Making the Invisible Visible: Recognizing Hidden Labor in Academic Libraries

In academic libraries, much of the critical work happens behind the scenes. While librarians engage in highly visible activities like teaching, reference services, and public-facing events, a significant portion of their labor remains invisible. This hidden labor—essential for maintaining library services, digital collections, and academic resources—often goes unrecognized, leading to underappreciation and burnout among library staff.

The Intersection of Visible and Hidden Work

Many library programs and initiatives deliver highly visible results, such as exhibitions, events, or digital showcases. However, these successes rely heavily on behind-the-scenes work. For instance, a common reading program may feature students’ creative posters, displayed physically and digitally. While the public-facing event is highly celebrated, the invisible labor behind it is vast.

Librarians digitize student work, manage metadata, preserve creative projects, and build the infrastructure that supports the event. These unseen tasks are critical to the program's success but are rarely recognized, contributing to a culture where essential work is undervalued.

Invisible Labor: The Maintenance Work Behind Innovation

In academic libraries, there is a distinct divide between innovation and maintenance. Visible innovations might include launching a new digital archive or organizing a cutting-edge exhibition, but the maintenance work—cataloging, archiving, metadata creation, and ensuring system functionality—is often hidden.

Consider the process of preserving digital collections or student projects. After the initial buzz of a poster exhibition or digital display fades, librarians are responsible for archiving these works, cataloging them with detailed metadata to ensure future accessibility. While this maintenance work is critical for long-term success, it remains largely unnoticed by the broader academic community.

Gendered Labor in Academic Libraries

Academic librarianship has long been shaped by gendered labor dynamics. The profession, historically feminized, reinforces the stereotype that roles seen as “caring” or “supportive” are less valuable. As a result, these roles, often occupied by women, particularly women of color, are underappreciated and less likely to lead to career advancement or recognition.

Women in academic libraries are frequently steered into roles requiring organizational, clerical, or emotional skills, such as managing user services, outreach, or library instruction. These roles, while essential, are often seen as “soft” skills and do not carry the same prestige or mobility as technology- or systems-focused positions. Furthermore, the emotional labor required—supporting students and faculty, resolving conflicts, or offering informal counseling—is rarely acknowledged in performance reviews, exacerbating gender inequities.

Addressing Hidden Labor: Practical Solutions for Libraries

To address the issue of hidden labor and its gendered implications, libraries can take concrete steps to make invisible labor more visible and valued:

1. Highlight the Importance of Maintenance Work: Maintenance tasks, such as cataloging, archiving, and metadata creation, should be explicitly acknowledged in job descriptions, performance reviews, and promotions. By valuing this work, libraries can ensure it is no longer seen as secondary to more visible tasks like teaching or programming.

2. Create Spaces for Recognition: When celebrating the success of library programs or events, it is crucial to credit the behind-the-scenes work that made them possible. Recognizing staff involved in cataloging, digital preservation, and archiving helps to validate their essential contributions.

3. Quantify and Communicate the Impact of Hidden Labor: Libraries can use data and metrics to quantify the impact of invisible labor. For example, keeping track of the number of digital objects cataloged or the time spent on maintaining library systems can provide evidence for its critical value. These insights can be shared with library leadership to highlight the scale and importance of this work.

4. Equitable Professional Development Opportunities: Those engaged in hidden labor should have equal access to professional development resources, including training, conferences, and networking opportunities. Providing these opportunities helps ensure that staff involved in maintenance work feel valued and supported.

5. Foster a Culture of Care: Libraries must recognize and distribute emotional labor more evenly. Including emotional labor as part of formal evaluations and offering mental health support for staff who regularly engage in this type of work can create a more equitable and supportive workplace.

6. Develop Peer Recognition Programs: Establish internal recognition programs where staff can nominate colleagues for their contributions, particularly those whose work is not always visible. This can foster a culture of appreciation and raise awareness of the diverse types of labor that sustain library operations.

7. Implement Transparent Workload Distribution: Ensure that hidden labor is evenly distributed among staff and is part of formal workload discussions. This avoids overburdening certain staff with invisible tasks while ensuring all work is accounted for in performance evaluations and career development planning.

Conclusion

Academic libraries are built on a foundation of both visible and invisible labor. While public-facing events and programs may capture the spotlight, the hidden labor that supports these successes is just as critical. By acknowledging and valuing the behind-the-scenes work performed by librarians—particularly the maintenance and emotional labor often undertaken by women—libraries can create more equitable, sustainable working environments for all staff. In doing so, libraries not only strengthen their own operations but also contribute to a more inclusive academic landscape.

References

Koziura, A., & Becker, S. (2024). Maintenance as a core value: Recommendations for increasing gender equity on digital scholarship teams. In R. Michalak, T. A. Dawes, & J. E. Cawthorne (Eds.), Toxic dynamics: Disrupting, dismantling, and transforming academic library culture (pp. 179–199). Association of College and Research Libraries.

Michalak, R. (Forthcoming). From Canvas to Quartex: The Evolution of Art in the Age of AI and Digital Archives. College & Research Libraries News.