Getting into the club: Existence and availability of mentoring for tenured librarians in academic libraries

Abstract

Great attention has been devoted to mentoring for early-career librarians, but little has been paid to the post-tenure experience of academic librarians. Researchers sought to understand the mentoring experiences and barriers to promotion for academic librarians who hold faculty status at public R1 institutions. Surveys sent to tenured academic librarians at 40 institutions invited them to share their experiences with post-tenure mentoring, promotion, and professional development. The study suggests that few structured mentoring programs exist for post-tenure faculty librarians. Additionally, results suggest that five factors influence intent to seek promotion: financial, political, workload, work/life balance, and process/procedural.