Are we still here at mid-career?: A qualitative analysis of the experiences of academic librarians of color

Abstract

The retention of mid-career academic librarians of color is a topic rarely researched by the profession. This paper addresses these gaps in the research by identifying what mid-career means to academic librarians of color and then focusing on what factors influence mid-career librarians of color to stay or leave academic librarianship. The authors conducted 25 semi-structured interviews with 21 current mid-career librarians and 4 people who left academic librarianship at the mid-career point. A qualitative analysis was conducted using in-vivo coding. While there is no concrete definition of mid-career, participants identified emotional, financial, and opportunistic factors that contributed to their feeling of being mid-career. There was general agreement that mentorship and community were the main factors for staying. Those who left struggled with acculturating to the overwhelming whiteness of librarianship and the constantly changing, unwritten rules of higher education. Academic librarianship needs to prioritize the voices of BIPOC librarians and truly listen to what they are saying.