Mental Health and Wellness: Library Workers Thriving in Uncertain Times

Register for this event here!

The Library 2.023 mini-conference: "Mental Health and Wellness: Library Workers Thriving in Uncertain Times," will be held online (and for free) on Tuesday, April 4th, 2022, from 12:00 - 3:00 pm US-Pacific Time.

Libraries have the power to help transform lives, both for staff and patrons, through efforts that promote mental health and wellness. This Library 2.0 mini-conference will focus specifically on helping library workers thrive in our current uncertain and complex times. It will also explore the “opportunity to reimagine our futures, to renew and adapt our institutions and to craft new stories about who we are and what we value” (United Nations' Human Development Report 2021/2022).

The conference chair is Loida Garcia-Febo who, as past president of the American Library Association, focused on workplace wellness areas including continuing education, creating a positive work environment, unions, gender equity, pay equity, and other activities designed to improve the salaries and status of library professionals. We are encouraging conference session submissions that focus on programs and initiatives supporting staff, team, leadership, and organizational health and wellness. Examples of topics that are encouraged include the following, but other related submissions are also welcome:

• staff burnout;
• trauma support;
• mindfulness practices;
• civility in ideologically or culturally polarized environments;
• quality of work-life;
• the “8 Elements of Wellness” defined by ALA-APA: Emotional, Environmental, Financial, Intellectual, Occupational, Physical, Spiritual, and Social (https://ala-apa.org/wellness).

Provider of this mini-conference: Library 2.0