.
I can't continue to stay here.
I have to set up another meeting with you if we continue in this way.
I'm not saying I'm not meeting with him.
I'm telling you what I'm going to do.
I'll set up another meeting with you another time.
Boundaries.
Someone said boundaries.
But it's also nonhierarchical.
And oftentimes we talk about that power dynamic.
Assertive communication cancels out the power dynamic which lets a person know that no matter who they are you have a boundary that no one can cross.
So boundaries are the best form.
Someone says it right here, yes, the best form, the first form and I don't see it as self-care.
I see it as a self-preservation tool is beyond self-care.
This is self-preservation.
It's something that you use in a moment when someone is abusing you or neglecting you.
Another thing about assertive communication, there's some characteristics.
One is I try not to assume bad intent.
That often disarms a bully right away because they're looking for a reaction.
Bullies like reactions.
They need dopamine.
That's one of the ways -- 
whatever the motivation for their dopamine, one of them is they need a reaction from the person they're abusing.
So I assume good intent and inadvertent mistakes.
It keeps my emotional self regulated where I don't have to tell stories about what somebody may or may not be doing.
That's a very helpful thing.
Another thing is I know what I want.
I try to say it very clearly.
I need so and so at this time.
And to Lauren's point they might seem very direct.
However, I believe in clearness and kindness.
Renee Brown said kind is clear, clear is kind.
I would like so and so what you're able to do and let's work together to get that done.
Or find out why we're not getting that done.
This is what I need.
Other thing is I try to find out what the other person needs.
How can I support you?
What do you need?
So now, we're not having conversations that seem personal.
We need to get something done.
I need something done.
You need something done.
Let's support each other.
So and the other thing when I'm practicing on the floor when I was working at libraries, I try not to say no.
I let people let them know what they cannot do but I rarely say no.
So I like inverse things.
Hi, welcome in.
Let me show you where you can eat.
I'm not going to say you can't eat because people need to eat and there's always a place in our spaces where someone can eat.
What I don't do -- again, I'm not assuming that they knew and they were just trying to make me upset.
I'm assuming inadvertent mistake.
Let me show where you can eat and place your things for safety.
At 6:00 is when you can sit in this room.
OK?
Any questions?
So those are some things we can think about.
Can you think about some other markers now that I've joined?
Anybody in the panel like to join in and share when you've joined in assertive communication, what that looks like for you?
>> LAUREN: I would say sometimes I don't jump right into assertive communication.
Some people need to be eased into talking about things that make them uncomfortable.
So like we'll get to the point where I'm saying, this is what I need you to do.
But we can start with, how are you feeling?
And, you know, talk them through until they get to the point where they can handle the assertive communication because if you don't, then sometimes people get defensive.
Particularly around the topics I'm working in like trauma, asking people to, you know, come help me deescalate situations that we know are going to be a problem.
And sort of give -- bringing them along to the point where they can talk.
Sometimes I don't do that right.
Sometimes I forget that I have to.
But like, you know, that's really important.
That's what I meant when I said like talking to people the way they need to be spoken to.
>> KAETRENA: I like that, Lauren and also speaks to this idea of collective care and mutual aid, remembering that people are bringing things that we don't know about to situations and behaviors.
So I really appreciate that.
Thank you.
Anyone else care to jump in?
>> SUNNIE: Yeah, I'm really mindful and careful about being proactive in my communication.
So like the proactive communication and I'm making sure that I'm, you know, now I'm a library director.
And so I have direct reports.
And so I'm making sure that I have on my calendar standing meetings with them that we're checking in and I'm hearing from them when things are not urgent.
I talk to them every day.
But generally, you know how it is with library work.
We're putting out fires.
There's always something urgent and always something with a deadline.

So I carve out this time and we put it on our calendars when we can sit down and say to them, you know, what non-urgent work topics would you like to talk about for 45 minutes?
And having those standing meetings has made it easier when difficult situations do come up that require different type of conversation because that's not the only time I'm talking to them, you know.
We all know we don't want the only time we're talking to patrons or only time we're talking to our direct reports to be when something is wrong.
You want to have built up good communication and trusted communication.
We have those conversations and that information is not divulged to anyone else.
So when something happens where they really need to trust me, we have already built that up.
They know that I'm going to be discrete.
They know that I'm going to be trustworthy because we've been proactive in that way.
>> KAETRENA: I appreciate that, too, because what you're also mentioning, too, and showing here is the transparency in leadership, right?
Because my thought earlier in the comments that someone was saying, you know, when I ask my direct reports what kind of communication do they want?
They don't have an answer.
And so maybe this is the strategy if you have the capacity to broaden out more regular communication, that is non-urgent, that sometimes even feels like there's not a purpose to meet."
It doesn't have always to be a purpose to meet, perhaps, we circle back and start just meeting once a week over coffee for 1 is 5 minutes and work our way up so we don't get to that crisis only.
And I think also it shows transparency and leadership.
One thing in my leadership study shows that people might not know what leadership in libraries are and how to communicate to be transparent and other ways to get that done in daily work.
Anybody care to talk about that?
, yes, Ann?
>> ANN: I would love to touch on what the both of you have said and say that I'm definitely a person that comes up with what I wish I had said after the fact.
So I really like the idea of regular meetings because you just automatically can say what you should have said after the fact.
But I also have been trying to be better about thinking through the thing, and then getting back to the person and saying I've been thinking about our conversation and I wonder if we could revisit it or I wonder if I could add a few things.
And another thing is, I know we've talked about this, too, if you're in the situation where there's bullying or toxicity, you may not be able to think of the thing in the moment because you're sort of frozen.
So to just kind of unlock our voices and not feel like the conversation that didn't go well from your point of view has to be the last word.
>> KAETRENA: There's a question for you, it looks like, does Sunnie start with an open ended question or outpouring sharing of information?
How does Sunnie foster open trust communication?
>> SUNNIE: I started those meetings with the question literally what non-urgent work topics do you want to talk about today?
And it starts like that.
And at my past library, I had four direct reports.
And each one of those meetings would be vastly different.
And folks could use -- they had that time with me.
And they could use it the way they wanted to.
So some folks came at that point, it was every other month.
And some folks came with a list of topics.
These are the things that have come up since the last time we met that I want to pick your brain about.
Sometimes, nothing would come up and then, I would just ask questions like OK, well, how are you feeling about the staffing in your department?
How is everyone doing?
How are you feeling about programming right now?
How is that feeling?
Have you had any difficult patron interactions, you know?
So I can start conversation if they don't come with something.
And then sometimes, things would come up during the meetings that I would need to take notes on.
Maybe they brought something up that I could help with, follow-up is one of the ways that you do build trust.
So the -- what happens in between those meetings is just as important as what happens in those meetings.
So whatever they say to me, I have to make sure that no one else hears about it unless, you know, consent has been given to share.
And then if there were things that came up that I had promised to help with like, you know, I'll help you find professional development for this thing that you want to learn more about or I'm going to see if we should revise our policies in a way that would mitigate this difficult experience you're having.
Then in between before our next meeting, I need to be making movement and be making progress and updating them on that.
Even if the update is I looked into it and we can't do it.
I need to be getting back to them about it.
That builds a lot of trust.
And one thing I'll say is because I, you know, I know I'm a leader.
Not everyone has a leader who is going to be proactive about these kinds of things.
But I have coached and mentored folks and said to them, you go to your supervisor and be proactive, you know.
Tell them that you went to this great panel discussion from webjunction and heard this great idea.
And you tell your supervisor, you want to have a standing meeting.
Find out what kind of frequency and duration works in their schedule.
I know everybody is different.
Mine were an hour every other month.
Maybe they have maybe 15 minutes every other week would be better for them, you know.
But you can be proactive at any level.
>> That was going to be my question actually was how if you aren't a leader or have that authority in your organization, how, you know, as a public facing staff member knowing that you would like that weekly conversation or, you know, monthly conversation or however, so I think that's a really great reminder.
Anyone else have thoughts -- 
Angelica, I don't know if you --
I mean, hopefully you've had situations where those structures are in place but I don't know if you have any thoughts about how you might go to your superior to ask for that opportunity.
And then people are raising in chat the challenge of imbalance that if some people maybe have that relationship and had those meetings regularly, you know, how can you create that structure?
But I love Sunnie's idea -- we love it when people use our webjunction learning as a way to bring that conversation to your team, to your organization so please don't hesitate to say that.
I heard in a Webinar this is a great way to do this regularly, you know, please do.
Do you have thoughts on that?
>> ANGELICA: I agree with all the STAMTHS that you've bin saying, all you ladies.
Sunnie, I love that you did just mention like ask.
Like that's the first step, right?
You won't know until you ask.
And I'm sure there has been instances, right, that you have asked and it has been turned down.
But I would say keep going.
Like keep asking until you get that time or you get whatever you fleed to express, right?
Even if it's through an E-Mail, right?
But asking for that meeting.
I know it's hard for me to carve the time because of like the branch I'm at and because of there's only so many hours in a day.
But even if it's not a formal meeting, I do try to just keep an open door, right.
My staff knows that if there's something that they need to tell me about or there's an issue, even if it's not an issue they can come to me and I make sure that they know that I'm listening and that whatever issue it is that they can come to me.
And if I don't know the answer, I'm going to figure it out and find out even if I have to go to someone else but yeah, asking.
Ask.
>> KAETRENA: I wanted to mention.
Go ahead.
>> You go ahead.
>> KAETRENA: One of the things that I wanted to mention is I was talking with a group earlier this week while preparing for our time together today, and I'm completing the COVID-19 data collection project that I've been working on since March of 2020 and one of the things that comes out of that is when people don't hear from their leaders, it's much better for leaders even if they don't know what to say to come out and say.
I don't have any information at this time.
And that's what comes out of COVID-19 that I hope that formal leaders, Sunnie does this already.
She just explained.
She does that already.
So that should be come out.
Any day.
Not just in a crisis.
But even do day to day.
You know the budget cycle which happens annually, you know, fiscal year cycle, for instance, when it takes a while for our legislature and municipalities and politicians and governments to finalize the numbers, right?
I don't have anymore information, everybody, I'm still waiting like you are.
I promise you, I have no more information.
The reason I am not talking is because I don't have anything to share with you at this time.
And that will cancel that -- it will mitigate -- it never stops because there's always a skeptic, right, there's always, as long as there's not a solid answer, there's wonder.
However, out of that COVID-19, people would have appreciated a leader saying or reminding everybody, for instance, none of us have ever been in a pandemic, everybody.
I'm reacting like you.
That didn't happen because leaders are taught to be quiet.
We literally think that means don't say anything.
I want to put that on the floor.
Even saying I don't know.
I have no information.
I'm waiting like you, so on and so forth.
That's really helpful.
>> LAUREN: I'm laughing because we had weekly Zoom staff meetings just we called them the is everyone alive meetings?
We'd talk for 15 minutes and the last thing on the agenda was questions Lauren can't answer.
Just whatever.
Ask me anything.
I don't have answers.
I don't know.
>> KAETRENA: My first pandemic.
Hopefully my last.
>> LAUREN: When are we going back?
I don't know.
We'll see next Monday regardless.
>> KAETRENA: Yeah.
Someone says I find it is important to admit to my staff that I don't have the answer.
And I would say I just find it important not to admit but to say because we don't have all the answers and librarians want to have answers.
We really want to have the answers.
But I don't know if it's an admission SWCHS a human state of I don't know.
I don't know.
>> SUNNIE: I think this relates to one of the other themes that you were seeing in the chat is that a lot of folks feel that when they do bring things up to their supervisors or administration there's a lot of defensiveness.
I think that defensiveness comes from leaders who have misunderstood their role and think they always have to have the answer.
They're always supposed to know the right answer.
They're always supposed to be the smartest person in the room.
And that if they are not, then they're doing it wrong.
They're not a good leader.
They get that defensiveness.
And I think we need -- all need to understand that leaders are not always the smartest person in the room and not always the one with the right answer and all the information.
It's a role and each leader is a human being with strengths and weaknesses.
And I work to assemble a team that together represents a variety of perspectives.
And sometimes, you know, the part timer who works at the borrowing desk is the one that has the right answer or the best creative solution to a problem.
And my role is to organize us so that the best answers can come to the top for the best things done for the organization.
So yeah, you're right.
We don't need to admit we don't have the answer if we need to communicate that we don't have all the answers.
And go from there.
And if we could take down that layer of defensiveness, it would solve a myriad of communication problems, wouldn't it?
>> KAETRENA: Really would.
That's my favorite response as a formal leader.
I don't know.
Let me go check.
Let me go find out.
I think it's so and so.
Let me go see.
Let me go see.
It was very rare, I don't know.
I mean, I don't know.
I started my position in the pandemic like in July so literally a lot of my answers were I don't know.
Let me go think!
But this is a great opportunity to talk about that staff that spent the best person might be the person who doesn't have the title, I want to move on to roles and structures recognizing different library types, some libraries have unions.
We have public facing staff.
We have leaders who have titles and way more leaders who don't have titles working in libraries.
You know how I feel about that.
There's stigma surrounding the credential of the library worker and all of that.
And how -- and we recognize, too, library school did not prepare us for Narcan, right, did not prepare us for a pandemic.
It barely prepared us for information literacy conversations but that's another conversation.
I get it.
But what we say, what we know is there's a wide swath of what we're exposed to in library school.
We can all agree there.
So I want to start and, you know, you've been talking about this idea through staffing differences in staff and power dynamics there.
Can you talk a little bit about what you've learned and how those staff roles blur and overlap?
Things like that and how it connects to what we're talking about today?
>> ANN: Yes, I'd be happy to.
So I think there's a lot of people here and we're all in different places in our organizations and our organizations have different structures and hierarchies.
But in general, for staff, in the research we did, the people we talked about, we heard a lot about staff being regarded as less than librarians.
And some of that was kind of like baked into the organization.
But some of it was interpersonal with librarians not respecting the expertise and the many responsibilities of staff, often staff are themselves supervisors and the librarians weren't.
And so, the article we wrote.
The title actually is "viewed as equals" and came from a quote by a staff person who said so much would be different if I felt viewed as an equal.
And the anecdote she gave was that she's sitting there, minding her own business, and a librarian walked over to her and said, the copier is out of paper.
And she thought, this is not my job.
And you can do that.
But in the librarian's mind, it was a lesser thing and it should be asked of a lesser person and so our first rule is fill your own darn copier tray.
That's kind of like basic.
And organizations also embed some of these things.
So there's a lot of blur in between librarian and staff roles and it's not recognized as crossover.
I have not heard a lot in the reading that I've done about cross training librarians to do a variety of roles.
I'm sure that happens, though, in smaller libraries.
In larger libraries not so much.
So often, we librarians do not know what staff do.
Another example is professional development.
Why is there an assumption that staff would not want to develop professionally in the same kind of avenues and directions as librarians?
They're certainly often not given funding or time to do that.
I feel that needs to be changed.
Equity and pay and wages, that's a whole another discussion.
But I think one thing to sort of come to in the end is that each one of us, no matter what the messages are that we're getting from our organization, needs to view ourselves as equal because we are.
It's exactly what you were saying earlier, Kaetrena, the messaging is so strong but we have to each of us that's here today and I'm including myself, think about what we can do as individual people to start changing the cultures SOSHT of WURN person at a time and I think we'll talk a lot more about supports for that in the course of the Webinar today.
>> KAETRENA: Angelica, I know you mentioned you started at the branch where you are when you were quite young.
Are you able to -- would you share what have you seen in those -- in those differences as you moved up through the ranks.
In terms of how people were treated, librarians vs. Non credentials librarians.
Were there things that you noted or observed that you would like to talk about today?
>> ANGELICA: Sure.
So when I started, like the title the librarian, right, there were more what they call branch managers, right.
So more like outreach librarians, I would say.
But I'm sorry.
From when I started -- so the first librarian that I had experience with was my local librarian who helped my mom with services like gardening and he would have reading programs before school and what not.
But as someone that doesn't have her MLIS, right, I know that I had the same skills as someone that did go to school, right?
And I'm thankful that Harper public library has seen that.
And I think it's important that we empower our staff to not just think of themselves like OK, you're not a professional because you don't have that degree.
You don't have that MLIS and because we're doing the same type of work, right?
People that are public facing are doing the same type of work.
And sometimes, they do it longer periods of time than someone that is running a branch, right, because they have other things to tend to.
So I definitely see the importance of listening to your staff members and taking their advice or just their opinions on things especially if they're the ones that are usually at the front desk meeting with the public and with all these issues.
But, yeah.
>> SUNNIE: That's a really, really good point, Angelica.
Public facing staff, many of whom do not have degrees, have information that a lot of times like I'm in an office away from the patrons now.
I need the information of what is going on, and we have to make sure you get it and ask you, you have -- you had before you had that -- your current title, you had expertise that was needed and valuable.
And that needs to be acknowledged and asked for.
>> ANGELICA: Yeah, I think that's what a lot of times, like the distance, right?
They're not doing the public facing work and they're expecting, right, X, Y and Z, they're not the ones feeling that burnout or feeling that, you know, they're not experiencing those struggles that staff are experiencing with, right, the life struggles that people come into the library with.
So it's important to acknowledge that public staff are just as important, right, they're the ones that keep the ball rolling and keep the paper in the copier, right.
Like all the small things.
All the small things are important.
They keep everything going.
>> KAETRENA: And academic libraries, too, when I -- I used to work in a very -- I worked in a large metropolitan where, you know, it was definitely the librarians and the staff.
And then also, in a library where it was me and another librarian and we were the only ones doing it.
And so one of the things that I can say is at any place where there's staff, though, where there's a sort of staff describation, staff librarian, it is generally the people who are staff, human resources that have been in the library the longest, who know the most about the facility.
They know why the light switch isn't working.
Just how to jiggle it, you know, whatever the thing is, they truly keep the library running and when the librarians are away at their conferences and such, they are, keeping that library going so the librarians can do their conferencing.
Whatever the thing as academic librarians do when we're away.
I think it's really important.
And not only are the staff doing the work of the librarians and in the librarians' absence, they're making sure the facility is running and they know how the facility runs.
They know where the items are.
And we really want to be making sure that the striations are not assumed, you know, people deserve respect.
So thank you.
>> I want to note that folks are identifying that it is helpful to have clearly defined roles and, you know, who the accountability for certain roles or jobs or tasks of, I think, again the conversation making sure that people understand and there's clarity around those is certainly important and just as we are talking more and more about using our communities to lead our planning, I think using our staff to lead our planning, people are saying the staff are the ones that have direct experience around implementing policies so making sure that you're integrating your staff in defining those policies.
So I'm just a big fan of community led or staff led engagement for sure.
>> KAETRENA: Does anyone have any questions that they want to offer through the chat?
Ann, is there a question that you would give to the folks in the chat for them to consider when they're thinking about -- 
>> ANN: I'd love to hear people a sense to make them think they can approach situations like an equal, how to sort of look at the hierarchy and see your place in the hierarchy and think, nevertheless, even though the organization is telling me I'm in this place, I want to achieve this thing or I think this thing will be good for our patrons.
How you approach that kind of conversation with someone.
This feeling that you have some agency is really good for morale, sort of feel like, OK, even if my organization feels toxic or I'm in a hierarchy level that should not be allowed to say this thing, I can take some action.
I am equal.
>> KAETRENA: I can't help but thinking even though I'm not sure -- this is a place where we can lead -- I believe in leadership without a title.
And so if someone is making you feel unequal, you feel free to reassert yourself that, you know, like Ann said, I don't do that or let me show you where you can get the paper so next time you do it.
You do the thing.
You know?
Let's go together.
Again, that goes back to that assertive communication of not assuming even if that person is assuming we can take them out of assuming MALcontent, let's go together to finaled the pens or what have you.
Let me show you where that is and that way we're making our people self-sufficient, too, and I can stay at this desk and work with person I was working with when you told me to get the tape or whatever.

Yeah.
All right.
I wanted to think about some frameworks.
I think this is a good place to really quickly jump into the barriers to assertive communication and those frameworks and going back to some of the things that I saw earlier when we ask, you know, your ideas of communication, what gets in the way?
Staffing and employment?
Is an enabling system of, you know, I don't have time, right.
I don't have time to go talk.
Don't have enough staff to do all the meetings.
Another one I saw is various areas of library nice where we have performance of niceness and make sure we're not walking around harming people or hurting their feelings but we are worried about the possibility maybe kind of sort of, we might hurt someone's feelings so it's better not to say anything or to be passive aggressive or just let it slide.
Library nice is also privileging performances of niceness over having difficult conversations.
So if you can't have a difficult conversation because you're really, really concerned if someone might be angry with you, the problem won't resolve.
Burnout.
That goes, again, that's connected to the over-- the staffing problem, usually understaffing.
And the burnout usually is also connected to vocational, I saw a little bit of it in there, something is wrong and I have to fix it.
If nobody else fixes it, I'm a bad librarian instead of letting the person who is supposed to give you the stuff to mix it, fix it.
So not taking your lunches, you know, doing what someone says but you can show the value even though it's clearly outside of your scope of your work.
And then psychological safety.
So these are some barriers, right, and all of that connects back to knowing what we want and feeling empowered, whether or not a system gives us power, taking our humaneness back because a system and organization may not be thinking about humanity.
You keep your humanitarian and remind people that you're human.
That's through the lens of one of the places that you can do that is assertive communication.
And also, even there's other things, too, and I want to circle now to let's talk about the role of trauma.
And if we're going to talk about low morale, low morale is a trauma, it's trauma.
It's abuse and neglect over long period of time at your workplace.
So Lauren, I want to start with you.
Can you talk about the urban libraries?
And you talked about beers and tacos.
Can you talk about the 2022 urban library trauma study?
>> LAUREN: Yeah, so we -- I don't know if I have so many academic librarians on here.
As a group, most of librarians unite is public librarians, public facing public librarians.
And as we started looking at the issues around trauma, like one of my colleagues was assaulted sort of not really the poor kid was developmentally disabled and could not make that decision really.
But still assaulted.
And we started looking at the research around trauma in libraries and it always ended with, you know, a survey and someone should do something.
About this.
With no actual solutions or anything happening after the study or after the article was published.
So as a group of, you know, public facing staff, we decided to try to do a research study that was based on our experiences.
The experiences of other public facing staff from all levels of an institution.
We worked really hard to try to get a custodian into the forum.
We couldn't manage that.
We could get some security officers.
We got social workers, clerical librarians, branch managers, directors and that went OK.
And so we worked to try to come up with solutions and what we found was that almost everyone who answered our study had some sort of experience of trauma either witnessing something, having something happen to them, secondary trauma from hearing sort of the horrible experiences of their patrons and trying to like, say, find housing for someone who can't find housing.
Recently I listened to someone's story of their trip through the gap and wish I didn't understand as much Spanish as I did because I want to unhear it so badly!
But we all absorb that stuff.
And then we go into these places where we're all supposed to be like the best, you know, we're supposed to serve the public at the cost of ourselves.
We don't even talk about the things that have happened to us, you know?
We don't acknowledge the issues.
We get assaulted and then go back to the desk, you know, and that is the issue.
Because we can't fix the outside world.
Like we can't put society back together through the library, you know, we can try.
We can be helpful.
We can be a part of it.
We can't make it stop.
What we can do is take care of people inside I'm seeing some comments here about sort of, you know, experiencing violence and then having somebody have a reaction to that didn't feel appropriate to them.
We all have different responses.
And one of the things that we found is that we don't talk about it.
Even in the same way or in any way at all, you know.
If something happens, maybe somebody should ask if you're all right and if that doesn't happen, often, administrative responses is based on a legalistic liability framework further traumatize front line staff members but also, management has to hear these stories and absorb them and experience that secondary trauma as well.
So they're also having trauma responses while trying to protect the institution and basically, we just all have to try to be nicer to each other.
Which is a terrible and unspecific thing to say.
>> KAETRENA: Can you talk a little bit about the trauma cycle that you talk about in the -- there's some comments in the chat.
And I want to make sure that people know that we understand and there are lots of -- there are lots of individual pieces to everyone's situation.
And we want you to know what might be happening to you, where you are and you can identify where you are.
And then that can give us some -- get them further down to some recovery if that's possible.
>> LAUREN: Yeah.
So one of the things that we found through our survey, the focus groups was the recurring cycle of trauma in libraries.
So you would start with having an event.
So let's say in my case, having someone try to get at me and the custodian.
He's a regular and hope he got his meds.
I'm OK now.
I have therapy.
That's what therapy is for.
You start with that event and then you sort of -- you can see the link here.
It's a really cool diagram, because I can't re-create it.
But you start with the event and then you sort of move down into the professional community response.
You know, how do your colleagues at the desk help you?
Or not?
How does your administration respond?
Or not?
Is it helpful or is it hurtful, right?
Like at some point, you get a response from your colleagues that is hey, that was a horrible thing that this happened.
Sit down and maybe we'll cover you for the rest of the day.
And you might not move on through the rest of the cycle which is individualization basically like sort of internalization where, you know, say you get a bad response, then you go into the, well, it's just me.
I'm alone.
This is my fault.
And you can let that point interrupt the cycle by, say, having a therapy, going to the EAP and this is helpful and that's OK.
Talking to a colleague.
Who is supportive.
Talking to your family.
Having a conversation.
Letting processing the thing that happened.
So that you don't carry it with you because if we don't process it there, needing different support, still carrying it with you.
You go into the next adverse experience, carrying the thing that just happened and it just keeps going.
Which isn't great because it builds, right?
So you'll have one bad experience, won't fully process it before the next one and then maybe the next one you say something dumb like I'm happy to accommodate your disability but not going to accommodate your nasty attitude to the guy that doesn't want to wear a mask and coming at you threatingly because you didn't handle the last experience really well.
Although I was really happy that I remembered that I meant to say that.
I was writing up the trauma cycle when I experienced like two events right next to each other and didn't process the first one and like oh, this is real.
I just did it.
I laugh because it's the only way I can do it.
It's not actually funny.
But, you know, it's sort of happens.
But there are solutions to it.
And one of the things is giving people breaks.
Stepping up, and asking if they're OK.
Letting people take a long lunch.
Sending them home.
If something happens.
And remembering, I think, sometimes that nobody wants to be cruel within our profession.
I don't think any of us want to be mean to each other.
We're just all dealing with so much stuff that we aren't always able to be fully human to each other the way we want to be.
>> SUNNIE: Uh-huh.
Kaetrena, I know you have a question you're going to ask folks about this.
So I think -- I feel like now is a good time to acknowledge that sometimes, the trauma that happens to you is based on patron interactions or interaction with your manager and you have a toxic co-worker.
>> LAUREN: 28% of our respondents say they have experienced aggressive or violent behavior from their co-workers.
That's 20 something% said that.
68% said from patrons.
>> KAETRENA: We're tracking.
>> LAUREN: Almost 30.
That's -- and I've had that experience.
Which is insane.
>> KAETRENA: Yeah.
>> LAUREN: Colleague backing me into a corner screaming at me because I let a kid get a book after the room was supposed to be closed.
That's not OK either.
So we need a culture shift.
>> Can we talk a little bit about -- there are folks.
I actually got a message from someone privately that explained their situation where they have a new dean who they believe has fares cystic issues and at first they thought it was a form of micromanagement but concluded the person lacks any leadership or management skills constantly creates chaos.
They alone can fix it.
Keep creating the chaos.
And the staff have really worn down and said that when that person is in the office, people hide and close their doors.
And are afraid to come out.
And when they're not there, their doors are open and they're able to collaborate.
We know that -- we know that this happens a lot.
But can you all talk about suggestions you might have for how folks can deal with these situations?
>> KAETRENA: Say the word dean, it sounds like this is an academic library.
Where there's a dean, I hope people have faculty status and they can go to faculty, the head of faculty senate to a meeting, just the head of faculty organization and discuss what can be done in terms of faculty arrangements.
Or faculty parameters for no confidence vote for the dean.
But that would have to be a confidential conversation and you have to see if it's available to you as a faculty member, right?
>> ANN: I've been in academic settings and had these issues and the answer there may apply to all library types.
We had to ban together every single person.
>> KAETRENA: Every person has to come.
>> ANN: It took a lot of bravery for some people who did not want to be identified with that conversation.
But until it was strongly felt and I believe true that until every single person was in the room saying this is unsustainable.
It would not be listened to.
>> KAETRENA: Document, document, document.
>> ANN: People leave.
People leave.
>> KAETRENA: Document.
>> ANN: What's the common denominator?
>> KAETRENA: Document their behavior, you know, I say this because -- I say this with a double edged sword the documentation.
When  You write it down, you relive the trauma again.
And also, you have to write it -- the limitations of human resources, they have specific PA RM Teshes and outside what we think about humans, you know the cultural commentary about who they're there to protect.
Let's move that kind of conversation aside.

At the end of the day, document.
They need documentation.
The more -- even sometimes, you know, you might want to ask, you know, if something were to happen, what kind of documentation would you need?
And write that documentation down every time it occurs.
Write it down in real time.
And this is also a mental health thing because when you're being abused and neglected, it's almost like a gaslight.
I'm going to tell you it didn't happen that way.
You'll start explaining their behavior away.
Write it down as soon as it happens so you don't have any chance to explain it away to library nice yourself out of abuse.
We sometimes library nice ourselves because we're taught that librarians are nice.
And clearly, we're all sitting here.
So not all librarians are nice.
So write it down.
As a form of mental health, as a form of documentation so when you can gather the folks like Ann is saying, I have my documentation.
>> LAUREN: Remember these need to be separate, right?
The documentation is not your journal.
Your documentation is just the facts.
It's like an incident report.
>> KAETRENA: Correct.
>> LAUREN: Not supposed to put your feelings in that report.
It's not legally actionable.
Keep a journal but keep it separate.
Otherwise, can't use it for anything later.
>> KAETRENA: Right.
Date, time, they said.
>> LAUREN: Yeah, I've done that.
>> KAETRENA: Other stuff in your personal areas and personal journals.
I want to make a commentary about how people generally respond and it tracks a little bit with what Lauren said.
When you're dealing with low morale, there are two ways that people respond.
Outside of their body response and mental health responses.
Behavioral responses.
One, coping strategies.
Positive or negative behaviors done consciously or unconsciously that make you feel better about it at the moment.
Yoga, overeating, binge watching TV.
Running a mile.
OK?
Those are coping strategies.
But -->> LAUREN: We drink too much!
>> KAETRENA: We eat a lot of tacos, OK?
>> LAUREN: We do.
>> KAETRENA: Those things don't stop the abuse from happening.
When we go back from our beer drinking or nights out, that bully is still there.
That system is still there hanging out burning us out.
Causing chaos or what have you.
Other way people respond is through mitigation methods.
Mitigation methods are deliberate behaviors that they do to stop the -- to stop the abuse or engage the ors in stopping the abuse.
So the most popular one is people leave.
People leave.
And then the other things are start talking to human resources.
Let's look at policies and update our policies so they're in line with how we want people to behave and how we're going to enforce them.
Every single time.
Every single time.
So on and so forth.
There are two ways.
When the folks that are dealing with low morale, what are you doing?
Are you doing coping strategies?
Have you decided to do a mitigation method?
If you are not at mitigation method, the abuse may continue.
So know where you are in your responses.
Or how -- are you coping?
Are you ready to mitigate?
So if you're not ready to mitigate, that means the abuse may continue, OK?
Abuse is going to keep doing what they do.
As long as you're silent, they love that.
Guaranteed.
So I want to put that on the floor for people who are dealing with abusers.
Are you coping?
And it's OK if you're coping.
Whatever those things are, take care of yourself, whatever coping, OK?
When -- you have to -- the question we want to put on the floor, I want to put on the floor are you ready to mitigate?
If you're ready to mitigate, you have definitive options there.
>> We know folks are coming from lots of different experiences.
People are mentioning HR many, many libraries don't have an HR department or if they're a part of a city or county, they rely on that HR department which maybe doesn't connect with the library as integrally.
So I want to recognize that.
And I also want to recognize that we're zooming through our 90 minutes.
Who knew how fast 90 minutes could go?
And also note, I've included Kaetrena has some really great communities on Facebook, Instagram and, I think, somewhere else, those are listed on the event page to continue bringing your conversations and questions to a group of folks that you can trust as well.
So definitely know that this isn't going to be the end of the conversation hopefully.
And we encourage you to continue to connect elsewhere.
>> KAETRENA: If it's OK, I want us to ask that question.
That we think about because oftentimes when we're at low morale and I see some commentary here, you know, of I tried this, I tried that.
That doesn't seem to work.
That's a common response when we're dealing with systems, it's a common response.
You are not alone.
I promise.
So the question -- this is a thing, I help people who have no -- who feel like they have no recourse.
People often feel stuck.
You may be feeling stuck in your spot.
You can leave.
There's no organization worth it.
There's no organization worth it.
Librarians have a plethora of skill sets that are valuable everywhere.
We want people working in libraries.
We want every person who wants to be in a library to want to work at a library.
If they want to.
So know that you -- there are opportunities for you to leave.
It may be a mindset change for you to rethink what your skills are in the marketplace.
There may be a better library for you.
There may be a different library type for you around the corner.
Right?
But I know, and I think all of us know that librarians are -- 
have skills that are applicable to a wide range of fields, extremely wide range.
So if you -- if you feel like --
what's stopping you from leaving?
What's stopping you from leaving?
And, you know, if you are -- if you really -- for those of you who feel like we're stuck and we've tried all of the things, what might be stopping you from leaving?
And this is a place of curiousity for us and maybe we can start there and reverse engineer.
OK?
Folks are talking about needing a salary caregiving.
I invite you to read the study because a lot of things that I'm seeing came up as pieces where people felt like they couldn't leave.
And there's some things in there I think that might be helpful and inspiring for you.
>> LAUREN: I know when I left, it felt like giving up.
>> SUNNIE: Also, I think that as painful as it is for me to say this, it might not mean staying in the world of libraries.
It may mean thinking to yourself, I only have one life.
Can I figure out the things that I love about this job and go do them, perhaps, in another setting which is less toxic?
Because I think some of the things that I'm seeing in the chat are people saying, well, this won't work in my organization.
This won't work in my organization.
Well, not every organization is fixable.
So, you know, we can say if you want to stay in your organization, here's something to think of yourself as an equal and taking some agency in those things.
It doesn't mean that the organization can necessarily be changed.
So we don't have easy answers.
And the answer is not always we don't have -- today is not about solutions.
It's really, really deep problems.
>> KAETRENA: I see some survivors guilt.

People don't want to leave behind their colleagues who they feel like are being abused.
This is very, very much, in my first study, sounding like several of the comments made in my first study that track even now feel like domestic partner -- intimate partner violence, if I leave, the other -- if I leave the abuser, I can't take someone with me.
Then that person will abuse someone I leave behind.
And the other thing I would say is when we're thinking about salary and benefits and things like that, we often think about trying to get the same salary.
And one things I can share with you is rather than thinking about your maximum or trying to stay exactly is there a minimum requirement for you?
What's your minimum that will get you to a safer place?
A more fulfilling place?
A more joyful place.
Another thing I haven't seen yet but just in case, I don't want the abuser to run me off, you're not going to run me off.
I've been here for X amount of years.
I consider -- rather than feeling like you're being run off, think about where you can go to.
Where can you go to?
That's more fulfilling.
More joyful.
And I really -- again, I encourage you to think about your skill sets.
Does it have to be a library right now?
If your next job doesn't have to stay -- you don't have to stay there that long, maybe you find another, job after that is the next library job.
Again, if you work the libraries one thing we like to see in library land is someone who work the libraries before.
So maybe your next job is not in the library.
What the job after that is when you can get some room between you and the abuse.
And heal.
So those are some recommendations I'd like to share.
I know that librarians have skill sets and it's scary to leave.
And I acknowledge and wish that none of you were going through the experiences that you're sharing.
And thank you for sharing them with us.
>> Well, I just want to also -- 
I mean, somebody said, well, you all sound like you're great managers.
There are great managers out there in other roles or in other organizations.
So I'd love to spend a little bit of time talking about those qualities of great managers and this is, again, an opportunity to subversively suggest this Webinar to some of your organizations so hopefully they'll hear some of those.
So I'd love to hear how can formal leaders or non-formal leaders cultivate a balanced leadership style that responds to low morale and burnout?
Sunnie, let's start with you.
I know that you've moved into a new goal and have lots of insights on this.
>> SUNNIE: Sure, I was a library director at a very small library.
I am just in my third week as a library director of a larger library.
Good sized library in my hometown, as luck would have it.
So it's been lovely being back.
It's interesting, I was a department head here before I became a library director elsewhere and then came back in the director role.
So it's interesting, I think I learned a lot about having a functional healthy workplace culture here.
I felt a real responsibility to go and instill that culture somewhere else.
A smaller library that was in a rebuilding phase.
And now, and now I'm back and I've learned a lot.
I would say something that I'm doing right now is I'm starting with listening.
And I will not be coming into this job and in my first week or month or much longer be imposing my great ideas and my will on the organization.
I need to find out how the organization has changed over the past several years.
What the managers see, what our public facing staff see as what we need to do next.
I need to learn from them first before I do anything.
And that's sort of a basis of what I would call like a servant leadership management style.
The term sort of comes in out of fashion.
But it's basically I view my role as a leader as giving the rest of the people who work here the resources they need to do their best work.
I don't see it as my opportunity to wield power and influence to make the library of my dreams.
This is not about me, ultimately.
And so I work on the policies and make sure we have the budget, the staffing levels and the physical space needed.
So that the people doing the work can do their very best work.
And something important to note is that the Harvard business review says that this is the most effective form of leadership.
So I think there are folks out there who maybe some of your less naturally empathetic leaders who maybe could be convinced to take a second look at this style and integrate it into what they're doing based on just the outcome.
So, you know, I'm a naturally --
I'm a people person.

And so this kind of comes naturally to me.
But I know there are leaders, there are leaders of all different kinds.
And leaders with all different kinds of personalities can be really effective.
So if you have a leader who you think will only be convinced to take on some of these characteristics, servant leadership by the bottom line, you can find this Harvard business review for you and you can convince them that outcomes, that outcomes dictate that this is really the way to go.
I think -- someone asked a really good question.
How do you slow down and not want to change everything that's wrong all at once?
And I love that you asked that question because that's exactly the phase of work life that I'm in right now.
I have a bunch of different lists.
I have a now to do list.
Simple things, meeting with people and then I'm creating a, you know, list on different topics of things that I will approach later.
So that I'm not losing my enthusiasm or my ideas that I'm getting from other people as I'm talking to them.
But I'm organizing and prioritizing them as I go.
My first week, every day at the end of the day, I spent 30 minutes just organizing my papers so I didn't lose track of everything and just prioritizing and making different folders.
So I probably at three weeks have enough ideas of things I want to do later to last me a good five years or so.
There was one other thing I wanted to mention.
I'm trying to remember what.
Start the way you want to continue.
So that's something else I'm really thinking about.
Is starting the way I want to continue.
As a new leader, whether you just got promoted within our own organization or if you're coming into a new organization, there's a really intense pressure to prove yourself.
And I certainly feel that.
I think we all do at different points in our career.
And I'm trying to be really, really intentional about not overworking myself.
And modeling the kind of balance and self-care that I want to be a part of our culture as an organization.
So I am not working crazy hours.
I work late only when I really need to.
And I am pacing myself and I'm taking time to do some professional reading which, you know, bears fruit over the long term, not the short term.
That's quiet background work that no one will see for a while and I'm being intentional about doing those things because if I set a standard of this crazy level of work up here, then it's going to seem like I'm slacking later on when I can't sustain it.
I don't want that for myself and I don't want that for the people who work here.
I want everyone who works here to be balanced, to be able to have a resilience that benefits the organization as well as acknowledging that we are humans.
At the end of the day, happy folks give the best customer service.
So again, even if I just cut out my heart, this would still be the best approach based on outcomes for the organization and you can make a business case for this.
But I do have a heart and I think that's important as well.
Kindness is baked into this organization.
It's written into our mission statement and our values.
And I'm going to show that kindness towards myself and model it for everyone so that it continues to be a part of our culture here.
>> ANN: Can I just pipe up for one moment?
This can be my final thought, Jennifer, we're going to have final thoughts in a minute.
I'll use my time now to say I kind of want to confess that I was not a good manager when I was a manager.
Not all managers are naturally good managers.
I was in an organization where that was the only route to advancement in the organization and so I felt like I had to do it.
I really disliked being a manager, and it ended up my leaving partly because of that.
And so that's a bigger problem that there's no sort of avenues for advancement without management.
But I think we all have encountered people that are not natural fits for their management role.
So that's just something to keep in mind as kind of a perspective when we're approaching managers and management.
And also, totally sounds like you work for a wonderful supportive organization and that's not true for all managers.
>> I would like to quickly surface that it's important that you recognize that our formal leaders also deal with abuse and neglect from their superiors and that travels.
And also, that when you are in a leadership role at a certain point, if you are being abused and neglected there's no one to tell.
There's no one to tell.
Imagine being a dean and your abuser is the Provost, the person is second in command of an organization, who are you telling?
You're not telling the other deans.
Not if you're the library dean.
The library dean might be a dean in title like the other deans but do not have the same status or power and influence generally, generally, just from what I understand as the other deans because we don't impact revenue in the same way, right, in the academic institution.
So I think that us vs. Them at this point especially at the end of the pandemic and especially with the research that I've surfaced, it doesn't excuse abuse from a leader.
And also, we need to be mindful that when a leader is being abused, you might be able to tell your colleagues if you're being abused or what have you.
For a formal leader, there's no one to tell.
And that can show up.
So the us vs. Them it begs us to go through looking at this through a gray lens.
It doesn't mean we excuse abuse and neglect from formal leaders, and I also think we want to maintain a sense of dignity and humaneness for people who may be being abused and neglected in their formal positions.
>> LAUREN: Public libraries and it's a board, there's no recourse.
None.
>> KAETRENA: None.
>> LAUREN: No recourse.
If you're a public library director and your board is abusing you, there's no recourse.
There's nobody that's going to help you.
They're either elected or appointed.
You're just -- 
>> KAETRENA: And HR is even worse.
Those rules don't change.
Human resources.
So in the study, everything -- 
all the barriers that people have at a "regular" general experience, one of those being human resource limit takingses that doesn't go away.
It's the human resource director going to go to the Provost?
I mean, it -- 
>> LAUREN: They work for them.
>> KAETRENA: Yeah, so again, the markers are the same.
And added.
They have no one to tell.
Basically.
They have no one to tell.
And it's hard to get in touch with other deans to talk because they're busy.
So it goes to that lack of transparency and this is what it is to be a leader.
So I just want to put that on the floor.
All right?
Talk about that thing through --
if you're an employee of the organization and want to look at HR through the lens of they protect the organization, then that means when the dean or person in power is being abused, HR still is there to protect the organization.
That doesn't change because it's a person in power.
>> We have just a few minutes left.
I'd love to hear actually from Angelica and Lauren, your one or two things, maybe one thing that you recommend folks do knowing, wow, this has been kind of a fire hose.
So knowing that we want to support folks in taking a step in responding.
Let's start with Lauren.
What's your one thing that you recommend for folks?
>> LAUREN: So in terms of traumatic experiences at work or experiencing that, in the workplace in general or from your colleague, we don't have to wait for management to kind of come down with some magical wand and fix it.
They can't do that.
This is like interpersonal, you know.
But you can as a colleague of someone who has something happening to them, do the act of kindness that allow them to process the things that are happening to them.
And come up with the solutions or what they want to do or just vent it out.
Then at the same time, I hope that administrators and leadership are working on structural solutions for fixing these things.
But in the meantime, you know, if you're not -- if you're a branch manager like me or if you're, you know, a reference desk writing librarian or CLIER cal staff, you can still, you know, bring someone a coffee and take their desk.
And make sure they have a moment.
Because that is just as important and helps create the sort of bottom up culture.
>> Angelica, what's the one thing you would recommend for folks as they head off back to their environments?
>> ANGELICA: Yeah.
I would say for someone like me in a little management, right, leading by example, right, and how Sunnie said and Lauren, like really being available for that staff member when they really need it, right?
So when they're going through whatever and the public giving them the opportunity to vent, right, sometimes they just need to vent and they need an ear.
They need someone to listen to them, and reassuring them that, you know, that you're there to support and that's all you can do, you know in the moment whether it is, you know, like you said, stepping in, take a break, right, I got it.
You know?
I think that builds trust and that builds just a relationship and it shows them that you value their work and you value them as a person and you value them as a staff member.
Checking in with them is really important.
I think, you know, in libraries, everything is just go, go, go get the day done.
But checking in, you know,  means so much more for someone working in the public.
So yeah.
>> Well, believe it or not, we are at the bottom of the hour, I want to thank all of you so much for bringing great ideas, conversations, experience, your honesty, all of you in chat, thank you so much.
I'm really looking forward to going back and reading chat more fully.
Lots of excellent suggestions.
Ideas, shared in chat as well.
We will continue to explore this topic for sure.
We actually have a couple of new courses at webjunction that address burnout and deescalation and that touch on some of what we've talked about.
So know that webjunction will continue this conversation.
Reminder that I will add any of the additional resources you brought to the conversation to the event page and you can follow up.
I know that some folks have shared contact information, Lauren mentioned you can reach her through the contact page on urban librarians unite.
So feel free to connect to folks as well.
Actually, if you all are willing to share your E-Mails, we can put that in chat and know that folks can contact you there.
I'll also follow up and send you all the certificate, you don't need to request that and I'm actually going to send you a short survey as you leave.
If you don't have the time now, that link will be in the E-Mail I send you but we hope at some point you can provide some feedback.
We'll share that with the panel and really helps us guide our ongoing programming to be sure we're responding to some of your priorities.
So thank you again for all of your great time and energy and work and I just send out my appreciation to all of you for the work that you do.
I know that it's a challenge to be in some of those environments, but know that your communities appreciate you being there.
And look forward to hearing more from you all as you're learning developments as well.
Thank you all so much.
Thank you to our panelists, again, and have a great rest of your week.
>> KAETRENA: Take care.