In the midst of the rapidly developing COVID-19 U.S. Pandemic, I neglected to mark Renewals’ two-year anniversary, which is March 21 (and the March 20th, two-year anniversary of the related online Facebook community Renewers). Although I’m “late” by a week, I believe it’s important to acknowledge the ongoing meaning of this space – including related projects and impacts.
In addition to having a Facebook community of over 500 members, I’ve continued presenting my work on low morale, including several presentations and a published study on racial and ethnic minority academic librarians. I’ve also submitted my grant-funded study on public librarians and recently completed data gathering on leaving low-morale experiences (also grant funded). In 2018, I created and taught a course for Library Juice Academy, titled, “Deconstructing the Low-Morale Experience in Academic Libraries.” Earlier this year, I taught my third session of that course. Additionally, I developed a second course focusing on low morale in racial and ethnic minority librarians, and it is slated to be offered on the Library Juice Academy platform in May 2020.
During the past working year, I also designed and launched The Renewal Workshop and The Renewal Seminar – two intensive professional development offerings focused on helping organizations and groups tackle low-morale and improve their workplace cultures. I’m happy to share that I have events scheduled at the end of this year! More on that later.
And lastly, just over 24 hours ago, Renewals joined the Twitterverse and Instagram. I hope you’ll join me in those spaces as well as we empower each other to reduce and eradicate low morale for the improvement of our profession.
I’m very thankful for the support and interest that has been offered to me, and I will continue to improve. As we continue facing the extraordinary challenges and opportunities ushered in by the COVID-19 pandemic, I offer you and your communities generosity, compassion, empathy, perseverance, well-being, and good health.
In addition to this blog, you are welcome to keep up with my speaking engagements and other work here.
All Best,
