Chapter 11: WIP: A Work in Progress or a Creative Endeavor That Has Stalled

The focus of this reflection is on the ways in which academia demands creativity from its participants while at the same time, undermining those creative efforts by sustaining a “risk-averse" environment. The act of creativity is risky. All new initiatives inevitably carry the possibility of failure, and the idea of failure as anything other than bad is counterintuitive to our success-driven society. This is evident in all levels of higher education, from the metrics that drive the college admission process to the fight for tenure and academic freedom. Drawing on the works of authors such as Sarah Jaffe and Fobazi Ettarh, I think about how easy it is for the individual (self) to become subsumed by the academy (system). And how, perhaps, this is especially true of areas with a high sense of vocational awe and a high demand for creativity. As an early-career librarian, I also draw on my experience working in two very different academic libraries and examine the ways in which creativity has been both supported and suppressed in these environments. The first, as a staff librarian at a rural community college, where I served a general population from a variety of disciplines. The second as a tenure-track faculty librarian at a mid-sized public university, where I primarily work with music students and faculty. I explore themes of institutional support, burnout, and consider the ways in which my personal creative endeavors of knitting, music, and writing have overlapped with my professional creativity in these two spaces.