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Creating Healthy Library Workplaces

Five Factors That Improve Employee Engagement and Satisfaction

Creating Healthy Library Workplaces cover

Creating Healthy Library Workplaces

Five Factors That Improve Employee Engagement and Satisfaction

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Pre-order. Available Feb 05 2026
$61.15 RRP $67.95 Website price saving $6.80 (10%)

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Description

This practical guide, written from different perspectives and applying to all library types, explains how to create healthy library workplaces.

While library work is often imbued with a strong sense of purpose and mission, it's still work-messy, rewarding, complicated. This book explores the five factors that influence both workplace engagement and job satisfaction for library workers:

· culture and work environment
· leadership
· workload
· recognition
· meaning

Learn how to critically examine these five factors and understand meaningful ways to positively implement them. The expert contributors to this volume represent many types of libraries and points of view, including BIPOC writers and those from other marginalized groups as well as librarians from small and large libraries, rural and urban libraries, and academic, public, and school libraries. This book is written for everyone in a library-leaders, librarians, and other staff can all contribute to making their library a better workplace. Readers will appreciate the hands-on guidance for improving not only the organizational functioning of the library, but the human functioning as well.

Table of Contents

Part 1: Culture and Work Environment
1. Identifying and Addressing Toxic Workplaces in Libraries, Erin DeWitt-Miller and Laurel Sammonds Crawford
2. Just Listen: Using Listening Tours to Improve Workplace Culture, Emily Mross and Carmen Cole
3. Reinventing Workplace Culture in a Changing Digital Academic Library Environment, Jamie Diermier, Tammy Ivins, Stephanie Johnson, and Laura Thompson
4. Patron-Perpetrated Sexual Harassment: Is There an End? Olivia Radbill
5. Answering the Identity Questions: The Struggles of Library Workers to Be Themselves at Work, Darin Freeburg
6. Creating an Inclusive Work Environment for Ethnically and Culturally Diverse Staff in Your Library, Jameka Lewis
7. From Hire to Welcome: A Comprehensive Approach to Inclusive Onboarding, Tarida Anantachai, Robin Davis, Adebola Fabiku, and Nellie Maurer
8. Seeking Affinity: Fostering Spaces for Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Peers in Libraries, Jeanie Pai and Miriam Tuliao

Part 2: Leadership
9. The Reflexive Library Leader, Julia Davis
10. A Foundation Built on Trust: Psychological Safety in Library Supervisor-Employee Relationships, Laura Thompson, Tammy Ivins, Jamie Diermier, and Stephanie Johnson
11. Deep Listening: A Key to Unlocking Leadership Responsiveness and Fostering a Healthy Workplace, Jennifer McKinnell
12. Healing with Trauma-Informed Leadership, Lauren Slingluff
13. How Academic Library Leaders Can Positively Influence Librarian Retention, Amy F. Fyn and Amanda Foster Kaufman

Part 3: Workload and Work Expectations
14. Slow Librarianship and Slow Productivity: Complementary Approaches to Sustainable Work, Julie Tedjeske Crane
15. Job Control and Librarian Engagement: Considerations of Workplace Agency for Crafting Meaningful Work Experiences, Matthew Weirick Johnson
16. Crafting Professional Standards: Navigating Ambiguity in Library Environments, LaCharmine Jefferson and Katie Perry
17. A Collaborative and Equitable Approach to Managing Your Team's Workload, Ashley Riordan, Elizabeth Galoozis, and Kendra Macomber
18. Support in All the Right Places: An Empathic Approach to Tenure, Katherine Hanz and Sandy Hervieux
19. Incorporating Neurodivergent Workplace Adjustments to Reduce Burnout in the Library Setting: Disrupting the American Obsession with Work, Maggie Albro and Niki Cobb

Part 4: Recognition
20. Eye on the Prize: Leveraging the Power of Recognition to Create a More Successful and Fulfilling Workplace, Megan Gilpin
21. Leading From Where You Are: Taking Ownership in Improving Departmental Culture, Cara M. Calabrese and Masha L. Stepanova

Part 5: Meaning
22. Beyond “Follow Your Passion”: Cultivating Meaning and Purpose in Library Work, Julie Tedjeske Crane
23. Feeling Imposter Syndrome and Burnout? Time to Burn It Down and Get Back to Basics, Jordan Ruud and Jason D. Phillips

Index

Product details

Published Feb 05 2026
Format Paperback
Edition 1st
Extent 288
ISBN 9798216188773
Imprint Bloomsbury Libraries Unlimited
Dimensions 9 x 6 inches
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing

About the contributors

Anthology Editor

Jason Martin

Jason Martin is the dean of the Evans Library at F…

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