Why These Librarians Care About People, More Than Anything Else

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.

From Publisher to Data Cartel: The Lifecycle of the Information Industry

In Data Cartels, law librarian Sarah Lamdan names something many in librarianship have long felt but rarely framed so clearly: that the modern information ecosystem is shaped by powerful data monopolies whose interests often run counter to public good, privacy, and intellectual freedom. Currently, the two largest companies in the world, Thomson Reuters and RELX ( Reed, Elsevier, LexisNexis, and Exhibitions), are no longer just in the publishing or media business; they are data brokers who collect and sell data. It’s shocking that RELX's annual profit margin is 30%, while Walmart's is only 3%.

In this well-researched monograph, Lamdan traces how these two corporations control legal, academic, and commercial databases, extract immense profits from publicly produced knowledge, and lock institutions into costly, restrictive contracts. For academic libraries and librarians like myself who use these databases and products to support our students and researchers, this resonates immediately.

Escalating journal and database prices are not simply budgetary annoyances; they are symptoms of a cartelized system that treats access to knowledge as a luxury rather than a collective right. Libraries, especially publicly funded ones as the one I am working at, end up paying repeatedly for research produced by scholars whose labour is already subsidized by the public. While academic libraries are opting out of big package deals with the likes of Elsevier, it is certainly not making a dent in the businesses of the data cartels. As long as there is a tenure-track system, academics will continue to publish and sign away their copyrights to journals in Elsevier, Wiley, Sage, Taylor & Francis, and be exploited in the process.

If it only costs Elsevier $600 to publish an article and Elsevier makes $4000 from selling it, what happens to the other $3,400?

Sarah Lamdan, Data Cartels

 

What makes Data Cartels a critical read today is its urgent attention to surveillance. Lamdan documents how data brokers and database vendors increasingly collaborate with U.S. government agencies, like ICE, by allowing personal information to circulate beyond traditional legal safeguards. In this environment, libraries are no longer just access points to information but are potential nodes in surveillance networks. As librarians, we face challenges that test our core professional values regarding user privacy, confidentiality, and informed consent.

As a librarian, I see Data Cartels not merely as a critique but as a call to action. It asks us to rethink licensing practices, advocate for open access, interrogate vendor relationships, and prioritize privacy as a non-negotiable ethical commitment. At a moment when data extraction, market consolidation, and state surveillance are accelerating, I worry whether we are too late to the game. Whereas the Amazons, Googles, and Facebooks of the world are sometimes monitored by the government for antitrust violations, there don’t seem to be the same guardrails in place for these data cartels.

Mental Health and LIS, Are We The Interruptors?

Even as I enter my own library at work, engulfed by its calm, quiet and orderly spaces, places of refuge for our students and staff, I feel the inner anxiety and unease of the morning, of the news stories and frantic awakenings at night. My anxiety has increased since the pandemic, probably even before it, if I really think about it. My mental health never much concerned me until more recently. Like me, I believe that behind the service desks, in staff rooms, and across institutional hierarchies, library workers everywhere frequently carry invisible burdens into the workplace. But within the realm of library work, conversations about mental illness are too often pushed to the sidelines, whispered behind office doors, or softened for others’ comfort. Silence becomes a form of policy, professionalism a mask.  In our era, library workers learn, implicitly or explicitly, that struggling is to be done quietly.

One of the monographs I came across confronts this silence head-on. Amazingly, LIS Interrupted seems to be the only title that fully provides firsthand accounts from library workers. The book brings conversations about mental health into public view, where they can finally be named and understood. By centring lived experiences, LIS Interrupted refuses to admit mental illness as a personal failing or a mere “inconvenient interruption” to work. Instead, it reveals how mental health is deeply entangled with the conditions of library labour itself, work that is emotionally demanding, undervalued, increasingly precarious, and shaped by systems of power.

In weaving together personal narratives and critical analyses to explore how mental illness intersects with labour, race, gender, disability, culture, stigma, and identity in the LIS field, this book explores structural inequities, namely, ableism, racism, colonialism, and managerialism. It’s a rather chilling notion that these very inequities determine who is supported, who is surveilled, and who is expected to endure harm in silence.

However, this book is not solely about suffering, but about connection and possibility. For library workers who have felt isolated or unseen, LIS Interrupted offers affirmation and solidarity. For educators and students, it serves as a critical text that challenges dominant narratives of resilience and vocational sacrifice. For institutions, it is a call to action to transform workplace cultures to better support their staff's care and dignity. In my work on trauma-informed care in libraries, I’m deeply interested in how mental health is not addressed. Karena Hagelin, an LIS trauma-expert, frames saneism as a “systemic and structural oppression of mad, crazy, and mentally ill” individuals and is a manifestation of ableism. For those who have experienced trauma, which is many of us, the norm has been to hide and disregard these feelings during work hours. In the case of the institution, to rid itself of these workers who disrupt the calm and order if it gets out of hand. I’m fortunate to have some tools and support to get through some challenging days, but thriving is still the goal.   I’m not the only one.  Let's have this book on the shelves of every library and on every desk.

"Implementing Trauma-Informed Practices in Academic Libraries: Empowering Staff to Foster Resilient and Inclusive Learning Environments" at UBC Library

Over the past year, I've been honoured to be part of Implementing Trauma-Informed Practices in Academic Libraries: Empowering Staff to Foster Resilient and Inclusive Learning Environments, a project supported by UBC Library’s Strategic Equity and Anti-Racism Framework (StEAR) Enhancement Fund. Our goal has been simple yet deeply ambitious: to reimagine the academic library as a place where staff are not only equipped to understand trauma, respond with empathy, and foster spaces that feel safe, inclusive, and genuinely supportive, but also have self-care practices to support themselves when facing or experiencing retraumatization.

The grant proposal behind this initiative seeks funding to deliver a comprehensive trauma-informed training program for library staff across UBC. This includes workshops and creating resources that introduce core principles of trauma-informed care, including safety, trust, choice, collaboration, and empowerment, to demonstrate how they translate into everyday library interactions.

Research shows that historically marginalized communities often carry disproportionate burdens of trauma, and encounters with discrimination—however subtle—can intensify stress and psychological harm. In academic libraries, where diverse users seek help, study, rest, and a sense of belonging, trauma-informed approaches are not just beneficial but essential.

A recent title that informed my work in this area is Trauma-Informed Leadership in Libraries (edited by Janet Crum and David Ketchum), which features a roster of LIS practitioners well-versed in this area. The monograph excites me because it considers an individual’s holistic life experiences, particularly the negative consequences of trauma, when determining how best to support and engage with them in the workplace from a manager's viewpoint and context.

My participation in this project has been both professionally transformative and personally grounding. Working alongside colleagues who share a commitment to equity and care has deepened my understanding of how library work intersects with human vulnerability. This initiative is more than a training program; it's a step toward reshaping campus culture, one interaction at a time, to ensure that all library users feel seen, supported, and respected.

Joyful Reading of "Chinatown Vancouver: An Illustrated History"

Reading Chinatown Vancouver: An Illustrated History by Donna Seto has been an absolute joy and revelation. From the moment I opened its pages, I felt immersed in a vivid and engaging tapestry of a community that has shaped the soul of Vancouver. The book’s vibrant illustrations bring to life a neighbourhood that is both historic and alive – and very near and dear to my heart. The historical Chinatown that I know — its narrow streets buzzing with memory, its shopfronts glowing with the warmth of people who built something enduring against the odds – brought back many fond memories for me. And to a past I have heard of but never visually experienced in a book.

I found myself lingering over the write-ups on the buildings, or searching on Google Street View, each one a small story of resilience and pride. The interviews with community members are deeply moving — their voices remind me that Chinatown isn’t just a place on a map; it’s a living archive of hope, survival, and belonging. Donna Seto’s research through archival photographs, too, offers a powerful window into the bustling heart of the community during its thriving days. I could almost imagine stepping through the doors of Cathay Importers, hearing the clatter of plates at Ho Inn Restaurant, or catching the aroma of a meal at Ho Ho.

For a librarian and historian like myself, Chinatown Vancouver: An Illustrated History isn’t just a history book. It’s a love letter to a neighbourhood that carries the weight of generations, a reminder that place connects us to our past and shapes our future. Reading it, I feel both pride and responsibility — pride in the community’s strength, and commitment to ensure its stories continue to be heard.

 

Competency Checking in the Modern Workplace

A decade ago, when I was earlier in my career, I experienced an incident that continues to follow. During a retreat, our team participated in a group activity to generate ideas about the program logic model. When it was my turn, I suggested that any initiative should have an element of autodidacticism. Expecting to build on this point or continue with the conversation, there were no comments. Instead, my boss noted I had used a “ten-dollar word,” followed by snickering amongst the group, who then moved on to break time.  

I had trouble articulating what I had experienced at the moment, but I felt demoralized. My contribution felt like a joke that didn’t resonate with the audience. Except I wasn’t joking. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the first, nor the last, time I experienced such a microaggression. At its worst, I questioned my sanity in such situations. Now more than two decades into my career, I can confidently say that this is common among marginalized individuals.

Shari Dunn, an EDI consultant and author of Qualified, answers precisely what I experienced and have been puzzled by. It’s called competency checking. There are three primary ways competency checking is deployed in the modern workplace, and its roots are deeply crystallized from centuries of systemic racism. When the majority population perceives anything that threatens them, in this case, intelligence, it evokes an unconscious bias and cognitive dissonance. Competency checking illustrates three things happening:

Assumption – Manifests in low expectations, marginalization, and extreme micromanagement. Suppose someone assumes that they are intellectually inferior. In that case, they may question the individual’s qualifications more closely during an interview and, once hired, pay much more attention to their work while looking for any mistakes.

Expression - Particular surprise or unease with open displays of BIPOC intelligence, which can trigger requests or demands to confirm how it was acquired and whether it’s the result of rote memorization or actual, integrated knowledge. This can be manifested as dismissal, quizzing, argument, and tokenization.

Activation - A feeling of fear when confronted with a BIPOC person who holds any authority, especially someone in a leadership position. This manifests as requests for identification, undefined feelings of unfairness, anger, and unease.

The only way to truly deal with the impact of competency checking is to acknowledge that it is happening. It’s no wonder there is a lack of vertical career trajectory, which refers to the absence of opportunities for employees to advance to higher-level positions within an organization, often resulting in career stagnation for BIPOC individuals, and we're not just talking about libraries.  

 I’ve seen so many colleagues’ careers plateau, where an individual remains in the same role or at the same level for most of their career without significant advancement. I can certainly speak to this experience, and I can say it hurts the morale of an organization. It’s my hope that Shari Dunn’s work continues to help those who are in the ruts be more inspired that there are actions that can be taken and agency in one’s role if they feel underappreciated. We just have to look for it.

10 Years at the Helm of Ricepaper Magazine

 

This week marks a major milestone—ten years as Editor-in-Chief of Ricepaper Magazine. On Wednesday, I’ll have the honour of reflecting on a decade of storytelling, advocacy, and community-building in Asian Canadian literature.

What am I most proud of? Helping amplify voices too often left unheard. I’ve had the privilege of publishing both emerging and established Asian Canadian writers—each one reshaping the literary landscape and expanding the boundaries of what Canadian literature can be.

Back in 2016, we made the bold leap from print to digital. It wasn’t just survival—it was reinvention. That shift allowed us to embrace multimedia, reach new audiences, and publish fresh work from across the globe, including a growing wave of Southeast Asian voices who found us online and submitted their stories, often for the first time. That pivot wasn’t easy, but it gave Ricepaper a second life—and a bigger one.

As editor, I’ve helped shape some of our most potent and timely themed issues, including “Time and Space,” “Myths, Legends, and the Supernatural,” and “Re-Imagining Asian Futures”—themes that tapped into the pulse of identity, diaspora, mental health, resilience, and memory across generations. Our readers weren’t just reading—they were seeing themselves.

We are currently celebrating 30 years of Ricepaper with our latest anthology Infusions, a special collection of writing in Ricepaper Magazine that spotlights a new wave of Asian Canadian and Asian diasporic voices. Alongside that, we launched an archival project that captured the impact of the Asian Canadian Writers’ Workshop (ACWW), preserving its legacy for the future.

Mentorship and collaboration have always been at the heart of what I do—nurturing new editors, mentoring interns, and building bridges with universities, cultural organizations, and literary festivals like LiterASIAN and Word Vancouver. We’ve grown stronger together.

One of my proudest moments? Renaming the ACWW Emerging Writers Award after my friend and mentor Jim Wong-Chu, following his passing in 2017. It felt right—to honour his legacy while making space for the next generation of literary talent.

Ten years in, I still believe Ricepaper matters more than ever. We’re not just publishing stories—we’re continuing to shape the future of Asian Canadian writing.

Celebrating the The Paper Trail at LiterASIAN Writers Festival in June 2025

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When I explored the Paper Trail, a national exhibition that opened on July 1, 2023, at the Chinese Canadian Museum, I was astonished that it had taken 100 years since the passing of the Chinese Exclusion Act to properly acknowledge this dark period of our history in Canada.    I'm so pleased that for this year's LiterASIAN Festival, I invited Catherine Clement, the exhibit curator, to join us as a featured author and speaker.  Catherine is an award-winning community historian, curator, and author whose work has profoundly impacted the preservation and understanding of Chinese Canadian history. 

The Paper Trail to the 1923 Chinese Exclusion Act commemorates the centennial of a significant yet often overlooked period in Canadian history. This exhibition, which opened at the Chinese Canadian Museum in Vancouver on July 1, 2023, features the most prominent public display of early Chinese head tax and related identity documents assembled. Clement's leadership in crowdsourcing these materials from families across Canada led to the creation of The Paper Trail Collection, now housed at the University of British Columbia Library, making it the country's most comprehensive community archive.

 

Beyond The Paper Trail, Catherine has dedicated a decade to uncovering the legacy of Yucho Chow, Vancouver’s first Chinese commercial photographer. Her research culminated in the 2019 exhibition Chinatown Through a Wide Lens: The Hidden Photographs of Yucho Chow and a subsequent book, which won the 2020 B.C. Lieutenant Governor’s Medal for Historical Writing and the 2020 Vancouver Book Award.

Having Catherine Clement as a featured writer at the LiterASIAN Writers Festival is particularly exciting due to her profound impact on Asian Canadian historical narratives. Her work aligns seamlessly with this year's "Origins" theme, focusing on the roots and beginnings of Asian Canadian communities while celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Asian Canadian Writers' Workshop (ACWW).   The festival program is out, and Catherine's event, The Paper Trail to the 1923 Chinese Exclusion Act, is on June 28, at the Chinese Canadian Museum.  See you then!

Literary Festivals Preview in British Columbia

I'm grateful for the opportunity to share with audiences LiterASIAN Writers Festival, a project that I've been a part of since its inception in 2013.  When I stepped into the role of Festival Director for the LiterASIAN Writers Festival for my friend and mentor Jim Wong-Chu in 2017, I was joining something more significant than a literary event—I was entering a living, breathing community of storytellers, advocates, and cultural builders. Founded by the Asian Canadian Writers’ Workshop (ACWW), LiterASIAN has always been more than just panels and readings. It's a space where diasporic voices not only gather but resonate.

As Festival Director, I had the privilege—and the challenge—of shaping a festival that would honour its roots and reflect the complexities of the contemporary Asian Canadian voice and experience. Each year, we asked ourselves: Whose voices have we not heard yet? How can we expand the literary imagination while remaining grounded in the community that made this possible?

Curating the festival lineup is like assembling a beautifully embroidered mosaic.  I worked with emerging writers just beginning to find their voice, like Emi Sasagawa and Michelle Kim, and with seasoned authors who had paved the way through decades of literary activism, such as Fred Wah, Anosh Irani, and Joy Kogawa. Inviting intergenerational conversations across different career stages and languages, histories, and geographies is vital.  Over the past thirteen years, the festival has hosted book launches, cross-genre performances, and challenging but necessary discussions on race, mental health, identity, and the politics of publishing.

I'm proud that we continued to make space for healing through storytelling. Especially during years marked by social unrest and a pandemic that exposed—and worsened—racial inequities, LiterASIAN became a kind of sanctuary—not one that shied away from hard truths but one where people could speak them and still be met with care.

I'm appreciative that being the Festival Director was never a solitary role. I was buoyed by the tireless work of volunteers, artists, editors, and organizers—many juggled this commitment alongside day jobs, caregiving, or their own creative work.  Their dedication reminded me that literature does not live in isolation but in people, relationships, and the spaces we build together.

Now, as I look back on my time directing the festival, I carry with me not just a catalogue of events but a constellation of moments: a young writer breaking into tears after their first reading, an elder sharing stories in their mother tongue, a room full of strangers leaning in at the same time. That is the power of LiterASIAN. And I’m honoured to have helped guide its story—even for a chapter.

 

A Reflection of a Decade as an Editor

It’s been a wonderful experience as Editor of Ricepaper Magazine. It’s hard to believe, but it’s been ten years since I joined the magazine. My editorship has impacted the publication and the broader landscape of Asian Canadian literature and culture. Under my leadership, the magazine evolved from a community-based Asian Canadian literary journal into a nationally recognized literary and arts publication showcasing the voices of the Asian diaspora. My vision helped bridge generations of writers and artists, fostering emerging talent while honouring established creators.

On March 27, I will speak at the Federation of BC Writers on a panel with distinguished magazine editors. I’ve reflected on my role in the magazine industry and want to share some of the highlights of my time at the helm of Ricepaper.

To amplify diverse Asian Canadian narratives, I’ve tried expanding the magazine’s focus beyond traditional literary content. I've highlighted various artistic expressions—including film, visual arts, and performance—and given space to intersectional stories around identity, diaspora, and belonging.

I’ve also been a big proponent of the magazine’s mentorship and community-building role. Through editorial initiatives, workshops, and events, I’ve nurtured new writers and creatives, many of whom gained national attention.  My focus on mentorship helped solidify Ricepaper as a launchpad for Asian Canadian talent. I’m extremely excited about the Jim Wong-Chu Emerging Writers Award winner Jinwoo Park’s new novel The Oxford Soju Club.

As a historian and librarian, I see Ricepaper's archival and historical significance. I am honoured to play a role in documenting and preserving the evolving Asian Canadian experience, creating a cultural archive that continues to be referenced by scholars, students, and creatives.

My leadership fostered collaborations with organizations such as academic institutions, literary festivals, and universities through collaborative projects and partnerships, further embedding Ricepaper in national conversations on diversity and inclusion.

Finally, adaptation in a digital age has been a core tenet of my work.  Ricepaper also embraced digital publishing and new media, helping the magazine remain relevant in changing literary and media landscapes. We’ve continued harnessing digital technologies (social media, podcasting, video sharing) to stay relevant and shift the magazine from mainly text-based content to a multimodal media organization.