Working as a team to confront challenges

I played basketball from the time I was about nine years old until a knee injury sidelined me in high school. The game features in some of my happiest memories from growing up—from my dad coaching our undefeated rec league team to summer open gym sessions to laughing with my teammates at pre-game dinners and post-game bus rides. I enjoyed playing basketball, but what I really loved was being part of a team.

I’ll never forget the first time I played in a varsity game, and Colleen Nolan—an upperclassman and the toughest player on our team—stared down an opponent who’d knocked me over in a tussle for the ball. “You don’t push us around,” she warned the other team, and we all knew she meant it. I got back up feeling the kind of confidence that can only come from knowing someone really and truly has your back.

I was reminded of teamwork as I began to prepare for the American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference this year. My very first ALA experience was at a freezing cold Midwinter in Philadelphia, where I helped my mentor, Sari Feldman, campaign for ALA president. Our campaign crew consisted of Sari’s longtime library pals and her daughters, who traveled to Philly to lend a hand. We took turns staffing the campaign table and blanketing the convention center with flyers and postcards. I loved meeting the many librarians who added their names to our list of supporters. They spoke of times that Sari had helped them through a tough spot or when they worked together on an issue that mattered for libraries. From her former colleagues and students at Syracuse University to library staff to vendor partners, Sari’s “team” came forward to say she had their support.

Campaigning at that ALA conference is the closest I’ve come in my professional experience to the feeling of being on a basketball team, united around a shared goal with people I trusted and respected. Over the years, conferences have been one of the places where I’ve built my team of library collaborators—the people who I know will support me when I’m feeling low, will help me when I have a question, and will share their knowledge and expertise so that I can be a better librarian and leader. For all the wonderful educational opportunities that conference programs provide, inspiring author events, and valuable vendor conversations in the exhibit hall, the best part for me has been building lasting relationships that add power to the profession.

The sense that we are one team within library land is especially important right now as libraries and key leadership are under threat. Our profession rallied around Dr. Carla Hayden when President Trump unceremoniously dismissed our Librarian of Congress on May 8. In a remarkable display of courage and strength, Library of Congress staff stood firm when the White House dispatched a new acting librarian and two administration officials to the Library, refusing their entry until Congress weighed in. The Library is part of the legislative branch of government, and the Trump administration’s unilateral effort to install new Library leadership has been characterized by some as executive branch overreach.

As many of us travel to Philadelphia this month, we have an opportunity to exercise our library team muscles. Go to that group dinner, gab with someone you just met over coffee—building your personal library team will serve the broader profession because we’re stronger when we have people we can count on.

I still carry the lessons I learned about teamwork from my time playing basketball: Help your teammates up when they fall down, cheer when they score, and if an aggressive opponent comes at you hard, throw a couple of elbows in the paint to let them know that we won’t be pushed around.