It’s an Art, Not a Science: Building a Practice of Slow Librarianship as a Health Sciences Librarian Leader – CE400

Date: Tuesday, April 29, 2025, 1:00pm–5:00pm

All courses will take place on Tuesday, April 29, 2025, in Pittsburgh, PA. Courses are not available virtually.

To register, see MLA ’25 Registration

If you see yourself as a leader, whether in your professional or personal life, slow librarianship can play a key role in your growth. Whether you’re familiar with slow librarianship, looking to develop the skills to implement it, or aiming to enhance your library services along with the quality and fulfillment of your work as a library leader at any level, Lorin Jackson, Jill Deaver, and Meredith Solomon—three experienced slow librarianship practitioners—are here to guide you.

Slow librarianship is a holistic framework that prioritizes forming connections by first centering the needs of a community (e.g. department, university, users, hospital, public collaborators, city/town) to ensure impactful, equitable services. Slow librarianship grounds us in a value set that, when enacted, enhances the well-being of employees and their relationships with their broader community.

This course will help you develop skills for revitalizing yourself, your work, and your library through lectures, demonstrations, reflective exercises, and small group discussions. You will learn innovative approaches to active listening, how to slow your reaction to conflict, increase your capacity to become more self-aware (before you react), and center intentional responses.

You will also learn how to take the first steps in recognizing intersectionality to create an inclusive and supportive work environment. You’ll be empowered to grow your leadership capabilities by celebrating each person’s unique contributions to your library’s vision and mission by acquiring tools for engaging in authentic conversations with direct reports and colleagues. Applying these steps facilitates the creation of a more psychologically safe and sustainable work environment.

Slow librarianship skills enable you to enhance your work with colleagues, improve your relationships with library users, strengthen your library’s culture, and build upon the value of traditional library work. Lorin, Jill, and Meredith will guide you through reviewing your health sciences library services through a focused, curious, and brave lens, where you will engage with emerging trends to make your service offerings even more effective and inclusive.

You’ll begin with some pre-course assignments, such as listening to podcasts and submitting a “thorny” situation/concern at your library. Then, there will be devoted time in the course to address your concerns within our class community of practice.

You’ll leave the course with a renewed enthusiasm for your work, gaining new perspectives, skills, tools, and plans to implement slow librarianship. Learning outcomes include creating a plan to develop these skills further and partnering with a colleague throughout your process to implement slow librarianship principles in your library.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this course, you will be able to:

• Define slow librarianship and state its benefits
• Develop an individual slow librarianship plan that mimics a professional development plan
• Evaluate internal library services, such as procedural workflows and committee operations, as well as external library services geared toward patrons to make them even more effective and inclusive
• Learn to create an inclusive and supportive work environment

MLA CE: 4

Audience

Health science and other information professionals who lead or manage others. Those who self-identify as leaders in their professional or personal lives.

Instructors

Lorin Jackson, MA, MI (she/they), is Assistant Director of the Holman Biotech Commons at the University of Pennsylvania and an adjunct professor at Syracuse University. Lorin has dedicated her career to advancing inclusivity and diversity within the library field, particularly for those from underrepresented backgrounds. She has extensive experience over the past fifteen years fostering antiracism practices in various educational and non-profit settings. She has published several works focusing on the challenges and innovations in the field, particularly concerning critical librarianship, trauma-informed librarianship, equitable access and inclusivity, and developing kind leadership practices in libraries. Recognized for her leadership, Lorin has received awards, including the President’s Award from the Medical Library Association in 2024 for her contributions to the Be Well Initiative.

Jill Deaver, MA, MLIS (she/her), is an associate professor and Chair of the Department for Clinical, Academic, and Research Engagement at the Lister Hill Library of the Health Sciences, University of Alabama at Birmingham. Jill is passionate about organizational psychology and exploring the intricate dynamics of middle management and leadership. Exemplifying the principles of slow librarianship every day is not always easy. Still, Jill believes that it brings the best out of her team, empowering them to achieve the ultimate goal of health sciences librarianship: advancing health sciences research and the overall health of our communities.

Meredith Solomon, B.S., MLS AHIP (she/her), is the Manager, Outreach & Public Services at Harvard University’s Countway Library. Previously, she worked in small community hospitals, large metropolitan hospitals, and academic health science libraries. She has published several works on cultural humility and outreach & communication. Meredith believes supporting and developing work lives is key to enriching life stories. She exemplifies the principles of slow librarianship to bring out the best in her and her team – empowering them to achieve the ultimate goals of improving wellness for all through health sciences librarianship.