If you�d like to highlight an exceptional member of the New Members Round Table, please consider nominating yourself, a colleague, or student member for NMRT Member of the Month! Members of the Month will be featured in a blog post spotlight on NMRT Notes. To nominate yourself or someone else, please use our Google Form: https://forms.gle/CNq19h9XcX34BEh49.
Questions about NMRT Member of the Month can be directed to nmrtnotes@gmail.com.
Hello all!
We at NMRT’s Membership, Promotion, Diversity, and Recruitment (MPDR) Committee, in collaboration with the NMRT Online Programs Committee, are excited to invite you to our upcoming Virtual New Member Coffee Hour! Full description below:
Join us for a relaxed and welcoming Virtual New Member Coffee Hour on June 23 at 1:00 PM EST! Our first topic is ALA Annual!
Started packing and realized you’re not sure what to bring? This informal, conversational space is the perfect place to ask lingering questions post-virtual orientation, swap tips, and hear how others are getting ready for the ALA Annual Conference! Whether you’re attending your first ALA Annual or just looking for a friendly place to check in, we’ll chat through your questions, share practical advice, and help you feel more confident heading into the conference. Bring your curiosity and your favorite hot beverage!
Register here: https://ala-events.zoom.us/meeting/register/KzROFeTwSW2o6Xko_BBNSQ#/registration
Attending the 2025 ALA Annual Conference? Join NMRT for the following exciting events!
NMRT Conference Orientation
Friday, June 27, 2025
1:00pm – 2:30pm
Pennsylvania Convention Center, Ballroom B
Ghost Tour of Philadelphia with NMRT (ticketed event) SOLD OUT
Saturday, June 28, 2025
6:00pm – 7:30pm
Signers’ Garden
5th and Chestnut Streets
NMRT Board Meeting
Sunday, June 29, 2025
10:30am – 11:30am
Pennsylvania Convention Center, Room 203 A
Navigating Salary & Negotiation in Library Land
Sunday, June 29, 2025
2:30pm – 3:30pm
Pennsylvania Convention Center, Room 115 A
NMRT Annual Social
Sunday, June 29, 2025
5:00pm – 7:00pm
Sheraton, Liberty Ballroom D
ALA Trivia Championship (ticketed event)
Sunday, June 29, 2025
7:00pm – 9:00pm
Sheraton, Liberty Ballroom C
By: Jenni Diaz Garcia, Library Outreach Specialist, Iowa State University
Earlier this year, I wrote an article called “Casting a Line, Screaming Into the Void: Lessons from One Librarian’s MLIS Job Search Experience” about “Rachel,” a pseudonym for a fellow MLIS graduate navigating the exhausting road to her first library job. When writing her story, I wondered: But what happens next? What does it look like a year after finally landing the job, casting the line, catching the fish?
I don’t know about Rachel, but here’s my answer- one year into my first job after library school, still, like Rachel, yelling into the void occasionally, but mostly yelling, “Go to the library!” at students (lovingly, I promise).
From TikTok to Tabling: Finding My Footing
When I first considered librarianship, I was a clueless English major who realized that working in publishing or editing would make me scream forever (and not in the fun, finals-week-primal-scream sort of way). My real thrill came from clicking buttons in library databases and watching JSTOR PDFs roll in. So when a random TikTok asked me, “Why not librarianship?” I sat back and thought to myself, “Well… why not?”
I found my first full-time job before graduation (sorry!) that perfectly suited my needs. Library Outreach Specialist. Not quite a librarian title, but hey, we all need to start somewhere, right?
Still, even with all that experience under my belt, I didn’t feel settled right away in my new job. For weeks, I smiled through the fear of feeling constantly a few paces behind. Around the two-month mark, something shifted. I finally had enough context to stop feeling lost and enough confidence to start asking the important questions: Where is this position going? Can it evolve into something else? What does growth look like here, for me? Feeling steady didn’t mean I had all the answers, but it meant I had space to start shaping them.
Top Things I Learned One Year Into My Specialist Job
In a brand-new role without a roadmap, the real challenge wasn’t following rules and regulations. The real challenge came when my supervisor asked me, point blank, “Well… what do you want to do?” and I blinked, trying not to cry. Or when experienced librarians would say, “I want to use your expertise,” and all I could think was… what expertise? I did have it. I just had to believe it. I had outreach experience, teaching experience, social media, programming, and student engagement. I knew how to make people feel welcome in a space. I had the student perspective, the first-gen perspective, and the “I found this career through TikTok” perspective. I just had to learn to say it out loud, even if my voice shook a little at first. Initially terrifying, this sort of agency became empowering once I learned to articulate my expertise clearly, even when my voice shook.
And if you don’t have weekly check-ins, I highly recommend checking out NMRT’s mentorship opportunities. They’re designed to help early-career librarians find those same moments of reflection, support, and direction.
Feeling stuck or unsure of how to grow? You can also check out ALA Connect’s NMRT Community to find posts about new ways to get involved and stay connected.
To Those Still Casting Lines
This job lets me do what I love: welcome students, table at events, shout about the library from rooftops (or at least from behind a resource table with a bowl of candy and a crate of swag). I talk to students who are just as bewildered as I once was. I help faculty and staff build bridges between their goals and library resources. There is a chronic ache in my knees from kneeling to tape signage, and I have begged for departments to invite me to their open houses. In other words, while I love this job, this year hasn’t been without its growing pains.
If you’re still job hunting, second-guessing at your first job, or feeling lost, I see you. I was you. My job didn’t look exactly how I imagined, yet it became everything I didn’t know I needed. I’ve grown, made mistakes, and asked, “What am I doing?” at least once a week (usually when wrestling Adobe InDesign). However, I’ve also built a foundation, created something from scratch, and found joy in the strange, specific work of academic outreach. I’ve learned that expertise doesn’t always look like a degree or a title.
So no, I don’t have everything figured out. But who does? A year in, I’ve learned to ask better questions, take bolder chances, and sit with the discomfort of not knowing everything yet. That’s part of the fun. It’s 2025, and we’ve got work to do.
Congratulations to the winners of NMRT’s Annual Conference Professional Development Attendance award!
The NMRT Annual Conference Professional Development Attendance Award fosters active involvement in ALA through various special events at the Annual Conference. The Annual Conference Professional Development Attendance Award is presented to two NMRT members each year. The award provides professional development and networking opportunities to NMRT members by providing a ticket to attend the event of their choice at the ALA Annual Conference.
Please join us in congratulating:
Brittany Boggess
Brittany Boggess is a first-year graduate student at Texas Woman’s University in Denton, Texas. She is a wife and proud mother of three. She enjoys reading and taking nature walks. Brittany is incredibly excited and grateful to have won the Annual Professional Development Attendance Award. Attending her first ALA Conference is a dream come true and this opportunity will allow her to fully engage, learn, and grow as she takes the next steps in her journey.
Zachary “Zac” Grisham
Zac Grisham is the Business Librarian at Kansas State University. He holds degrees in economics, business administration, and library information studies. His research interests include librarian salaries and exploring new ways to apply business practices and ideas to librarianship.
Currently he serves on two national committees within ALA, the NMRT Mentorship Committee, where he also serves as a mentor, and the BRASS Membership Committee. Throughout his six years as a professional librarian he has supported multiple business schools within higher education.
Written By: Amy Shaw, Reference and Instruction Librarian, Georgia State University
May 2025 Observances & Conferences
Conferences:
Impostor Syndrome in Librarians: Shushing Your Inner Saboteur
Socrates and Albert Einstein—token “smart people” you sarcastically call your little sister when she does something dumb—both expressed that the more they learned, the less they felt like they knew. So if I always feel overwhelmed and a little out of my depth, I’m in good company, right?
Even though I realize that smarter people tend to underestimate their abilities while those who test lower in logic and grammar tend to vastly overestimate their abilities (see any comment section on any social media post ever), and even though I realize that I am above average intelligence, I still cannot shake the feeling that I am completely unqualified for…well, much of anything. And it’s not just my career as an instructional librarian, despite my years of classroom teaching, three degrees, and 11/12ths of a graduate certificate in Online Teaching Design & Development. I go home daily to two small faces that look to me as an authority on when they can watch Cocomelon and when they need to take a bath, despite feeling like a small child myself most days. My point is: Impostor Syndrome is real, it’s strong, and it runs rampant amongst newer librarians.
What is Impostor Syndrome?
It was two academics, psychotherapists Pauline R. Clance and Suzanne Imes, who “first coined the term ‘impostor phenomenon’ in 1978,” finding that “women battle internally with societal expectations and their own self-expectations” (Anderson-Zorn, Davis, Nowak, and Stankrauff, p. 503). Subsequent studies have found that men experience these feelings at a comparable rate (Clark, Vardeman, and Barba, p. 256). Meanwhile, Google searches for the term “impostor syndrome” have been on the rise since 2010 (Minton, “The Rise and Rise of Impostor Syndrome”), which many experts agree is less an indication that it is becoming more common and more an indication that awareness of the phenomenon has grown.
Data scientist Jon Minton has an alternative theory, though: the rise of social media. The ever-present updates from friends and influencers in carefully curated posts that maximize perfection and minimize struggle contribute to the idea that we are less successful than those in our online community. Whatever the cause, a survey of 5000 UK residents recently found that Information Research and Analysis workers have one of the highest prevalences of Impostor Syndrome with 67% (Moss, “Imposter syndrome: Workplace prevalence by sector, gender and age”).
Impostor Syndrome in Librarians
Melanie Clark, Kimberly Vardeman, and Shelley Barba personalize this phenomenon for librarians in a paper that laments that “[t]he tasks of a modern librarian within an organization are fluid and often an amalgamation of vastly different roles such as educator, social worker, IT professional, and printer troubleshooter. Striving to be seen as an authoritative figure can lead to internal conflict when the librarian does not feel he or she is knowledgeable or experienced with the subject at hand” (Clark, Vardeman, and Barba, p. 255). For college and research librarians, they argue, it is worse because they “often serve as liaisons to faculty with more education and experience, which can exacerbate those feelings.” In addition, it was younger librarians and newer librarians—those in their first three years of employment—who reported the highest incidence of Impostor Syndrome (Clark, Vardeman, and Barba, p. 265). Impostor Syndrome, although not a recognized psychological disorder, can cause library workers to feel less confident, less motivated, and less likely to apply to higher positions, thus robbing institutions of significantly talented individuals in management roles.
What Can We Do?
Use Words of Affirmation: Well, first of all, not to sound like an elementary school guidance counselor, but positive self-talk can go a long way. We tend to focus on our negative experiences even when we have significantly more positive ones. Reminding ourselves of our positive experiences, our credentials, and most importantly, our dedication to a growth mindset can silence what Mama RuPaul calls our “inner saboteur.”
Re-Frame Impostor Syndrome: Drawing from Lena Palacios’s words in a roundtable on the underrepresentation of Latinx faculty, Jacqueline Hidalgo argues that one way to beat impostor syndrome is to re-frame it: “we need to throw away our impostor syndrome and embrace a newly defined infiltrator syndrome” (qtd. in Hidalgo, p. 86). As a Latinx scholar, Hidalgo chooses to operate from outside the mainstream academic structure by allowing her differences and insecurities to empower her to change the status quo rather than letting them keep her from making meaningful contributions.
Re-Define What It Means to Be Successful: Just as social media posts do not always reflect reality, the American notion of success does not always reflect our own personal goals and values. We often equate money with success, which means if we’re not striving to achieve the highest promotion and be the best in our field, then we’re failing. In reality, this kind of thinking actually makes us doubt ourselves, which in turn causes us to be less productive and successful at the job we currently have. Instead of focusing on a theoretical future, focus on what you can control and strive to be the best YOU can be.
Seek Support in the NMRT: I cannot tell you how many times I have shared personal struggles (some might call it over-sharing) only to be met with dozens of friends and family echoing the same sentiments along with “I thought I was the only one.” Many people fear sharing how they feel because they think it will make others doubt their abilities as well. The ALA New Member Round Table is comprised of early-career librarians who are there to support each other; many of them struggle with similar doubts, but even if they don’t, this community is built for nurturing, not for judging. In addition, there are NMRT initiatives that are designed to foster confidence in newer librarians, such as the mentorship program. Don’t hesitate to take advantage of this community and all it has to offer.
Maintain Your Self-Worth: Sometimes Impostor Syndrome comes not from our own imaginations, but from real, lived experiences. Repeated rejections or career setbacks can make us feel that we are not good enough. But as a community theatre actress who has been rejected more than a time or two, I can tell you that rejection does not equal lack of talent. Evaluations and promotions are subjective and do not exist in a vacuum. Not only are there often other factors at play that have nothing to do with us, but sometimes a job just isn’t a good fit, regardless of how capable we are. I am a talented singer and actress, but if I tried out for Hamilton, I wouldn’t expect to be cast as Aaron Burr (I still maintain I could be a great gender-swapped George Washington). My point is that equating these experiences with our own self-worth is never truly reflective of our talents and capabilities. My husband likes to remind me when I’m struggling with something that progress isn’t linear. Rarely do we see someone start at 0 and move incrementally and steadfastly in a straight line towards their goal. Rather, the dips and valleys on the graph reflect learning experiences that are sometimes just as valuable as the zeniths.
Conclusion
The experience of Impostor Syndrome seems to be universal, although those of us who are newer to the field, younger, or in marginalized communities often feel it the worst (Moss, “Imposter syndrome: Workplace prevalence by sector, gender and age”). Librarians—or those of us who have “a degree in all information,” as my best friend refers to his MLIS—struggle with this phenomenon because of the nature of our jobs. In academic settings, we are often faculty in name only. In public settings, we perform just as many social work job functions (for which we are unqualified) as we do circulatory ones. For archivists, the pressure to be productive and “visible” despite a job that operates behind-the-scenes can lead to self-doubt. Using the tools above may help you alleviate yours, but feel free to share your own tips as well.
I hope that we will continue to study this phenomenon more closely in library workers as well as continue to have a conversation about how we can eradicate it so that we can be more productive and successful.
References
Anderson-Zorn, A. K., Davis, M. A., Nowak, D., & Stankrauff, A. (2021). Our Comeback Story: Impostor Syndrome in the Archival Profession. The American Archivist, 84(2), 502–519. https://www.jstor.org/stable/48737560
Clark, M., Vardeman, K., & Barba, S. (2014). Perceived Inadequacy: A Study of the Imposter Phenomenon among College and Research Librarians. College & Research Libraries, 75(3), 255–271. https://doi.org/10.5860/crl12-423
Hidalgo, J. M. (2019). “Assume You Don’t Belong”: A Mindset for Academic Survival. Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, 35(2), 85–87. https://doi.org/10.2979/jfemistudreli.35.2.08
Minton, J. (2023, August 30). The rise and rise of imposter syndrome. LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/rise-imposter-syndrome-jon-minton
Moss, R. (2023, October 31). Imposter syndrome: Workplace prevalence by sector, gender and age. Personnel Today. https://www.personneltoday.com/hr/imposter-syndrome-prevalence-uk-research/
Vick, Brooke, & et al. (2020). Common Academic Experiences No One Talks About: Repeated Rejection, Impostor Syndrome, and Burnout. 15(3), 519–543. https://jstor.org/stable/community.32019555
The NMRT Election has concluded and the following members were elected to positions. Their term will begin on July 1, 2025. Congratulations to all who won and thank you to all candidates who ran in the elections.
NMRT Vice President/President Elect – Mary Kamela
NMRT Secretary – Margaret Bates
NMRT Leadership Development Director – Michelle Osborne
NMRT Member Services Director – Natalie Ornat Bitting
NMRT Councilor – Stella Hudson
The NMRT Election has concluded and the following members were elected to positions. Their term will begin on July 1, 2025. Congratulations to all who won and thank you to all candidates who ran in the elections.
NMRT Vice President/President Elect – Mary Kamela
NMRT Secretary – Margaret Bates
NMRT Leadership Development Director – Michelle Osborne
NMRT Member Services Director – Natalie Ornat Bitting
NMRT Councilor – Stella Hudson
Please join us in congratulating the winner and runner-up for this year’s Student Chapter of the Year Award (SCOTYA):
Winner: SJSU ALA Student Chapter (ALASC)
The Student Chapter of the Year Award Committee was impressed by San Jose State University iSchool’s member engagement with 802 subscribers to their newsletter. The chapter is highly active in programs, projects, and activities. SJSU held monthly meetings to update each other on individual and team activities, progress, and goals, as well as vote on actions needed. The chapter used a variety of communication services such as the student chapter website and blog, social media, Flickr, YouTube, and Linktree. Through dedication of its members, this chapter has made significant contributions to the school and ALA.
Runner-Up: Texas Woman’s University GLISA
The SCOTYA Committee noted the chapter’s unique blend of dedication to fostering professional development, promoting academic excellence, and meaningful outreach activities.
Congratulations! Thanks to everyone who works to ensure that our student chapters are active, engaging, and informative for future information professionals.
ALA Emerging Leaders Team H: Bethie, Ryne, Emily, & Krystal
Hello!
You’re invited to participate in a survey for the ALA Emerging Leaders program’s NMRT project.
The American Library Association’s New Members Round Table (NMRT) is trying to identify the best way to use social media to keep its members informed. Please answer a few questions about your professional activities and social media usage. You do not have to be a current NMRT member to participate. The survey is voluntary, anonymous, and should take around 5 minutes to complete. The survey will be open until April 18th, 2025.
If you would like to participate, please visit the following link: https://ousurvey.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_3QVjtvZrKCbX0GO
Thank you!
ALA Emerging Leaders Team H: Bethie, Ryne, Emily, & Krystal
Check out the announcement below for an AI workshop brought to you by our friends and colleagues over at the NMRT Online Programs Committee:
Use this link to register: https://ala-events.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_KmbdlfIrS6mJdKah4-xjMw#/registration
