Let your knowledge, expertise, and experience guide others.

“The Insufficient Librarian” focuses on the human aspect of academic librarianship. It’s a holistic approach to (self-)examining librarian growth, conflicts, and limitations/barriers in the academic library field. 

This can include, but is not limited to: restorative justice, equal opportunities, wellbeing, culture of work that leads to burnout, society's expectations of libraries and librarians, innovation in library practice, increasing technological disparities, justice responsibilities, systematic dismantling of the institution of libraries, book bans, lack of institutional support and more. 

We ask you to creatively form your own interpretation of the insufficient librarian and what this means to you. Proposal topics may include but are not limited to: 

• Radical, innovative and outside of the box ideas to engage, instruct, perform job duties, support students, and transcend library practices.

• Building wellness into library resources and services

• Implementing tools learned via professional development 

• Dealing with hitting your limit

• Dealing with professional fails; i.e., things you have tried don’t seem to be successful, the professional development skills/tools learned didn’t work, etc.

• Engaging different campus groups, student groups in collection building or programming

• Navigating expectations or understanding of libraries

• Cultivating justice-oriented practices, resources and/or leadership

• Re-imagining library spaces 

• Engaging staff and librarians in library leadership and development

• Implementing new services that engage with library resources

• Making the library “accessible” to all students

• Educating faculty, managers and administrators as learners. 

• Creating opportunities for library buy-in

• Leveraging technology in new ways 

• Digitizing and adding metadata to increase access and engagement