About the Book
Mentoring in academic libraries implies a belief in the future of library employees, systems, the profession, and the principles that libraries uphold. It signifies a commitment to the broader institution and to higher education’s values of exploration, discovery, critical examination, and knowledge generation.
Academic Library Mentoring: Fostering Growth and Renewal presents a cross-section of mentoring thought and practice in college and university libraries, including mentoring definitions, practice fundamentals, models, program development, surveys, and analysis. Across three volumes, it explores library mentoring programs and the lived experiences of library faculty, librarians, library staff members, graduate library and information science students, and library student employees.
Volume 1, Fundamentals and Controversies, details effective mentoring skills and behaviors, mentoring models, dysfunctional mentoring relationships, conflicts of interest in mentoring, and, through a feminist lens, power differentials in mentoring. Chapters on diversity, equity, and inclusion call for library personnel to understand the exclusion some experience in the profession and to implement more inclusive mentoring practices.
Mentoring of Library Faculty and Librarians, Volume 2, explores mentorship skills, models, purposes and issues, and program development. Mentoring purposes include support for the pursuit of tenure and promotion, other career goals, and psychosocial concerns. Issues incorporate understanding and addressing diversity, equity, and inclusion in mentoring. Chapter methodologies include surveys, program assessments, analysis of practices against standards, case studies of mentor and mentee lived experiences, and case studies of libraries and affiliated entities.
In Volume 3, Mentoring of Students and Staff, we hear the voices of library science students and library student employees as they describe their library school and library employment mentoring experiences. Also presented are mentoring programs for recruiting individuals to the profession, practices supporting all library employees regardless of formal employee classification, and methods for enhancing the skills of consortial members. The volume ends with a look to the future of mentoring and organizational development and with a tool any library employee at any career stage can use in forming their own mentoring constellation.
Intentional, effective, committed mentorships can help mentees understand their roles and develop their identities as librarians, library workers, or library science students. Mentorships also help mentees understand and meet performance standards, broaden their skills, shift to new specializations, and discern options for contributing to the larger institution and the profession. Through mentoring, mentors may be invigorated by contributing to the growth of mentees and by encountering ideas and approaches different from their own. Academic Library Mentoring: Fostering Growth and Renewal addresses the many dimensions of contemporary academic library mentoring and how best to engage in inclusive, effective mentoring.
Table of Contents:
Introduction
Leila June Rod-Welch and Barbara E. Weeg
Volume 1: Fundamentals and Controversies
Chapter 1. Commitment, Respect, and Trust: The Building Blocks of a Strong Mentoring Relationship
Mandi Goodsett
Chapter 2. Updating Mentoring Models in Academic Libraries
Ginger H. Williams and James G. Archibald
Chapter 3. Identification and Management of Dysfunctional Mentoring Types
Annie M. Thompson and Holly J. Thompson
Chapter 4. Conflict of Interest and Ethical Boundary Setting in Library Faculty Mentoring
Barbara E. Weeg
Chapter 5. Undoing the Dyad: Re-examining Mentorship with a Feminist Lens
Bailey Wallace, Melissa DeWitt, and Elia Trucks
Chapter 6. What’s It Going to Take? Unpacking the Promise of Inclusion
Ciara Healy and Ula Gaha
Chapter 7. Cultivating Diversity and Inclusion in the Career Exploration in Librarianship and Mentoring (CEILAM) Program
Stephanie Barrett, Lindsay Cronk, Emily Lowman, Kristen Totleben, and Faviola Velazquez
Contributor Bios
Volume 2: Mentoring of Library Faculty and Librarians
Chapter 8. Gathering Data on Mentoring Needs and Experiences of Early-Career Librarians: The Needs Assessment Stage of Developing a Mentoring Program
Nataly Blas and Patricia G. MartÍnez
Chapter 9. Mentoring New Academic Librarians: A Closer Look
Sylverna Ford and Irma Singarella
Chapter 10. Toward a More Formal Mentoring Program
Anthony C. Joachim, Judy Matthew Hutchinson, Richard Kearney, and Cara Berg
Chapter 11. Mentoring Academic Librarians for Research Success
Don P. Jason III, Marie R. Kennedy, and Kristine R. Brancolini
Chapter 12. All Hands on Deck: Forming a Mentorship Program for Tenure-Track Librarians
Lisa Czirr, Jennifer Moore, Janet Ochs, Maaike Oldemans, Jennifer Parker, Jeremy Pekarek, Hilary Dorsch Wong, and Richard Powell
Chapter 13. The Predecessor as Mentor: Key Lessons for Cultivating Growth in Subject Librarianship
Michelle Demeter and Leah Sherman
Chapter 14. They Don’t Teach That in Library School: Valuable Lessons in Mentoring New Librarians
Regina M. Beard
Chapter 15. Informal Mentorship as a Nourishing Practice: Building Reciprocal Trust
Michele Santamaria and Megan Donnelly
Chapter 16. Group Mentoring in a Tenure-Track Environment
Danielle Skaggs and Rachel McMullin
Chapter 17. Gathering Knowledge in Your Library: Community Mentoring for Academic Librarians
Lateka Grays, Xan Goodman, and Andrea Wirth
Chapter 18. Group Peer Mentorship in Academic Libraries: An Approach to Enhancing Research Engagement
Diane L. Lorenzetti, Susan E. Powelson, Bonnie Lashewicz, Ann Casebeer, K. Alix Hayden, Elizabeth Oddone Paolucci, and Tanya Beran
Chapter 19. Conceptualizing Academic Mentoring: A Research Overview
Maureen Vandermaas-Peeler and Joan D. Ruelle
Chapter 20. Mentor-Mentee’s Intellectual Partnership: Planting and Growing the Seeds for Professional Success
Nedelina Tchangalova, Johnnieque B. (Johnnie) Love, and Patricia Kosco Cossard
Chapter 21. Cultivating Critical Mass: Building an Omnidirectional Mentoring Community
Sheila GarcÍa Mazari, Naomi Binnie, Jesus Espinoza, Denise Leyton, and Rachel Woodbrook
Contributor Bios
Volume 3: Mentoring of Students and Staff
Chapter 22. A Co-Mentoring Approach: Cooperative Modes of Mentoring Library Graduate Students
Meredith Knoff and Margaret McLaughlin
Chapter 23. Building a Library Family: Community College Library Internships and Nontraditional Mentor Models as a Means of Recruitment, Growth, and Retention of Librarians of Color
Erika Montenegro, Rita Suarez, and Nathasha Alvarez
Chapter 24. Mentee 501: How Mentorship Fits into the LIS Graduate Student Experience
Emily Joan Sartorius and Julia Maxwell
Chapter 25. Incorporating Formal Mentoring: Action Planning for Undertaking Senior Liberal Arts Capstone Projects
Amy Dye-Reeves
Chapter 26. Growing Across the Organization: Mentorship as an Open-Ended Process
Cari Kaurloto, Rebecca Michelson, and Ruth Wallach
Chapter 27. How to Train your Yeti: A Peer-Driven Consortial Mentorship Program of Mythical Proportions
Sagan Wallace and Stefanie Gorzelsky
Chapter 28. Cultivating and Sustaining a Compassionate Culture of Mentorship
Claire Holmes, Sara Arnold-Garza, and Carissa Tomlinson
Chapter 29. Mentoring as Organizational Development: Future Initiatives for Academic Libraries
Jill Morningstar
Chapter 30. Not Just for the New Librarians: Mentoring and Professional Planning at Mid-Career
Juliann Couture, Jennie Gerke, and Jennifer Knievel
Contributor Bios
About the Author :
Leila June Rod-Welch is a librarian at Saddleback College where she coordinates outreach activities. Previously, she worked at the University of Northern Iowa. Prior to that, Rod-Welch taught English to international students, refugees, and immigrants. Leila received her EdD in leisure and human services management and MA in community leisure services programming from the University of Northern Iowa. She received her MA in library and information science from the University of Iowa. The majority of her research focuses on outreach to diverse and underserved populations such as international students, English as a second language learners, graduate students, military science students, and veterans. In 2019, she edited a book titled Improving Library Services in Support of International Students and English as a Second Language Learners. Leila's other scholarly interests include leisure and aging. Dr. Rod-Welch was a 2014 ALA Emerging Leader. She has sixty publications and presentations. She was the founder and past Convener of Academic Library Services to Graduate Students Interest Group, the current co-convener of Library Marketing and Outreach Interest Group, and co-chair of the ACRL 2021 Innovations Committee. Dr. Rod-Welch has been involved with numerous ACRL committees over the years, including the Josey Spectrum Scholar Mentor Committee. Barbara E. Weeg is a tenured professor at the University of Northern Iowa, where she serves as a collection strategist librarian for the social sciences and physical sciences. She began her library career as a reference librarian, advanced the library instruction program as library instruction coordinator, and then simultaneously served as a reference librarian, a bibliographer, and as library disability services coordinator (a role she initiated). She earned her MA in library science from The University of Iowa and, later, an MAE in college student personnel services from the University of Northern Iowa. Her BS in psychology was earned with distinction from Iowa State University. Her research interests include mentoring and the application of psychological theory to the practice of librarianship. She has applied her knowledge of psychology and librarianship as a city board member and a volunteer with local social service agencies.
