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The main purpose of this work is to uncover and identify the issues that academic librarians consider important in the attainment of work–life balance. This work will focus on exploring their experiences with different dimensions of burnout.

The topic of burnout is explored by analyzing the results of a survey based on the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), which was distributed among librarians at a group academic institutions that are members of the Association of Southeastern Research Libraries (ASERL).

The findings of this study do not demonstrate evidence of burnout among the sample population. However, the results do present plenty of opportunities for further exploration such as the relationship between burnout and personal factors, including LGBTQA + status and race or ethnic minority status.

Further exploration of the topic of burnout should be followed up with more qualitative studies, especially those employing interviews.

Improvement of human resource practices, which reduces the incidence of burnout among academic librarians, is something that can only be accomplished at the organizational level. Human resource practices can create a work environment that enhances productivity by improving the quality of life of employees.

This work explores and assesses academic librarian burnout, among those working in academic institutions in the southeastern United States. To date, no study has been undertaken that looks at burnout across broad types of work performed by academic librarians and librarians at different institutions.

This chapter will focus on the ways in which publishing in the library and information science (LIS) field has demonstrated to be a career obstacle for the author, a Latina scholar. Academic work is defined as a three-legged stool in which the three legs are defined as research, teaching, and service. Here, the author presents a self-reflection as a Latina in academia related to her experiences while publishing topics of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in LIS. The author presents specific experiences which have hindered her progress as a scholar especially those related to the push back she has received on the research topic matter and the positionality statements which “outs” her as a Spanish-speaking Latina and might even “out” her identity to reviewers. The author’s goal with this chapter is to shed light into some of the issues that make for a treacherous path to career progression in academia for scholars who belong to minoritized groups, but it is seldom discussed in the field.

The purpose of this study is to look at organizational stories shared among academic librarians who work at the reference desk, and create a typology of the stories based on the knowledge transferred in these. Previous research suggests that stories are the main way in which organizations communicate common values, organizational rules and promote organizational learning. The main question researched here will be: what kind of knowledge is transferred through the stories shared among librarians? This is an important consideration since the meaning carried through the story can shape the employee’s perception of the organization.

This research employed long interviews using a semi-structured questionnaire based on the works of Yiannis Gabriel (2000) as a guide. A total of 20 reference librarians working at four different academic institutions in the southern USA participated in this study.

The analysis of the data reveals a typology of organizational stories shared. The main topics covered by the stories all deal with cultural knowledge exchanges, while also serve as coping mechanisms and present important organizational culture aspects. The stories shared also reflect negative aspects related to the lack of proper communication within the organizations, with the presence of rumors among the narratives shared.

These findings can serve as a first step for the development of healthier organizational cultures in libraries and may have implications for training and development, change management, motivation and collective memory.