Abstracts
Abstract
To learn about the experiences of librarians working through COVID-19, we conducted semi-structured interviews with academic librarians from across Canada on issues such as workload, collegiality, and overall satisfaction with their working conditions during the pandemic. Themes emerged around job security, workload changes (both in terms of hours worked and the type of work being done), working from home, relationships with colleagues and administrators (including the perceived speed of the institution’s pandemic response and the state of communication from or with administration), and hopes for the future. This article focuses on the semantic elements of librarian work during COVID-19 uncovered during thematic analysis, including an in-depth discussion of how academic librarians’ workload changed; a second planned article will focus on latent themes on the caring nature of library work. This study connects isolated individual situations with the overall picture of what librarians’ work looked and felt like during the COVID-19 pandemic. For library administrators, we identify the ways in which institutional support helped or hindered librarians in doing their work.
Keywords:
- academic librarians,
- workload,
- COVID-19,
- library labour,
- remote work
Résumé
Afin de connaître les expériences des bibliothécaires travaillant pendant la COVID-19, nous avons mené des entrevues semi-dirigées auprès de bibliothécaires universitaires à travers le Canada sur des sujets tels la charge de travail, la collégialité et la satisfaction générale à l’égard de leurs conditions de travail pendant la pandémie. Des thèmes ont émergé concernant la sécurité d’emploi, les changements de la charge de travail (tant au niveau des heures travaillées et le type de travail effectué), le travail à distance, les relations avec des collègues et des administrateurs (y compris la vitesse perçue de la réponse institutionnelle face à la pandémie et l’état des communications provenant de l’administration et avec celle-ci), et l’espoir pour l’avenir. Cet article porte sur les éléments sémantiques du travail des bibliothécaires pendant la COVID-19 découverts lors de l’analyse thématique, incluant une discussion approfondie sur la façon dont la charge de travail des bibliothécaires universitaires a changé; un deuxième article portera sur les thèmes latents sur la nature du care au sein du travail en bibliothèque. Cette étude relie des situations individuelles isolées pour offrir un portrait général de ce à quoi ressemblait notre travail et de ce que nous ressentions face à celui-ci durant la pandémie de la COVID-19. Pour les administrateurs des bibliothèques, nous identifions des moyens par lesquels le soutien institutionnel a aidé ou a nui au travail des bibliothécaires.
Mots-clés :
- bibliothécaires universitaires,
- charge de travail,
- COVID-19,
- travail à distance,
- travail en bibliothèque
Appendices
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