Have you ever had negative work experiences and wondered what others have done when they found themselves in similar situations? On this show Amadee Ricketts, Director of the Cochise County Library District in Arizona, talks about the results of a survey she conducted about negative work experiences in libraries. The results provided insights into the commonalities of these experiences, whether libraries are worse than other workplaces, and what red flags to watch for when applying for library jobs.
Transcript
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Adriane Herrick Juarez:
This is Adriane Herrick Juarez. You’re listening to Library Leadership Podcast, where we talk about libraries and leadership, and speak with guests who share their ideas, innovations, and strategic insights in the profession.
Have you ever had negative work experiences and wondered what others have done when they found themselves in similar situations? On this show, Amadee Ricketts, Director of the Cochise County Library District in Arizona, talks about the results of a survey she conducted about negative work experiences in libraries. The results provided insights into the commonalities of these experiences—whether libraries are worse than other workplaces, and what red flags to watch for when applying for library jobs. It’s an eye opening conversation. Enjoy the show!
Amadee, welcome to the show.
Amandee Ricketts:
Thank you. It’s great to be here.
Adriane Herrick Juarez:
Question #1: It’s great to have you here. Today we’re talking about negative work experience survey results. As we start, will you share your interest in surveying negative work experiences among librarians? 01:38
Amandee Ricketts:
I know this is a little bit of an unusual subject. I’ve worked in public libraries for twenty years, and most of the libraries I’ve worked in have been really good workplaces. Some of them have been truly great. But back toward the beginning of my career, I worked in a library that was pretty dysfunctional, and not a good fit in various ways. It was so bad I thought about leaving the profession.
I’ve thought about that a lot of years, and it still shapes the way I approach some aspects of work. Now that it’s been many years and I feel more secure in my career, I wanted to go take another look—see what I could learn from that experience, and hopefully share with others. I’m hoping that other people who’ve had difficult experiences like that will feel less alone, as part of this work, and that library leaders will be encouraged to take a look at workplace culture and employee experiences, as well.
Adriane Herrick Juarez:
Question #2: Absolutely. Thank you for sharing that with us. So in your survey, what did you find out about common adverse work experiences in libraries? 02:51
Amandee Ricketts:
I have to say that this survey really was self-selected toward people who have had adverse experiences. It doesn’t reflect the whole world of work experiences in libraries. But of the people who responded, the vast majority of people described problems with management or leadership in their libraries. These ranged from poor communication and dictatorial leadership to micromanagement—not feeling that their contributions were valued or heard. More than 90% of people talked about that being the crux of their experience. A smaller number, but still significant, talked about problems with coworkers, or teams, or experiencing discrimination or harassment. In both of those cases, it was around half of respondents. Those findings really tracked closely with some of the recent literature I’ve read on this, which identified some common themes in dysfunctional library workplaces, including poor communication, overbearing bureaucracies, high turnover, and destructive organizational politics. So, it really felt like these things meshed pretty closely.
Adriane Herrick Juarez:
Question #3: It sounds like it. Are libraries worse than other types of workplaces? 04:13
Amandee Ricketts:
I know that with me talking about all this negative stuff, it could sound like that. But no, I honestly don’t think so. That’s based both on my experience working in libraries and just talking with colleagues over all these years, but also the survey results and the reading I’ve done. So, after thinking and reading a lot about this for a long time, I don’t think that adverse work experiences are more prevalent or more common in libraries than in other kinds of public-facing or service-oriented industries.
While my survey was really just aimed at people who had these types of experiences, there have been some broader surveys of library staff in recent years, and one that I got a lot of information from was conducted by an author named Jo Henry, who’s a librarian, and others—as part of their work on a book called The Dysfunctional Library. They surveyed more than 3000 library workers across the country, and about 53% described having worked in dysfunctional library environments. That is fairly similar to the results you’d see in other fields.
That didn’t sound terrible, but I kind of think it is. Part of the reason I think it is, is that I love libraries, and I think we can do so much better. I really think that libraries are important and it matters what kind of workplaces we make them. I think that in many instances, libraries aren’t well prepared to handle these kinds of issues. Part of that is that libraries, I think, have been slow to realize—and this is getting better, that management and leadership are their own skill sets and talents, that aren’t identical to being great at your specialty or your frontline work.
I think a lot of people enter those roles in libraries without adequate preparation or resources. So when things come up, they’re stuck or panicked—not sure how best to approach it. I also think that library staff may be ill prepared to find these kinds of work environments in libraries, because for many of us, that’s our dream job. We come to it sort of picturing, you know, that it’s this wonderful palace of learning—whether it’s public or academic, that we’re there to serve and that we’ll be working with like-minded people who are all pulling toward the same goal. Then when you’re there in that environment and you run into something that’s really, really terrible, I think that sense of surprise, or not having your expectations met can make it a lot tougher.
One of the articles I’ve really have fallen back on during all this process is—it’s a few years old now. It’s from 2018. It’s by Fobazi Ettarh, Vocational Awe and Librarianship: The Lies We Tell Ourselves which I did think was really thought provoking. What she said about this was, Because the sacred duties of freedom, information, and service are so momentous, the library worker is easily paralyzed in the face of grand missions of literacy and freedom, advocating for your full lunch break feels petty. And tasked with the responsibility of sustaining democracy and intellectual freedom, taking a mental health day feels shameful. That really resonated with me in terms of why maybe library workers aren’t always equipped to advocate for themselves and to address some of these problems when they come across them.
Adriane Herrick Juarez:
Question #4: Given that, will you please share a bit about the survey and the findings? 07:46
Amandee Ricketts:
This survey was conducted in January and February of this year, 2023. The first surprise was just the volume of responses. I was shocked and a little overwhelmed. The last time I conducted a survey when I was preparing a conference presentation, it was a few years back, on a youth services topic. I sent out requests for responses, multiple times over a period of weeks and ultimately got about fifty. It was like pulling teeth, not because people didn’t want to share, but because everyone’s busy, etc. I was expecting something sort of similar here, and instead I put out two requests for responses, one on a state library type interest group, and one nationally—and got hundreds of responses within about three days. If I’d realized, I would have designed this survey differently and it wouldn’t have been quite so open-ended, like narrative responses.
The responses were fascinating, but not as easy to handle from a statistical perspective as they would have been if they had been more granular. I’ve learned that I need to learn more about survey design if I ever do something like this again, but this was open to anybody who’s worked in any type of library in the US in the last ten years. It didn’t have a requirement to have an MLS—to have a certain amount of experience.
I was surprised that 86% of the people who responded did report having a master’s in library science, or equivalent. Ninety percent had worked in libraries for more than five years. Sixty percent of the people who responded had moved on from the libraries where they had their negative work experiences, but 40% were still in the same environments. And really, a huge proportion of these folks said that their experiences had affected their approach to work, even if it was years ago, and that it affected their personal lives and relationships. That reflected my own experience as well.
Adriane Herrick Juarez:
Question #5: What are some red flags when it comes to negative work experiences? 09:55
Amandee Ricketts:
This was interesting. This was something that I had thought quite a bit about over the years, and I was really surprised how much overlap there was between people’s responses. Like, there were a lot of common themes, and there was a lot of similarity between things that people saw and found concerning, at least in retrospect, about the hiring process and things that people saw early on in a workplace that turned out to be really difficult.
Some of these included very high turnover. I think all of us have seen, if you keep an eye out for library jobs at all, certain places where the same jobs pop up again, and again very often. Or, if you’re in a metro area you may know there are certain libraries that churn through people. That was a biggie—a disorganized hiring process.
Things like interviews being double-booked, showing up for an interview and the people having no idea you were coming. Things where there were contradictory dates in interview materials. That really seemed like something that, especially in retrospect, people looked back and wished that they had taken more caution from.
Staff that seemed nervous, fearful or hostile. Interviewers who are not comfortable answering questions about the job, or about the workplace. Noticeable, difficult social dynamics during the interview process itself. Things like interviewers gossiping, complaining, or bickering during the interview. You wouldn’t think that would be very common, but in some of these places that turned out to be really difficult workplaces, it was. I have to say, looking back to my own experience, I wouldn’t have known some of these things because it was so many years ago and there were fewer ways to see what the turnover is like at that library. But the disorganized hiring process, and some of the other things were 100% there. I do wish that I’d been better grounded in what to watch out for and what that might mean for the job.
Adriane Herrick Juarez:
Question #6: These are important things to watch for. And Amandee, you’ve mentioned your own negative work experience which played a role in your wanting to explore this topic. Would you like to share anything about that? 12:06
Amandee Ricketts:
In one of my favorite books on this subject, The Dysfunctional Library, which I’ll mention at the end—the folks, the authors, were asked during their process getting that book ready, whether it was going to be a tell-all, and they said, no, it is not. And similarly, I don’t have any. You know, there’s nothing to be gained from naming and shaming any specific libraries, mine or other peoples. And, places change over time. I will say that when I accepted the job, it turned out to be really difficult. I wasn’t a kid, you know, I was around thirty. I’d had other jobs. I really felt like I was prepared for anything. But I’d only been a librarian for a couple of years. I was pretty fresh out of school. This job had some real concerning aspects from the start, but the offer seemed incredibly shiny. It was more money than I’d ever made. It was a beautiful new building. There was a job for my spouse who was moving across the country with me. So, there was a lot there that was hard to resist. Pretty quickly it was clear that it was a workplace where meetings were full of people ambushing each other and being reprimanded and crying. It was just an environment unlike anything I’d ever seen.
Even though I walked in feeling like, I’m not a kid, I’m prepared for anything, I’ve had jobs. It was really something. I think the aspect that made it even more jarring at the time was that I really didn’t know a lot about that specific library, and there were some policy things related to circulation, and similar aspects, that I’d never seen anywhere else and haven’t seen since. Things like no cap on overdue fines on an item, even after the person had been charged to replace the item. So, you could have people at the desk who had lost a board book several years ago—and at least on their account it would say that they owed hundreds of dollars for that. The combination of those things was really tough.
I will say that I feel I learned a lot from it, and while it was a difficult experience and I wish I hadn’t stayed as long as I had, I do think that everything else I’ve experienced since then has seemed like cake, because that was so difficult. So there’s been some silver lining to it, although I think there are better ways for people to get those resources and lessons.
Adriane Herrick Juarez:
Question #7: Yes, it’s better if we don’t have to experience this firsthand. Sometimes when librarians are in the midst of a negative work experience, they stay. And you mentioned in retrospect, that you stayed longer than you maybe should have. What did you discover about this in your survey? 14:50
Amandee Ricketts:
This was really interesting. For myself, I stayed partly because back in the day, I think that the received wisdom was that if you stayed anywhere less than a year, you looked like a job hopper, like a person who couldn’t hold a job. I think that stigma has receded some over time, and I would just take it less seriously now.
But, other people talked about things like just not seeing other good options, either financially or otherwise. Maybe they’re not in a position to move. Maybe the job started off fine and got difficult over time, but they’re nearing retirement, or they have family ties in the area. There are reasons they need to stay.
So there are all kinds of reasons, but one that was more common than I expected, and that I actually found pretty inspiring, was that sometimes people have stayed because the work experience got better, either because some of the factors that made it bad just changed of their own accord—like the dictatorial director left, new staff were hired and brought new energy, things like that. But in some cases, the experience changed because the person was able to change it or take part in changing it from within. I thought that was pretty wonderful. I’ve presented about this at, maybe, three conferences now and have been really excited to talk to people about their takeaways.
I met a really wonderful young man, a librarian at a conference in Arizona recently who talked about having gone to work at a library in his hometown, and had been so excited about it only to discover that it had a lot of these really dysfunctional elements, and it was a terrible workplace. But instead of leaving, as I had, and as I would have—this was his hometown. His response was, in a sense, to get mad. To feel like he’s there to serve this community and nobody’s going to drive him out of his dream job—serving his community. So, he stayed. Over a period of years, worked his way up, and now is the director of that library and has made huge changes and feels amazing because he stuck it out and made it work. So there are a lot of reasons that people might stay, but in some instances there can be really good outcomes.
Adriane Herrick Juarez:
Question #8: That’s a great story. What are the lessons learned from all of this? 17:34
Amandee Ricketts:
There are tons. It varies, of course, so much by person. So many of these things are very subjective—that was a big thing that I learned, because what I was picturing, based on my own early experience, was somewhat black and white. You know, looking back, I felt that was a terrible place to work, etc., which for me it was. But often things are a lot more nuanced than that. So, in talking to colleagues, in collecting all these experiences from folks, it really highlighted the fact that one person’s terrible workplace might be just fine for someone else—that there’s a whole mix of things happening.There were later libraries where I worked that I loved and felt supported and mentored, where colleagues I still like and respect had a much different experience. So that’s part of it.
Some of the big takeaways I got from other people sharing their experience were to take red flags seriously, both during the hiring process and at the start of a new job—to build and maintain a professional network and a personal support system so that if you do have a difficult experience, you’ve got all those tools, you’ve got people to fall back on and you’re not isolated, that if you need to leave, by all means leave. But sometimes, things do get better and even in a really difficult workplace, often you can gain skills, gain marketable experience that will help you further down the line.
So, even if your situation is really tough, there are things that you can get out of it that will move you forward ultimately. Oh, and that professional associations are a great way to build those networks. Whether it’s your state association, or a regional association like Mountain Plains Library Association—my personal favorite, that is a great way to stay active and connected with other folks.
Adriane Herrick Juarez:
Question #9: Those are good takeaways. Is there anything else you’d like to share? 19:40
Amandee Ricketts:
I think this really covered the big things for me. I guess I would just mention that if anybody is interested in more on this topic, I will share a couple of resources at the end that I have found useful, but I have a fairly extensive bibliography that I’m glad to share with folks if they would like. And, I’m also glad to share the summaries from this survey with lots and lots of excerpts from what people shared and statistics, as far as I could gather them. There’s only one person with my name in the whole country—I’m incredibly easy to find. So, please reach out at any time and I would be glad to share that.
Adriane Herrick Juarez:
Question #10: That’s very generous. Thank you, Amandee. Do you have any favorite management, or leadership books, or resources and why? 20:19
Amandee Ricketts:
I do, but in relation to this subject in particular, I’d like to mention a couple. One that I mentioned a couple of times in response to the questions, which I think I found the most useful in preparing my presentation on this, and really just as a lens to look at my own experience, too—it’s called The Dysfunctional Library: Challenges and Solutions to Workplace Relationships. It’s by Joe Henry et al. It came out in 2018. They have subsequently done some webinars and other training through ALA and other organizations that I really recommend. They have a follow-up book called Cultivating Civility: Practical Ways to Improve a Dysfunctional Library, from 2020. That was based on feedback from the first book where people were looking for solutions more than were covered in that first title. I really thought both of those were great.
I also really recommend the article I mentioned early on, which was Vocational Awe and Librarianship: The Lies We Tell Ourselves by Fobazi Ettarh. It first appeared In the Library with the Lead Pipe back in 2018, but it’s easy to find all over the web if you search for vocational awe in librarianship.
Adriane Herrick Juarez:
Question #11: Those sound great. Thank you. In closing, what do libraries mean to you? 21:36
Amandee Ricketts:
Personally, I love libraries, so I don’t want anything I’ve said here to make it sound otherwise. I came to this profession because libraries were my home away from home growing up. I grew up in really small rural areas, and that was my window to the world and my way to learn about experiences much different from my own, and to be more thoughtful about my own experience.
Working in libraries has generally been wonderful too, and I work in small and rural libraries now. I think that every kind of library is important, but I do feel like in these small communities, we’re so critical to even just the sense of community as well as to individual folks who come and use our services.
I love libraries, and my main focus in talking about all this stuff is just to make us even better and more sustainable for the future, because I think we’re facing so many external challenges in terms of funding, in terms of content challenges and intellectual freedom, and we can only be effective in taking that on if our library workforce is healthy and strong and ready to take it on.
Adriane Herrick Juarez:
Question #12: I love libraries too, Amandee, so I’m glad you said that. Discussing negative work experiences in libraries does not diminish that. To the contrary, talking about this gives us a way to band together and hopefully create better work experiences, or find new ones. Thinking through negative work experiences in libraries helps us acknowledge things can go wrong, and how to avoid them, to make our libraries great places to work. I appreciate you taking the time to ask librarians about this, and to share the results with me and with our listeners. 22:54
Amandee Ricketts:
Well, I sure appreciate you taking the time to talk to me about it today. And, you know, I love the Library Leadership Podcast—so very excited to appear on it.
Adriane Herrick Juarez:
Thanks, Amandee. It’s been so great to have you here.
Amandee Ricketts:
Thanks so much, Adriane. Great to talk to you.
Adriane Herrick Juarez:
You’ve been listening to Library Leadership podcast. This is Adriane Herrick Juarez. For more episodes, tune in to Library Leadership Podcast.com, where you can now subscribe to get episodes delivered right to your email inbox. Our producer is Nathan Sinclair Vineyard. Thanks for listening. We’ll see you next time.
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