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Abstract: Unheard Stories: The Experiences, Needs, and Hopes of Hard of Hearing Librarians
Librarianship is a service-oriented profession, and the literature of the field reflects how we strive to address the needs of patrons. When it comes to disability, our literature abounds with articles on how to serve patrons with disabilities but offers comparatively little about the experiences and needs of library workers with disabilities. We are both hard of hearing academic librarians who rely on hearing aids, and we were keenly aware of the paucity of literature about library workers with hearing loss. We shared our own stories in a variety of venues but also wanted to hear and learn from others’ stories, so we embarked on a qualitative research study of the lived experiences of hard of hearing librarians.
For our study, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 17 academic librarians who use hearing aids in their working lives. Each interview was a privileged glimpse into the life of an individual hard of hearing librarian, with almost every interviewee noting that they’d never told these stories before. Taken together, the interview transcripts are a rich data set that allows us to explore and begin to answer a wide variety of larger questions, such as: How does the ableism of academia affect hard of hearing librarians’ feelings about their careers, and does it also concretely affect the trajectories of their careers? How can our workplaces be more inclusive and supportive of librarians – and all library workers – with hearing loss? How can we be better advocates for ourselves? How can we seek formal and informal accommodations, and what can we do when we encounter barriers?
In our presentation, we will illuminate these previously unheard stories, draw attention to issues faced by hard of hearing librarians, and provide suggestions for how others in the academic library community can support and more effectively communicate with their hard of hearing colleagues and supervisees. We will also dispel some myths about hearing loss and communicating with hard of hearing individuals.
Further, we will share some insights from our own research process, including the unexpected benefits of needing to switch from in-person to Zoom interviews due to the pandemic. We will also examine the role of hearing-related cognitive fatigue in our research. In addition to being a topic in almost every interview, cognitive fatigue was a feature of our experience as researchers, requiring us to pace ourselves and embrace what’s coming to be known as “slow scholarship.” At this time, we are in deep in the process of analyzing our data using a thematic analysis framework, and we have identified several themes to unpack in presentations and publications. As our dataset is so rich, we anticipate writing several articles over the next few years to give full attention to these themes, but we are ready to present initial findings regarding the theme of best practices and other practical advice.
For our study, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 17 academic librarians who use hearing aids in their working lives. Each interview was a privileged glimpse into the life of an individual hard of hearing librarian, with almost every interviewee noting that they’d never told these stories before. Taken together, the interview transcripts are a rich data set that allows us to explore and begin to answer a wide variety of larger questions, such as: How does the ableism of academia affect hard of hearing librarians’ feelings about their careers, and does it also concretely affect the trajectories of their careers? How can our workplaces be more inclusive and supportive of librarians – and all library workers – with hearing loss? How can we be better advocates for ourselves? How can we seek formal and informal accommodations, and what can we do when we encounter barriers?
In our presentation, we will illuminate these previously unheard stories, draw attention to issues faced by hard of hearing librarians, and provide suggestions for how others in the academic library community can support and more effectively communicate with their hard of hearing colleagues and supervisees. We will also dispel some myths about hearing loss and communicating with hard of hearing individuals.
Further, we will share some insights from our own research process, including the unexpected benefits of needing to switch from in-person to Zoom interviews due to the pandemic. We will also examine the role of hearing-related cognitive fatigue in our research. In addition to being a topic in almost every interview, cognitive fatigue was a feature of our experience as researchers, requiring us to pace ourselves and embrace what’s coming to be known as “slow scholarship.” At this time, we are in deep in the process of analyzing our data using a thematic analysis framework, and we have identified several themes to unpack in presentations and publications. As our dataset is so rich, we anticipate writing several articles over the next few years to give full attention to these themes, but we are ready to present initial findings regarding the theme of best practices and other practical advice.