Blogging by and for academic and research librarians
Category: Professional Development
For announcement of professional development opportunities and for discussions of professional development in academic librarianship or higher education.
Over the last few weeks, I had the opportunity to attend two virtual library conferences – the 2026 Southeast Collaborative Conference, and the Transforming Libraries for Graduate Students 2026 Virtual Conference. I wanted to use my blog for this month to reflect on what I learned from both of these experiences.
Southeast Collaborative Conference
This conference happened first, over three days in the second week of March. I thought the pacing of the conference was helpful, as they included breaks in the schedule so attendees could check in on our day jobs without missing any of the content. Additionally, most of the sessions were pre-recorded, which allowed the speakers to be active in the chat throughout the presentation, answering questions and responding to comments. I thought that really helped to recreate how an in-person conference feels, and the emphasis on engagement made sessions fun. I also really appreciated that the conference made all of the slides and materials available to participants as soon as the conference ended. Knowing that I can reference them later, and see the materials from sessions I couldn’t attend, means that I really got the most I could out of the conference experience.
I was excited to see a presentation on Generative AI Literacy from two librarians that I know from my UNC-Chapel Hill grad school days, including one librarian whom I took a class with! I learned a lot from the presentation that I can incorporate into my own AI instruction and workshops (with attribution, of course). The presenters even shared that they’re going to be developing asynchronous tutorials for Generative AI in libraries that will be freely available to anyone, and let attendees know that all events about Generative AI at the University Libraries are open to anyone, not just university affiliates. I had no idea that I could still join any of the trainings that are offered online, and am looking forward to signing up for as many as I can attend.
Additionally, I thought the keynote was extremely powerful. It featured state librarians from five states – North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Georgia, and Tennessee. One of the only live presentations at this conference, these leaders spoke candidly and eloquently about the challenges facing all types of libraries and library systems today, and what they’re doing to meet them head-on. It was inspiring and made me glad all over again that I chose this career.
Transforming Libraries for Graduate Students
This conference was second, held over two afternoons in the third week of March. This conference took place over Zoom, in four-hour sessions each day with no breaks. The format was more challenging than the previous week’s, but still emphasized the importance of engagement between presenters and attendees. I was especially excited about this conference, because all of the programs I support are master’s and doctoral programs, and during this first year I’ve felt unsure at times of the best way to approach supporting these programs. I really hoped that I could learn some tips and tricks from the presenters.
Unsurprisingly, there were quite a few sessions about Generative AI at this conference as well. These presenters didn’t get into the nuts-and-bolts of how to get the most out of Gen AI the way the previous conference did, but I appreciated the contrast of this approach that focused more on platforms and how graduate students tend to engage with these tools. Between the two conferences, I was able to add a lot of different tools to my Gen AI toolbox.
Several presentations also focused on how to approach orientations and workshops for grad students differently than for undergrads. I present a lot of library orientation sessions, and librarians at my institution are currently being asked to make sure our workshop offerings are robust, so these sessions were especially relevant to me. I appreciated how presenters focused on acknowledging graduate students have unique needs and may be juggling additional responsibilities when compared to undergrads, so it’s important to make sure the library is giving them the tools and knowledge they need to accomplish their goals.
I do wish that the sessions had been a bit more focused on specific actions that attendees can take in their own libraries. It seemed like many presenters were focused on sharing their work and what was successful for them, but not as focused on how their successes could be adapted for other libraries. I would have liked to have a few more concrete programming ideas that I could take back to my own libraries. Perhaps that’s something that I could work on as a presentation of my own for a future iteration of this conference. I also wished that the conference had stretched an additional half hour to add a break in the middle. I think it would have helped with tiredness and staying on top of other work at the end of the day.
Overall Takeaways and Future Thoughts
Although I’ve been to several in-person conferences before, I had never participated in an online conference and wasn’t sure how the experience would translate. I love the feeling of walking into a conference and knowing that everyone is there to learn, meet fellow professionals and maybe make future friends, and get everything that we can out of the experience. I was worried that these conferences would be lacking in the camaraderie and excitement of an in-person setting. Although I didn’t get quite the same feeling as I do when I walk in the door of a convention center, I was really happy to find that both conferences were able to recreate similar vibes over online platforms.
It’s also important to recognize that online conferences lower a lot of barriers of participation for many people – including me! I’m lucky to be at an institution that strongly supports professional development, but even that support wouldn’t have been enough for me to travel to two conferences in subsequent weeks. Holding a conference online also means that the cost to participate is likely lower – or in the case of these two conferences, eliminated completely. I really appreciate both conferences’ commitment to access, affordability, and availability.
Overall, I had a great time and gained a lot from my participation in these conferences. I’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for registration to open next year – and maybe I’ll even submit a presentation proposal myself!
Editor’s note: We welcome a guest blog post from Angela Pashia, who was an academic librarian for 12 years before becoming an ICF-Certified (ACC) leadership coach.
For the first half of my library career, I was adamant that I didn’t want to move into any formal leadership role. I was an instruction and liaison librarian, and I loved working directly with students and faculty to teach critical information literacy. I also got to teach a credit bearing information literacy course on a regular basis, which gave me a lot of opportunities to practice using critical pedagogy. I valued these opportunities to challenge rigid hierarchies and empower students to shift from seeing themselves as just consumers to producers of information.
My vision of what it means to be in management did not align with these values at all.
Fast forward several years, through becoming a reluctant leader, learning that I absolutely loved the opportunity to develop a team, and then becoming a leadership coach for librarians… Now I work with library leaders who are struggling with similar challenges rooted in similar narratives about what it means to be an effective leader.
In this narrative, the leader knows everything about how everything in the unit functions, and always has an answer for how to move forward in any situation. It’s very clear that this leader is directing everything – whether that’s through giving orders or just through always handing out solutions to every situation, for team members who’ve learned that it’s simplest to just go ask what the leader thinks. It’s clear that this leader is the one making all of the decisions that keep this library functioning and moving forward.
The best version of this leader comes across as a very knowledgeable parental figure, telling you how things should be done because they care about you. But they’re still telling you what to do, instead of helping you learn to work through the process on your own. This leader does provide development opportunities for their staff, but that tends to focus on molding you to follow in their footsteps, regardless of whether that’s the best fit for you.
Another version of this leader just gives you instructions and then grades how well you followed those instructions each year on your annual evaluation. They may or may not provide the scaffolded lessons that you need to complete the assignment well.
We don’t see this leader admitting when they don’t know things or asking many questions or having doubts. We don’t see this leader actively sharing power with their team members in a way that would loosen up their control.
This narrative about effective leadership becomes problematic when a new leader steps into their position knowing that they don’t know everything yet. They need to ask questions, but fear that doing so will communicate that they’re not qualified for this role. And that leads to imposter syndrome.
And this narrative doesn’t fit those of us who value collaboration, empowerment, and shared governance. I resisted moving into a leadership position for years because I didn’t want to be the person telling people what to do. My clients need support in learning new ways to lead, because this narrative of leadership doesn’t fit their values, either.
And that’s why I fell in love with coaching.
For me, learning coaching skills, as defined and practiced by the International Coaching Federation (and described in my last post), provided a way to transfer the principles of critical pedagogy from the classroom to leading a team.
Banking Knowledge
I learned about the “banking method of education” long before I read Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Students aren’t bank vaults waiting for us to deposit bits of knowledge. Genuine learning is a dialogic process between student and teacher, building toward the development of a critical consciousness. Instead of being the “sage on the stage,” we can better support student learning by being a “guide on the side.”
And yet, we love depositing bits of knowledge! Many of the leaders I work with feel helpful when they come up with a great solution to every problem their team members bring to them. Leading a team is different from teaching a classroom, but these are often missed opportunities to develop that team member’s skills.
When a team member comes to you for help with a problem, using a coaching approach shifts you from depositing a solution to engaging in a dialogic process. When you start with a question like, “What ideas have you already thought of?”, and then ask genuinely curious follow-up questions to workshop one of those ideas, they learn more about how your organization works. Depending on the context, that may include learning to think critically about embedding equity and accessibility into library services, programs, and policies.
Holistic Approach
Building on Freire’s work, bell hooks proposed an “engaged pedagogy” that recognizes both student and teacher as whole people actively participating in the learning dialog. Students are not just passive consumers of information, and both sides bring a lifetime of rich experiences and emotional lives into the classroom.
The leaders I work with recognize that this is true with their team members, as well, but don’t always feel prepared to respond effectively when emotions are affecting how team members are showing up. When they do open a conversation, it can turn into two hours of the team member venting about everything they’re dealing with, which throws their schedule into disarray and leaves them emotionally drained. So now they’re afraid to even open that conversation again. And it’s one thing to know this intellectually, but when you feel pressured to keep things moving as quickly as possible because your library is doing too much with too little, it’s easy to overlook the bigger picture.
Learning to effectively use a coaching model to structure your conversation can help you navigate some of these tricky situations. This approach provides a roadmap to acknowledge those emotions, dig below the surface to identify the root of the issue, and figure out a path forward. It takes practice to find the right balance of listening to what’s going on now before jumping into problem-solving mode, but these models provide guard rails to keep you from just getting stuck in complaints.
And building a habit of using these ICF-style coaching skills can create openings to find out what’s really going on for people.
Self-actualization
As part of this engaged pedagogy, hooks wrote that “teachers must be actively committed to a process of self-actualization that promotes their own wellbeing if they are to teach in a manner that empowers students” (p. 15). This includes ongoing learning and ongoing reflection.
A coaching approach to leadership also prioritizes your own wellbeing and ongoing learning. Developing a curious, open, nonjudgmental mindset requires you to give yourself space to reflect, consider other perspectives, and make sure that your emotions aren’t skewing your view of a given situation. To support librarians in their ongoing learning and development, I regularly write a newsletter about applying a coaching approach in your library.
And, although it’s not exactly connected to critical pedagogy, I’ve found that this self-actualization process helps to combat imposter syndrome. Explicitly adopting a leadership style that encourages curiosity and questions gives new leaders permission to admit to not already knowing everything. And that helps to support their well-being.
What questions does this spark for you?
I’d love to continue this discussion in the comments section!
References
hooks, b. (1994). Teaching to transgress: education as the practice of freedom. Routledge.
When I attended my first conference hosted by the Music Library Association (MLA) in Salt Lake City, UT this year, I expected to learn about music collections, cataloging standards, and emerging research resources.
I did learn those things. But what surprised me most—and became the central lesson of my experience—was the way the community’s professional culture fundamentally shaped a sense of belonging and opportunity through mentorship and openness.
The conference became a model for how professional gatherings can foster mentorship, generosity, and true inclusion. For a newcomer like me, this was transformative, demonstrating that professional culture defines not just what we learn, but how we join the field.
I arrived at the conference at a moment of professional transition. I had recently begun a new role as Humanities Librarian at the University of Chicago Library, serving as liaison to the Music Department and the Committee on Theater and Performance Studies. The position carries a particular sense of responsibility: it has been vacant for more than six years following the sudden and tragic passing of my predecessor.
While I come to this work with a background in performing arts and librarianship, I do not hold a PhD in music or a formal degree in the discipline. In a research environment like the University of Chicago—an institution known for intellectual rigor and strong disciplinary traditions—that reality can feel especially visible.
Without a dedicated internal mentor in music librarianship, I rely on the field’s insight for questions about publishing ecosystems, vendors, cataloging, and collection strategies, despite supportive supervision.
Conference in a single hotel with multiple maps, an app, Slack channel, and the MLA website with message board.
Entering a Specialized Field
At the same time, I am still learning to navigate the institution’s culture. The University of Chicago has long been associated with intellectual intensity, but also with a certain institutional privacy—an academic environment that can feel somewhat mysterious from the outside. Until quite recently, that culture was manifested literally: the university gates were locked, and visitors to the library needed special permission to enter. While those policies have evolved, the image remains a powerful metaphor for how knowledge institutions sometimes operate—carefully guarded, selective, and structured by invisible boundaries.
Entering music librarianship at the University of Chicago, with its infamous institutional boundaries, has made access, mentorship, and the feeling of community more than just professional benefits—they are essential. Attending the MLA conference thus became a pivotal way to encounter this culture directly.
Although conferences often promote networking and mentorship, those interactions are frequently shaped by hierarchy and credentials in practice.
What I encountered at MLA felt strikingly different.
The conference was intentionally designed for participation—large enough for expertise, but small enough for repeated encounters. All events were held at a single hotel, allowing conversations to flow freely.
Before the conference even began, first-time attendees were invited to a pre-conference Zoom orientation that introduced the organization and explained what the conference experience would look like. Programming was shared well in advance via the CVent platform, making it easy to explore sessions and plan a schedule in advance. Many sessions were also available to stream, supported by a technical team that ensured clear audio and video, as well as recorded access.
As an attendee at the ACRL Conference in 2026, I noticed the conference organizers aimed for similar intentionality in welcoming newcomers. However, in my experience, ACRL felt overwhelming and panel and program acceptance were extremely competitive–less than 10% of submissions were accepted. The biannual structure increased the pressure and made networking challenging, despite the welcoming atmosphere. Even after volunteering on several committees, I found it difficult to build connections and advocate for myself in such a large, bureaucratic organization. Unlike the targeted mentorship I experienced at MLA, ACRL’s size and structure made formal mentoring difficult.
Even the scheduling reflected thoughtful design. Interest group and committee meetings were held the week after the conference, so attendees would not have to choose between participating in the organization and attending sessions.
These structural choices were more than logistical: by reducing barriers and prioritizing access, the conference created a setting where real community, collaboration, and learning could happen—illustrating the central role culture plays in professional belonging.
A Conference Designed for Participation
Professional networking can be difficult, even after years in academic libraries. Finding the right balance between introducing oneself and participating, while respecting others’ boundaries, takes care. Mentorship remains professional labor.
Because of this, I was especially grateful to connect with potential mentors before the conference even began. Through introductions from fellow librarian Greg MacAyeal, I had the opportunity to speak with several MLA members beforehand. By the time I arrived at the conference, there were already familiar faces in the room.
That small shift made a tremendous difference. What might have been an intimidating professional gathering instead felt relational and welcoming from the beginning.
Music librarianship is an extraordinarily specialized field. It requires familiarity with music publishing ecosystems, performance traditions, archival preservation, metadata standards, and constantly evolving formats.
Yet the expertise present at the conference did not feel guarded.
It was shared.
Sessions ranged from discussions of contemporary score distribution to cataloging documentation and collaborative strategies for collection development in an era of budget constraints. Librarians, composers, and distributors discussed how new technologies are reshaping the circulation of music.
Rather than presenting polished solutions, many sessions invited collective problem-solving. Librarians spoke candidly about institutional constraints—budgets, workflows, and evolving research needs—and the conversations continued outside the formal sessions.
Slides from the presentation “ADA Title II and Music Libraries: Implications, Questions, and Strategies”, Kristi Bergland, Jackie Zook, and Anna Dimoula.
Scholarship, Performance, and Community
The cumulative effect was a sense of shared responsibility, not competition—a model of professional culture grounded in collective advancement, which sharply contrasts with other associations.
One evening event captured that spirit particularly well: Salon Night.
The program featured an eclectic mix of scholarship and performance. There were operatic performances and a playful musical adaptation of Oklahoma! titled Obsolescence, which was hilarious and resonated with our beautiful nerdy hearts. A presentation on queer disco clubs in 1970s New York examined dance floors as spaces of cultural memory and community formation.
Kathleen (Kathy) Abromeit, Head of the Conservatory Library with Oberlin College Libraries, shared work from her new book An Index to Spirituals, , reflecting on how a single reference question in the 1990s grew into decades of scholarly documentation of African American spirituals as both musical and cultural history.
What stood out was not just the diversity of topics but the way people engaged with them.
The room moved easily between laughter, curiosity, and deep reflection—at moments people laughed loudly, and at others they wiped away tears. People spoke about archives, music, and cultural memory with a level of care that extended beyond professional obligation.
Spaces that blend rigorous inquiry with genuine openness were rare in my experience before this conference. It illustrated that professional cultures built around mentorship and inclusivity can redefine how newcomers join, contribute, and thrive.
Confronting the Field’s History
The conference also made space for conversations that confronted the field’s historical foundations. In a presentation on early twentieth-century music librarianship, Veronica A. Wells examined how collection practices helped codify the Western canon in American libraries and ongoing questions regarding designation of “popular” music and the deeply racist, classicist cultural assumptions held by founding librarians.
Those decisions continue to shape music collections today, underscoring how professional cultures can reinforce or challenge exclusion—making intentionality in mentorship and inclusion all the more crucial.
Listening to that presentation, I found myself thinking about Audre Lorde’s essay The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House. Lorde reminds us that institutions can claim progressive intentions while still reproducing the structures they inherit.
Music libraries—like many cultural institutions—carry those histories.
The discussion explored how Indigenous musicians, composers, and archivists are reshaping libraries’ approaches to collections, programming, and performance archives. Speakers reflected on the complex musical histories shaped by the U.S. boarding school system, where Indigenous children were forcibly removed from their communities and subjected to assimilationist policies. Within and despite these institutions, students encountered new musical forms and instruments that later influenced emerging musical traditions, including early jazz.
The panel emphasized that these histories must be understood not as products of the institutions themselves, but as examples of Indigenous resilience, adaptation, and cultural continuity. It also underscored the importance of centering Indigenous voices in archival interpretation and programming, ensuring that contemporary collections and performances reflect the perspectives of the communities whose histories they document.
A Profession Built on Conversation
Part of what makes this kind of conversation possible may lie in the nature of the field itself.
Music librarianship is often described as specialized, but in practice, it resists neat disciplinary boundaries. Music moves across formats and cultural contexts—scores, recordings, dance traditions, film, archives, and the ephemeral materials that surround performance.
A question about a score can quickly become a question about performance practice, cultural history, copyright law, or digital preservation.
Supporting this work requires collaboration with performers, composers, archivists, scholars, technologists, and community historians.
In that sense, music librarianship cannot easily operate in silos. The work itself demands conversation.
And perhaps that necessity helps cultivate the intellectual generosity I witnessed throughout the conference.
Carrying the Lessons Forward
Returning to my work at the University of Chicago Library, I have been thinking about what made this experience so meaningful.
Part of it was structural: thoughtful conference design, accessible programming, and mentorship opportunities for first-time attendees.
But much of it was cultural.
The MLA community demonstrated that professional expertise need not be guarded to be respected, and that intellectual rigor can coexist with generosity and care. In a profession often shaped by institutional prestige and credentialed authority, that culture felt quietly radical.
For someone entering a specialized field without a traditional disciplinary pathway—and inheriting a role that has been absent for years—that kind of professional community is not simply helpful.
It is essential.
And in many ways, the message that stayed with me from the conference came down to a single moment.
At the opening session, incoming MLA president Holling Smith-Borne, director of the Wilson Music Library at Vanderbilt University, reflected on their first experience attending an MLA meeting. They shared that when they first attended the conference, they quietly asked themselves, “Should I bring my full self to this space?” Do I belong here?
But they described choosing something different—to challenge that voice of doubt and replace it with another: No. You belong here. No matter who you are.
Listening to that story, I realized that what I had experienced throughout the conference—the mentorship, the intellectual generosity, and the willingness to share expertise—was not accidental.
It was a community intentionally working to make that statement true.
Acknowledgments
I am deeply grateful to the colleagues who welcomed me into the Music Library Association community with generosity and care. Special thanks to Becca Fülöp, Amanda Dubose, Allison McClanahan, Bruce Evans, Ruthann McTyre, Tamar Barzel, Michelle Rivera, Misti Shaw, Sarah Ward, and Greg MacAyeal for mentorship, conversation, and encouragement throughout the conference.
Editor’s note: We welcome a guest blog post from Angela Pashia, who was an academic librarian for 12 years before becoming an ICF-Certified (ACC) leadership coach.
When you think of coaching, what comes to mind for you?
I’ve been talking about this a lot over the past couple of years, since becoming a professional coach. It’s becoming common for job ads for library leadership roles to mention coaching as a responsibility or coaching skills as a requirement[i]. On the other hand, I’ve worked with library leaders whose team members completely shut down at the mention of being coached, because of past experiences with workplace coaching. That seems like a disconnect, but I attribute it to very different definitions of coaching.
My first encounter with anything explicitly labeled “coaching” happened when I was a librarian exploring other possible career paths. I came across a video promoting a training program to become a book coach, and I thought that sounded like the coolest job ever! From this series of videos, it sounded like a book coach would mentor and guide authors through the publishing process, as well as do some teaching about the process when needed. As a librarian, the parts of my job that I loved the most were mentoring junior faculty and teaching critical information literacy in a credit-bearing course, so this seemed like a perfect fit! That idea of coaching as sort of the “guide-on-the-side” version of teaching and mentoring seems pretty common among the librarians I’ve talked with who haven’t had any specific training in coaching.
Being a librarian, I threw myself into researching more about professional coaching. Coaching is a completely unregulated field, but there are some professional organizations trying to establish shared standards and definitions. The International Coaching Federation (ICF) is the largest and most widely recognized member-led professional organization for coaches. So I completed an ICF-accredited program instead of the book coaching course that set me onto this path, and discovered that coaching is not at all what I had imagined.
The ICF version of coaching is a strengths-based approach, assuming that the person being coached is a fully capable adult with strengths and resources to draw on. Unlike a mentoring relationship, in which I would share my experience and knowledge with someone less experienced in that area, coaching centers inquiry – asking questions and listening a lot more than I talk. The ICF defines coaching as:
“partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential”
Partnering is about setting aside hierarchies as much as possible. For me, it feels like taking the next step from using critical pedagogy, shifting from the “guide on the side” to being an active collaborator. The process is a semi-structured inquiry model, with questions designed to help dig into the root of a challenge, so that we can find the best path forward. And this helps to maximize their potential by focusing on reaching goals that matter to them, in a way that works best for them.
In learning to coach, I shifted from sharing my expertise to helping others develop their own solutions.
Coaching as a leadership style
Coaching as a leadership style often comes up when I’m working with new leaders who are dealing with imposter syndrome. While it’s important to acknowledge the structural factors that contribute, I’ve found that our mental models of what it means to be “a leader” can also contribute to this sense of being an imposter. One common part of that is the idea that some people are “born leaders,” instead of recognizing that leadership is a skill that has to be developed. Another contributing factor is what your image of “a leader” looks like. If your idea of a good leader is based on watching experienced leaders who seem to know everything about everything and always have a solution for every problem, then how do you see yourself as an effective leader when you’re still learning?
Explicitly adopting coaching as a leadership style gives you permission to let go of the pressure to already know everything, and to embrace your curiosity. This approach encourages you to listen to your team members as the experts in their specialized areas – which means you should ask them questions to learn from their expertise! This invites more perspectives and ideas to the table, which leads to better solutions than any individual leader would be able to consistently come up with on their own.
The foundation for developing this coaching approach is to work on practicing staying in a curious, open, nonjudgmental mindset. That includes pausing to question what assumptions you’re making about a situation, continuing to learn, and viewing mistakes as lessons instead of as failures. That also includes paying attention the ways biases, context, and culture influence our interactions.
Practicing staying in this mindset is useful in all of your interactions, and helps you lead in a more inclusive, trauma-informed way. For example, staying curious while training a new employee can help you learn more about how they work best and how you can best support them.
The time to shift into actively coaching is when your team member is working through a challenge where there’s no one correct path forward – whether that’s planning a program, deciding the best way to do outreach to a liaison department, or thinking through which conference to submit a proposal to. Coaching is about helping your team member work through challenges and find the solution that’s right for them, so they need to be able to make the decisions about how to move forward.
When someone comes to you for help solving a problem:
One simple way to start incorporating this mindset is to ask more questions before offering your solution.
“What ideas have you already thought of?”
And then get curious about workshopping those ideas before you add your own to the mix!
When you have information that they need:
The emphasis on partnering means doing your best to share information instead of giving advice that someone might feel pressured to take.
That can sound like the difference between:
“We tried that before, and it didn’t work. You should give up on that idea.”
And:
“We tried that before, and here are the things that went wrong… How does that affect the way you’re thinking about this idea?”
Depending on the details, they may decide to scrap that idea, or they may come up with some great improvements on the original plan. Either way, it becomes their choice.
When you need to address a performance issue:
This could apply to any time when you need to see a certain outcome within a certain time frame, because it can be hard to see what options they have. Either get this done by this deadline, or face consequences. But when you look for any opportunity to offer choices, you’ll be surprised at how many you can find!
One way this could show up is:
“I need to see this outcome by this time next month. How do you want me to check in with you between now and then to make sure you’re on track?”
A different version of coaching as a leadership style
I could go on all day about coaching as I understand it, but to understand why some employees reject it, we need to talk about other ways “coaching” has been taught. Within the well-established Situational Leadership Model, they include coaching in their “Style 2”:
“Selling, Coaching or Explaining: Leader still makes decisions but provides context and engages in dialogue to reinforce buy-in.”
This approach is grounded in work from the 1970s, while the ICF was founded in the 1990s, so that may explain the very different uses of this term. And I’ll admit that I haven’t completed this program, so I may be missing some nuance. But years ago, I had a supervisor who used this “selling” style frequently, focusing on getting members of our department to “buy-in” to their priorities instead of supporting us in setting goals that mattered to us. Let’s just say that this approach led to very different outcomes than I’ve experienced from ICF-aligned coaching.
Of course there will be times when a leader has to be the one to make the final decision. And in that case, being transparent about explaining the reasoning behind that decision is good practice. But that would not be considered coaching within the ICF framework.
So whenever you’re discussing coaching, it’s important to make sure you’re both using the same definition. And when I work with leaders whose team members have negative associations with the label “coaching”, we frame it as leading with curiosity, instead.
[i] I did a quick skim of ALA Joblist while drafting this post. On just the first page of unfiltered results, I found three job ads that mention coaching!
Editor’s note: We welcome a guest blog post from Kaetrena Davis Kendrick, MSLS, Founder, Renewals.
(Activation notice: This post shares information about harmful workplace experiences and impacts on the body and may (re-)surface negative memories and/or associated emotions. Please take the time you need to move through this post at your capacity, and contact your healthcare team for support).
We’re continuing our reconsideration of rest practices, this time focusing on somatic interruptions to and reimagining rest invitations for harmed bodies. In Part 1, I explored causes of unrest and disconnections from rest for library workers. In this second part, we’ll look at how traumatized bodies respond to rest after long-term (and ongoing) exposure to harm, and I’ll highlight a trauma-informed framework to apply when considering established rest pathways. At the end of this blog, rather than a prescriptive approach to promoting rest pathways, I offer reflective questions about your experiences of rest and its connection to systems/policies – along with an invitation to a brief practice that gently increases your impressions of rest. I also hope the questions and practices spark reimagination of collective rest approaches in your workplace.
Interruption: The Traumatized Body’s Reaction to Rest
Traumatic experiences impact people despite their proximity to known harm and undermines their attempts to rest. Here are a few ways harm creates proximity-agnostic disconnections from rest practices.
Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD): Sufferers not only are subject to intrusive thoughts, but may internalize blame and shame as they remember their responses to harm (See Also, low-morale experience participant data). Comito’s Library Trauma Cycle highlights this blame cycle, implying internal messages and links to enacting harm on others. Additionally, PTSD criteria also include avoiding activities that may activate memories of trauma (think of all the activities we offer to library users!), sleep disturbance, and heightened startle responses.
Hyperviligance: a state of heightened emotional and somatic awareness despite absence of threats, hyperviligance is connected to PTSD, and is also associated with anxiety and depression (the most commonly reported mental health impacts of low-morale experiences). This state interrupts most standard rest practices as sufferers engage in second-guessing their decisions, avoiding conflict, catastrophizing, or rumination. Hyperviligance can also contribute to poorer quality of sleep as sufferers struggle to fall or stay asleep.
Cultural Message/Stereotype Reinforcement: people who identify or present as female, as well as Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) are often tacitly encouraged and expected to ignore their bodies’ need for rest. From Working Mom/GirlBoss tropes and memes to the Strong Black Woman archetype, these reinforcements are activated outside of work and in employees’ personal lives, taking on additional nefariousness in the predominantly white and female LIS industry (See Also, Oppressed Group Behavior; See Also “Running the Gauntlet“).
Invitation: Collaborating With – Not Against – Rest
Polyvagal theory reveals inadvertent impacts of sudden exposure to rest and relaxation for hyperaroused bodies, and includes formal countermeasures for traumatized bodies to process and release energy stored in the body after adverse events (Somatic Experiencing International 2025). Nervous system regulation techniques like resourcing and titration may help harmed minds and bodies acclimate to intentional rest practices. I’ve invited Sarah Wallace, a Licensed Practicing Counselor, Somatic Experiencing Practitioner, and Founder of Blue Heron Counseling, LLC to share more. Listen in to hear her brief explanation of these techniques.
Invitation: A Framework to Consider
In addition to engaging in established rest practices, consider how they may be applied through a trauma-informed lens. The Wellness Wheel for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color in LIS was created by Amanda Leftwich, founder of mindfulinlis, in 2018. The wheel counters conventional wellness models by considering the lived occupational wellness experiences of BIPOC library workers and offering somatic and system-interrupting responses to events that compromise worker well-being. See a fuller description – and examples – here (click the annotation icons).
With love, bell hooks reminds us that healing is done in community – not alone. Therefore, in addition to sharing information about rest – and even in addition to presentations about how we have applied rest – we must also offer spaces for people to imagine, craft, engage, and be held accountable for protecting space(s) to and practices of rest. Tricia Hersey’s Nap Ministry collaborative sleep installations are an example of how these spaces can be made available. In libraries, we are aware of the need for these spaces; yet they are often reserved for people visiting the library. In the “back rooms” of our buildings, spaces for employees to rest and decompress are scant beyond a mandated milk expression room or institutional-feeling breakrooms. Invitations to share challenges and apply solutions are met with skepticism as worker recommendations fall into administrative, municipal, or political hinterlands. During the Pandemic, rest/restorative practice spaces were offered to BIPOC library workers, and Renewals offered its inaugural online practice and resonance community space in June 2025 (see the impact). More practice spaces are needed – and additional collaborations with counselors and therapists should be cultivated to increase somatic education and access to LIS practitioners. Whether you’re interested in practice, conversation, or both, here are some upcoming opportunities to engage:
Invitation: Questions and an Activity to Inspire Space-making for (Collective) Rest Practice
What workplace supports (did you wish) were available to you when you began your rest practices? How did these supports (or the lack thereof) play out as you identified, advocated for, refined, or expanded your goals? Note which policies provided these supports (or note what policies are needed to offer the supports that did not materialize).
