CE #4 - Cultivating Sustainability: Applying Slow Librarianship to Community, Culture, and Collaboration*

Instructors:

• Christina M. Seeger, MLS, AHIP – Medical Librarian, Sam Houston State Universit
• Melanie Sorsby, MLIS, AHIP – Associate Librarian for Research and Education, Texas A&M University
• Stefanie Lapka, MSIS, AHIP – Interim Head of Health Sciences, University of Houston

Class Description:

In a profession increasingly shaped by urgency, productivity metrics, and chronic understaffing, many librarians find themselves navigating a culture of perpetual acceleration. Slow Librarianship offers an alternative. Slow Librarianship is a philosophy and practice that resists hurried achievement culture and invites librarians to reorient their work toward relationship-building, reflection, collaboration, and sustainable care. Rather than striving to be all things to all people, Slow Librarianship encourages intentionality—focusing on meaningful impact over constant output. By valuing reflection and collaboration over traditional, high-speed metrics, we can build more equitable and humane workplaces centering community, culture, and collaboration. Together, we will consider how embracing reflective, relational practices can support both our stakeholders and ourselves—without sacrificing rigor or excellence. Participants will develop practical strategies for integrating slow principles into their own contexts.

At the end of the workshop participants will be able to:

• Learn about or increase their knowledge of Slow Librarianship as a practice
• Explore creative actions that promote more sustainable and humane workplaces.
• Create a collaborative toolkit of actionable strategies to foster slow librarianship practices into daily library operations.