Document Type

Article

Publication Title

Journal of Academic Librarianship

Publication Date

11-2026

Keywords

workload policies, burnout, faculty status, academic libraries, unionization, policy development process

Abstract

For librarians with faculty status, issues of burnout may be compounded by the additional pressure of balancing librarianship with the service and scholarship expectations required for tenure and promotion, without the flexible schedules afforded to teaching faculty. Workload policies may be one tool for addressing the structural causes of burnout, but little guidance exists on the creation of such policies. This case study explores these issues by tracing the development of a library faculty workload policy at a public R2 university. Following unionization of tenure-line library faculty, library administrators and faculty were tasked with creating a workload policy, in accordance with the requirements of the new collective bargaining agreement. Development of the policy involved frank and open conversation with library faculty about issues of overwork and burnout, review of workload policies from other libraries, and critical examination of librarian workloads, as well as conversion of workload measurement metrics used by teaching faculty to units more meaningful for librarian schedules. This study suggests that, while workload policies can be an important structural tool for combatting overwork and burnout, their success depends on good faith collaboration and open communication with stakeholders throughout their development, and thoughtful enforcement following their implementation.

Funding Source

This article was published open access thanks to a transformative agreement between Milner Library and Elsevier.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

Comments

First published in Journal of Academic Librarianship (2026): https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2026.103365

DOI

10.1016/j.acalib.2026.103365

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