ACRL announces the publication of Academic Librarian Burnout: Causes and Responses, edited by Christina Holm, Ana Guimaraes, and Nashieli Marcano. The book offers ways to discuss burnout in our work environments, studies burnout’s nature and causes, and provides preventative intervention and mitigation strategies.

Librarianship has been conceptualized as a vocation or calling—rather than a profession—since the 1800s. Within this historical context, librarians are encouraged to think of ourselves as possessing a natural disposition to showing perpetual engagement, enthusiasm, and self-regulation in pursuit of our shared vocation. These assumptions about the profession can sometimes shield us from introspective criticism, but they can also prevent us from recognizing and managing the systemic occupational issues that afflict us.

Academic Librarian Burnout can help librarians develop the agency to challenge the assumptions and practices that have led to so much professional burnout. It’s divided into five thorough parts:

● Reframing Burnout

● Conditions that Promote Burnout

● Lived Experiences

● Individual Responses to Burnout

● Organizational Responses to Burnout

Our Research

You may buy a copy of our book at the ALA Store

Please find the post-print of our article here or visit the Journal of Library Administration to download our published version.

Our Dataset

Please find the dataset used in our 2018 study on academic librarian burnout here. This dataset is available under CC BY-NC.