Brand new study into returners and it needs your input!
Are you a librarian who has taken a break of six months or longer before returning to librarianship? If the answer is yes, you may be interested in the launch of a new study by three University of Utah librarians. Dorothy, Lorelei and Teresa have been in contact with library returners HQ for the past few months about their research into breaks and returning to librarianship.
The research question
The research examines the motivations of library professionals for leaving and / or re-entering library settings.
The research team
The principal investigators are from the University of Utah J. Willard Marriott Library and are:
Dorothy Terry – dorothy.terry@utah.edu
Dorothy returns to librarianship after spending four years living and working in South Korea as a Native English Teacher and one year exploring her inner hobbit in New Zealand. Prior to her break, she lived and worked at university libraries in Baltimore, Maryland. Her focus has been on international students, L2 learners, information literacy, teaching, and more.
Lorelei Rutledge – lorelei.rutledge@utah.edu
Lorelei is an Associate Librarian who has done research about equity in libraries and the barriers that people may face in librarianship. They are excited to be doing this work.
Teresa Hebron – Teresa.hebron@mwdl.org
Teresa was a systems librarian for an integrated library systems (ILS) vendor for the first 9 years of her library career before entering academic librarianship in 2018. Her research is primarily on metadata aggregation in large-scale digital libraries and digital library management.
The research objectives
The purpose of the study is to expand the understanding of librarians’ professional motivations and experiences of re-entering the field after a break in order to provide suggestions about how to improve the re-entry experience.
The research team hope that the study will have several benefits, including:
- Contribute to their understanding of barriers when trying to re-enter into librarianship after a career break
- Enable individuals to tell their personal stories
- Contribute to the potential creation of best practice or a toolkit to guide returners and administrators
The methodology
I’m sure that regular readers of the library returners blog will be very interested in responding to the call and contributing to this study.
The team says that:
the online survey takes an average of less than 10 minutes to complete, with an option to take part in a 45-60 minute follow-up interview at a later date. Those interested in participating in the interview will be asked for their emails, but this information will not be connected to survey results or shared out. All information will remain confidential. Resulting data will be analysed and de-identified for future presentation(s) and/or publication(s).
(University of Utah project team recruitment email)
Call to action
The survey was launched on March 25th, 2024 and will be available to access until May 6th, 2024. The study is available here.
Libraryreturners.com will be keeping readers updated with news of the research periodically. You can stay updated with these developments by subscribing to the blog or following the blog’s X, Facebook or LinkedIn pages.
The research team have commented about the importance of taking part in order to gain as clear picture as possible of the returner experience and reaffirm how ‘your insights are crucial to the success of this study, and your participation will contribute to advancing our understanding of librarian career paths and re-entry experiences’. (University of Utah project team recruitment email)
Please share your career break and return to work experiences and help improve the re-entry experience in librarianship for those that follow!
