The mentorship/publishing group was pretty evenly split between those who are tenure track with faculty status, and those among us who aren’t. Several themes or barrier emerged during our discussion:
1. Not knowing where to submit our articles to (so many options and for different audience).
2. Not finding the time or having the institutional support to take time off to research and write.
3. Not knowing what to write about.
I shared an idea that one of the librarians in my organization shared with us, which was to start a writing group. She had read an article about a group of new professional librarians who began meeting to support one another during the writing process. We’ve adopted their model and meet about once a month. I’m working on a piece now with a member of our group to share the details of a pilot project we initiated. Another member sought feedback for an idea he has to turn a poster he presented into an article. It’s great to have a dedicated time to meet and the community or safe space feeling to share ideas.
In the digital asset management group we talked a lot about institutional repositories and getting community buy in to encourage potential contributors to make deposits. It seems that regardless of an institution’s size, we are all grappling with similar issues, including:
1. How do we participate in the planning conversations around these systems to share our expertise as archivists?
2. When is it time to share responsibility for a system (if we have that choice) and when is it best to hand off or cede control to another unit on campus?
3. How do we decide which system is good for right now, versus which system is worth waiting for?
I found these discussions thought provoking and a wonderful spring board for considering ways that we, as a profession can share our experiences regarding these issues with one another outside of the annual meeting.