What I Didn’t Know, Made Me Do It

By Vicki Jay Leung (Follow us on LinkedIn) I was a late bloomer with my work in diversity, inclusion, and decolonization (DID) causes, even though I always held a nascent value in achieving equality and fairness for those of us who are underrepresented or underprivileged. Raised by immigrant parents, I had the lived experience of growing

Looking Back, to Look Ahead

By Cecilia Tellis (Follow us on LinkedIn) As a mid-career librarian, I’ve been reflecting back on my early days in librarianship. In my first full-time and permanent role, I was part of a team of law librarians as the most junior member. I had zero experience in providing legal reference (though I had worked at a

Trauma-Informed Librarianship for Survivors

By Allan Cho (Follow us on LinkedIn) As part of the Visible Minority Librarians of Canada Network (ViMLoC), I’ve participated in its mentorship program and have met many talented and eager early career librarians over the years. I had recently caught up with a mentee who was going through a dark period in their life. We had

The Publication Train: Project Management for Scholarship Production

By Kaia MacLeod (Follow us on LinkedIn) As a tenure-track academic librarian publishing scholarship is a part of my job. It’s one of the reasons I picked academia over public libraries. I wanted to be in a place where my time and effort in writing would be supported. I’ve been told that I take a project

Fill Out Your Occupation

By Candice Fong (Follow us on LinkedIn) Fill out your occupation. Seems like such an innocuous request but as a person who has a hard time defining themselves into a nice, neat package, I go through an existential crisis whenever I see this question. Do I write Librarian? Lawyer? Lawyer/Librarian? Librarian/Lawyer? Knowledge Management Specialist? Each label

Beyond Hustle Culture: Repairing My Relationship with Rest

By Lynie Awywen (Follow us on LinkedIn) I am unwell and it is driving me nuts! The thought “I hate being weak” reverberates in my mind as I wrestle with the unsettling notion of ‘rest’ and the profound discomfort I feel at the idea of slowing down. As a woman of colour living with an invisible

The Truth is in the Stories

By Mikayla Redden (Follow us on LinkedIn) As I sit here writing, it’s Truth and Reconciliation Week in Canada. With a deadline looming, there were several topics I considered writing about, but this week—the last few weeks, if I’m being honest—there’s only one on my mind. That being the Truth and the stories I learned it

Limp Lettuce in the New Generational Sandwich

By Caroline Nevin (Follow us on LinkedIn) When I was a young parent in the 90s, the concept of the Sandwich Generation was well established. People talking about this were in their 40s or early 50s, raising dependent children at home and supporting their aging parents (who mostly lived on their own). Fast forward many medical

Different Skills in Your Librarianship Path: Art Tours and Cataloguing

By Kaia MacLeod (Follow us on LinkedIn) Oftentimes, I use a 2021 job posting for a Canadian National Film Board Librarian as an example of requirements versus skills when talking to current MLIS students. As someone with a film degree, there was a chance I could become a film librarian but one of the job requirements

A Tale of Change and Healing Through… a Sandwich

By Cecilia Tellis (Follow us on LinkedIn) Today, for the first time in a long time, I made a sandwich. Well, two actually – one for me, and one for my kiddo. Nothing too fancy: lightly toasted rye bread, ham (the plant-based kind), Swiss cheese (not my fave, but all that we had), thinly sliced dill