Libraries are often measured by what they contain–collections, technologies, services, systems. Underneath these themes are neoliberal capitalistic features of productivity and competition. I once prioritized technological innovation as the benchmark of progress, but I have come to realize that the modern library is, at its core, an architecture of care. In recent years, I have been inspired by leaders who recognize that library staff are the primary objective. It's based on a philosophy that honours the profound human dignity and emotional labour at our core, ensuring the physical reality of our work isn’t lost to the digital void. Here are the librarians I highlight:
Bobbi L. Newman approaches
librarianship as a practice of workplace well-being. A professor at the University of Iowa’s iSchool, Bobbie is also a Certified Wellness Practitioner whose work recognizes that burnout is not a personal failure, but often a structural one. Author of Fostering
Wellness in the Workplace: A Handbook for Libraries, Bobbie, reframes care as essential infrastructure, something libraries must build intentionally if they want people to thrive within them. Bobbi is a founder of ThriveLib, a virtual conference specifically designed for library workers, including staff, managers, and leaders, to address issues like burnout, compassion fatigue, and the need for better work-life boundaries.
Jessica Schomberg is a librarian at Minnesota State University, Mankato, who grounds care in access and justice. Her work spans cataloging, collection development, reference, and instruction, but her research focuses squarely on disability and social justice. She is deeply committed to working collaboratively to make libraries more accessible and inclusive, not only for patrons but also for workers. A frequent writer and speaker
on disabled adults in libraries and co-author of Beyond Accommodation: Creating an Inclusive Workplace for Disabled Library Workers, Schomberg challenges institutions to move beyond minimal compliance toward genuine inclusion, including those with invisible disabilities.
For Karina Hagelin, care is inseparable from survival and joy. A disabled nonbinary queer femme artist, educator, keynote speaker, librarian, and survivor, Hagelin transforms trauma through cute and colourful art that insists on softness without denying pain. Their work reminds us that libraries are emotional spaces, shaped by lived experience, and that healing does not always look serious or subdued. Karina’s podcast,
Healing is the Best Revenge, is a must-listen program that discusses healing, life with C-PTSD (complex post-traumatic stress disorder), survivorship, self + community care, among many things.
Widely known for her work on trauma-informed librarianship, Rebecca Tolley’s book
A Trauma-Informed Approach to Library Services is now used in a number of LIS programs and is one of the first and only in the field that addresses this topic. I found it immensely important in
my own work in this area. Her work addresses mental health in libraries, the importance of healthy personal and professional boundaries, and the cultivation of empathy among library workers. Rebecca names what many experience but rarely say aloud: that libraries are shaped by trauma and stress, and ignoring these realities will only do real harm.
Kristen Mastel
brings care into focus through mindfulness. As a librarian at the University of Minnesota, Kristen specializes in mindful librarianship, and her work recognizes that information work does not happen in a vacuum. By centring mindfulness, she helps create library spaces where students and staff can slow down, regulate stress, and engage more fully with themselves and others. Beyond the library, Mastel is also a certified forest therapy guide, herbalist, and health coach. After facing career and personal burnout, she found that time in nature was crucial to her mental and physical health and recovery.
I’ve moved beyond
gadget-driven techno-utopianism, refocusing instead on a radical empathy that anchors libraries as human institutions grounded in lived experience. I identify with these librarians' vision of librarianship rooted in humanity. There are probably many more that I haven't included in my short list here, and I will continue to highlight more in the months and years ahead. I’m inspired by these librarians whose work spans wellness, disability justice, trauma-informed practice, art, mindfulness, and nature-based healing, particularly as they converge on a single truth: libraries are human systems first. To care about people, more than anything else, is not a soft value or “weak.” Rather, it's about libraries maintaining their ethical heartbeat while navigating an uncertain landscape of the future of the profession itself.
