Book Title: Thriving as a Mid-Career Librarian: Identity, Advocacy, and Pathways
Edited by Brandon K. West and Elizabeth Galoozis
CFP URL: https://sites.google.com/view/midcareerlibrarianbook/
Reminder: January 8, 2021 deadline
There’s a lot of advice out there for new librarians, and for librarians at all career stages looking to become leaders or administrators. But what about the rest of us? The mid-career stage often brings more questions than answers: How do we continue to grow professionally if we don’t want to move upward? How do we make decisions about whether to stay at an institution (or in the profession) or go? What strategies do we use to sustain ourselves amidst burnout, constant change, wage compression, or even boredom? How do we navigate cultures of white supremacy and hierarchy? We often have conversations about these topics informally, but there are few meaningful resources for this particular stage of a librarian’s career.
This book will explore the different contexts in which mid-career librarians are working. Not all librarians in the same career stage, or even in the same library, are grappling with the same issues or will make similar decisions. Most often, leadership is touted as the only path for the mid-career librarian, but not everyone is interested in or capable of pursuing these types of positions. For this reason, this book will offer strategies and practical advice for navigating mid-career, based on different roles in libraries, positionalities, and identities, as well as the need to serve as one's own advocate long-term. This book is for librarians interested in thriving in their mid-career, written by those who have been there and who are there now.
We are seeking chapters on a variety of mid-career perspectives and experiences. For more details, examples of chapter topics, and how to submit a proposal, visit https://sites.google.
