MLA 2024 Conference

For many librarians, we cultivate compassion and emotional intelligence for the people who walk into our spaces and utilize our services or programming. This presentation is going to turn compassion and emotional intelligence inward, to reframe how we engage in our workplaces and treat each other. Informed by critical librarianship and culturally responsive theories, this presentation will invite the audience to practice compassionate communication, critique absurd library bureaucracy, and contemplate what a psychologically safe workplace might look like. We are going to move beyond teamwork and friendship to a more nuanced view of collegiality that critiques library workplaces in productive ways. Engagement with reflection, compassion, and culture moves library workers toward building authentic relationships and imbues their work with meaning and purpose without demanding selflessness and burnout.