Background: Academic librarians face joys and stresses in their work, some of which are the usual joys and stresses that face anyone in a career and some unique to the field of librarianship. Speaking openly with colleagues about the highs and lows of librarianship can be difficult, particularly if librarians are new to the field. Creating comics, even for professionals unfamiliar with the medium, serves as a self-reflective exercise that can encourage open communication about difficult topics. Using a comic drawing exercise, this research project explored the stresses and joys of the work experiences of librarians.
Description: The comic-creating workshop was created for newer librarians in the early stages of their careers as academic librarians. Librarians participated in two comic-drawing exercises, one exploring what brings them joy and satisfaction in their work and the other outlining what causes them stress or pain at their job. After each comic exercise, the comics were used by the participants to discuss their work experiences and find differences and similarities in their joys and stresses. At the end of the workshop, participants talked about how they handle the highs and lows of their work experiences. The goal was to encourage participants to alleviate stress, celebrate their achievements, bond over shared experiences, and share advice over how to be more resilient.
Conclusion: The pilot version of this workshop was evaluated through a participant survey. Results of this pilot show that participants felt the comic-drawing format of the exercises was more conducive to discussing work experiences. Future versions of this workshop will work with a larger audience and involve an analysis of the comics created by participants to explore what causes librarians the most stress and joy.