Reframing Organizational Practices through a Justice Lens: A Study on the Experiences of Racialized Librarians in Academic Libraries

Silvia Si Wing Vong, Elaina Norlin, and Allan Cho*

Organizational practices contribute to the workplace culture which can impact the experiences of racialized and Indigenous academic librarians. This study examines organizational practices (e.g., salary, workload, performance reviews, professional development funds) where perceptions of unfairness and inequity may emerge in Canadian and American academic libraries. In addition, the study examines how human resources or management practices may support equity or reinforce inequitable policies and procedures. The survey included closed and open questions. The open responses were coded and analyzed to identify themes related to organizational justice (i.e., distributive, procedural, interactional, and informational). By identifying problematic practices, we can find ways to counter and redress issues in organizational policies and practices to ensure the retention of racialized and Indigenous librarians.

Introduction

Organizational policies and practices may create sites of unfairness or inequity depending on the institution and management. As academic libraries take on equity language, it is important to implement it and ensure that fairness and equity become embedded in organizational practices in outcomes, procedures, treatment, and information sharing. This study examines organizational practices in academic libraries through the organizational justice lens. Recent literature has identified practices in academic libraries that impact racialized† and Indigenous librarians, such as:

• Salary (Li, 2021; Galbraith et al., 2018)
• Workload (Doan, 2022; Anantachai & Chesley, 2018)
• Performance Reviews (Oates, 2023; Caragher & Bryant, 2023)
• Professional Development (Oates, 2023; Leftwich et al., 2022; Lopez, 2022; Shearer & Chiewphasa, 2022)
• Human Resources (Kendrick & Damasco, 2019)
• Management (Guss et al., 2023; Kendrick & Damasco, 2019; Riley-Reid, 2017; Alabi, 2015; Kumaran, 2015; Walker, 2015

It is important to examine how librarians perceive fairness and equity in organizations as it can impact the retention of racialized and Indigenous librarians. Hoang et al. (2022) examined the importance of equity in practice for retaining public workers and found that “[i]nclusive leadership practices increase the perception of organizational justice among women and BIPOC, making them feel valued as members of the organization and not mere ‘tokens’” (p. 537). Recently, Caragher and Bryant (2023) published a study exploring perceptions of hiring, retaining, and promoting by Black and non-Black library workers. They observe that “[p]articipants experienced hostile work environments as high turnover of BIPOC employees, being targeted at work, being denied promotions, and interacting with coworkers who deny the reality of racism” (2023, p. 155). The study focuses on understanding the experiences of racialized and Indigenous librarians through the organizational justice lens where perceptions of fairness and equity are important. The study centers the participants as experts in their own experiences and environment. Thus, a racialized or Indigenous participant sharing their perception of an organizational process that was unfair and inequitable holds weight rather than comparing their experience with different groups to verify the unfairness and inequity. The reason is that organizational justice focuses on the perception of fairness and equity as it is linked to employee retention and job satisfaction.

Fairness, Equity, and Justice

The article uses the terms fairness, equity, and justice throughout. The term justice is too broad and requires specificity (e.g., social justice, legal justice). Any use of the term “justice” in the article refers to the term organizational justice. The term, “fairness” is “a global perception of appropriateness—a perception that tends to lie theoretically downstream of justice” (Colquitt & Zipay, 2015, p. 76). “Fairness” and “equity” are often utilized together in organizational justice research, not interchangeably. Moreover, equity involves relational comparisons and may involve actual equity or perceived equity (Polk, 2022). For example, a librarian who has a liaison subject area with a high student full-time equivalent (FTE) may perceive unfairness in workload if there is another librarian who has only one liaison subject area with a low student FTE. A manager may assign a few more subject areas to the librarian with the subject area with low student FTE to balance the workload. Alternatively, the manager may also assign more committee work to the librarian with the lower FTE subject area to make the workload equitable; this is actual equity. Perceived equity is a librarian’s perception of equity; the librarian with the higher student FTE subject area may perceive equity if the workload distribution based on FTE is fair.

Organizational Justice

There is no shortage of literature on the impact of workplace culture in retaining faculty, and staff in higher education. More recent literature continues to reiterate the need to transform and change workplace cultures that exclude or create inequitable working environments (Brewster et al., 2022; Sood et al., 2021; Alsulami & Sherwood, 2020; Vassie et al., 2020; Pifer et al., 2019; Griffith & Dasgupta, 2018). Racialized and Indigenous librarians face more challenges in predominantly white institutions, from navigating spaces to experiencing microaggressions, to name a few (Jennings & Kinzer, 2022). Organizational justice allows institutions to examine how employees experience equity/inequity through outcomes, procedures, interactions, and information/decision-sharing with human resources and management. Organizational justice draws from equity theory from the organizational studies lens. Adams (1963, 1976) is often credited with the forming of equity theory in the social psychology field. Equity theory from the management and organizational studies field drew on equity theory to study the positive impact of employee perceptions of equity (Pritchard, 1969; Leventhal, 1980) as well as the impact of equitable treatment (Carrell & Dittrich, 1978). Over time, the organizational studies literature formed new concepts rooted in equity theory to explore equity in the workplace, such as gender equity. Greenberg (1987, 1990) identified the need to examine organizational justice to understand ways in which organizations either create equitable work environments, or reinforce inequity in outcomes, procedures, interactions, or information/decision-sharing. Greenberg (1990) draws on research in education, justice systems, and government workplaces to identify four forms of organizational justice (i.e., distributive, procedural, interactional, informational) that contribute to job satisfaction, engagement, and retention of employees. However, interactional justice has expanded to differentiate between interpersonal justice (Wiseman & Stillwell, 2022), which involves the treatment of employees and informational justice, as well as the sharing of information and/or decision-making processes (see Table 1).

This study uses the term, interpersonal justice. However, past literature uses the term interactional, thus there may be a reference to this past term.

The purpose of the study is twofold: to identify where sites of unfairness and inequity may emerge in an academic library for racialized and Indigenous librarians, and to identify how fairness and equity are experienced by racialized and Indigenous librarians. From the organizational justice lens, the experience of the employees is centered and given weight when examining the different forms of organizational justice. By understanding what forms of organizational justice or injustices emerge in the areas of salary, workload, performance reviews, and professional development, managers can reflect on their own organization’s practices to ensure fairness and equity. In addition, human resources and management are key groups that reinforce or reproduce practices.

Though unfairness and inequity may exist in different ways for non-racialized librarians in an organization, it is important to give space and attention to the experiences of racialized and Indigenous librarians to move away from race-neutral approaches that diminish, or render, racialized or Indigenous experiences invisible. One of the major criticisms of organizational studies and critical management literature is that often the literature takes a race neutrality approach. Ray writes that “mainstream organizational theory typically sees organizational formation, hierarchies, and processes as race-neutral and operationalizes race as a personal identity” (2019, p. 26).

Literature Review

Some literature discussing the retention of racialized and Indigenous librarians identified institutional processes and barriers related to navigation, as well as information on those processes emerged in the literature. Programming and institutional processes were dominant in the literature. Management-related issues, such as workplace culture related to job satisfaction, emerged in some studies. A few studies included human resources (HR) and identified HR as a significant influence in creating a negative or positive workplace culture.

Organizational Justice in Higher Education Literature

Most of the organizational justice in higher education literature comes from higher education leadership or administration journals. Some studies in the higher education literature (Guh et al., 2013; Donglong et al., 2020) cite Niehoff and Moorman’s (1993) study’s instrument with multiple items related to distributive, procedural, and interactional justice in the context of a movie theatre. The study hypothesized the importance that managerial monitoring plays in the role of organizational justice. They found that informal discussions through conversations between the manager and staff about their work had a positive impact on interactional justice; however, procedural justice had a huge impact in a rule-governed organization. Guh et al. (2013) used Niehoff and Moorman’s (1993) questionnaire instrument to conduct a study on organizational justice—in connection with organizational citizenship—with faculty from private and public Taiwan universities. They found that institutions that ensured distributive, procedural, and interactional justice resulted in an affective commitment to the organization and institutional trust. Donglong et al. (2020) used a questionnaire to survey faculty on their experiences with distributive, procedural, and interactional justice; the study drew connections between organizational justice and the organizational commitment of faculty members. They found that faculty “performed more extra-role behaviours when they felt that there was more fairness in organizational decision-making procedures (procedural justice) and in relationships with other people (interactional justice), but distributive justice did not have an effect on their extra-role behaviors” (p. 177).

Other studies focus on select forms of organizational justice, typically distributive and procedural. For example, Gravett and Anderson (2020) surveyed faculty with closed and open questions and conducted a document analysis to examine how procedural justice impacts faculty in dispute resolution. The study found that the faculty’s lack of knowledge and lack of engagement due to the institution’s lack of information sharing on institutional procedures led to procedural injustices and faculty who “suffer in silence.” O’Connell et al. (2021) took a mixed methods approach, utilizing both a survey and interviews to examine faculty members’ experiences with distributive and procedural justice related to performance metrics. They found that “[m]ethods of performance monitoring and performance consequences associated with teaching metrics tended to be located at management level with respondents generally providing lower evaluations of both procedural and distributive justice” (p. 558). Finally, Bloch et al. (2022) drew on O’Connell et al.’s (2021) study to examine how faculty perceived distributive and procedural justice with research and teaching performance evaluation in English and German universities. The study focused on the use of metrics and collecting data via survey. They found that “[p]erceptions of procedural justice were based on the extent that respondents perceived the procedures by which metrics were applied were clearly communicated and context-sensitive” (p. 774).

Though the focus on specific justices and institutional practice helps provide more detail in certain areas, it is important to consider interactional and informational forms of justice, as they may relate and connect to the outcomes (distributive) and institutional processes (procedural). Judge and Colquitt (2004) conducted a Likert scale study with items related to distributive, procedural, interactional, and informational justice. They found connections between specific organizational justice, writing that “procedural and interactional justice were the primary drivers of justice effects, as only they had unique effects on stress perceptions. The strong effects for procedural justice are consistent with theories that link the variable with uncertainty and control” (p. 401). The study helped provide linkages between the different forms of organizational justice and faculty experiences with stress.

Some studies examined organizational justice as a general concept rather than identifying specific forms. Güven and Güven (2020) conducted semi-structured interviews with lecturers who identified as female to understand their perception of organizational justice. Their results found that the lecturers perceived justice as looking different for different groups, and that they saw value in organizational justice. It is important to note that the study did not identify specific forms of organizational justice and were focused on the general concept of organizational justice. Khan et al. (2021) examine organizational justice related to leadership styles using a survey instrument with faculty. They found that organizational justice mediated leadership styles and employee performance. Nyunt et al. (2022) found, in interviews with faculty regarding tenure and organizational justice, that inconsistencies and lack of clarity in tenure criteria and managerial behaviors also contributed to inequity and unfair conditions, such as favoritism for other faculty. Different forms of justice helped to identify specific areas of issues and organizational injustices.

Overall, there has been a lack of consistency in how researchers have explored the topic of organizational justice. The higher education literature suggests that universities are a unique environment due to the dichotomy of autonomy and governance. Academic librarians situated in this environment also experience this duality; however, it is important to note that academic librarians do not always experience the same structures as faculty. For example, faculty may—in their collective agreements via the faculty association/union and contracts—have percentages for research, teaching, and service. Academic librarians may have no percentages or different percentages, depending on their role. Thus, it is worth exploring how academic librarians navigate institutional practices and identifying where issues with different forms of organizational justice may emerge in an academic library.

Organizational Justice in LIS Literature

The literature on organizational justice, both for academic and public libraries, is limited. Studies on the topic use closed-ended questions and conduct a quantitative analysis to draw connections between library employee satisfaction or turnover intention to organizational justice. Though, many of the questions focus on the perception of fairness in outcomes, procedures, interactional or interactional and informational. Shan et al. (2015) used Greenberg’s (1990) three forms of organizational justice—distributive, procedural, and interactional—to examine employee job performance in academic libraries in Pakistan. They found that interactional justice concerning manager relations had a significant impact on employee performance, and emphasized the importance placed on respect and truthfulness. The study used closed questions, which meant that respondents could not elaborate on their own experiences and emphasized managerial relations. Jahangiri et al. (2020) connected the quality of work life with organizational justice, studying employees in public libraries in Iran, and modeling their questionnaires on previous studies from the 1970s and 1990s. They identified, through a Likert scale, that distributive justice (i.e., the perception of fairness in outcomes) had a strong impact on the librarians’ perception of the quality of their work life. Matteson et al. (2021) used recently expanded forms of organizational justice, interpersonal and informational justice and a Likert scale related to each form of justice. Most of the participants in their study were in public service roles. Using a deductive reasoning approach, the results of their study confirmed that measures of perceptions of organizational justice include organizational support, job autonomy, and job feedback. Deborah and Eunice (2022) studied organizational justice and the turnover intentions of academic librarians in Southwest Nigeria. They used a structured questionnaire with a Likert scale and drew on more recent forms of organizational justice to expand interactional justice to interpersonal justice and informational justice. They found that all forms of organizational justice impacted librarians’ intentions to leave the organization.

Quantitative data can both provide a large-picture view of issues and measure the significance of each form of justice; however, without qualitative responses, it is difficult to identify specific areas in practices that impact academic librarians. Open responses allow participants to expand and further explain their responses. For example, when examining procedural justice, allowing open responses to explain what part of the procedures in an organization are unfair allows for specific redress. More importantly, to properly engage with the concept of justice, the voices of those experiencing unfairness and inequity must be allowed to express and share their experiences, not only those experiencing fairness and equity. Scheyett (2021) writes, “For justice to occur, all voices must be heard. For justice to occur, all voices must be free to speak their truth. For justice to occur, we must attend to all voices” (p. 5). Thus, this study included open questions to allow for space for participants to provide context and share their experiences. Moreover, the study aims to contribute specifics about what practices were perceived to be equitable or inequitable.

Methodology

Data Collection

This study’s 20-question survey included both closed responses (i.e., yes, no, unsure) and open responses (i.e., space given for description or explanation). The open questions prompted respondents to describe their experiences on with various organizational policies or procedures. While 154 people accessed the survey, only 111 responses were usable and fully completed. The initial intention was to conduct follow-up interviews with survey respondents who volunteered to participate. However, an analysis of the interview data revealed a theme related to cultural or identity taxation and the experience of racialized labor (Joseph & Hirshfield, 2023; Padilla, 1994). This topic deserved additional attention; therefore, the interview data was removed and analyzed separately under different themes. Survey questions asked respondents for demographic data regarding career status (e.g., early, middle to late), race and ethnicity, as well as any other intersecting identities they felt impacted their experiences as a professional librarian. In addition, the survey included questions regarding the areas of management, human resources, salary negotiation, workload assignment, performance reviews, and professional development.

Identity-related questions typically have closed responses; however, we felt it was important for participants to be able to self-identify. Covarubbias et al. (2018), using a Critical Race Theory lens, emphasize that “[d]ominant analyses of quantitative data can lose sight of the fact that numbers are simply symbols representing reality. These abstractions, and their subsequent manipulation, can be restrictive for other types of contextualization and meaning-making of those numbers” (p. 143). Thus, we left identity questions open. Our approach may not be in line with dominant quantitative approaches and may be seen as more challenging to analyze, due to varying answers regarding race and/or ethnicity; however, the purpose of the study was to examine inequitable organizational practices as identified by racialized librarians. If a group/groups with intersecting identities emerged, that finding would help understand the layered experiences of the participant.

Participants

Racialized or BIPOC librarians continue to be under-represented in libraries. Hulbert and Kendrick (2023) working with multiple datasets share in an S+R Ithaka report that “the data do confirm that the vast majority of librarians are white and that the racial and ethnic makeup in the field has changed little over the past decade … and in the case of Black librarians, there has been a steady decline since 2018” (p. 7). According to the report, in 2022, 81.31% of employed librarians identified as white, while 6.76% identified as Black, 0.46% identified as American Indian, Alaska Native, 3.16% identified as Asian, 6.95% identified as Hispanic, and 1.35% identified as multi-racial. The report noted that data is not completely up to date and includes librarians from different types of libraries; the data drew on ALA member data as well.

In Canada, the data on visible minority and Indigenous librarians is limited and out of date. A 2018 census of Canadian Academic Librarians by the Canadian Association of Professional Academic Librarians showed that close to 90% of respondents identified as white only (Revitt et al., 2019), despite the increase of visible minority people in Canada since the 1980s and the projected increase into 2036 (Williams et al., 2022). Kumaran and Cai (2015) likewise conducted a national survey of visible minorities and noted the lack of representation in the Canadian library profession. The term visible minorities excludes Indigenous peoples and continues to be used in Canadian government documents and census. In addition, some provincial human rights commission acknowledges the terminology to be out of date (Ontario Human Rights Commission, 2017).

Due to the lack of representation of racialized and Indigenous librarians in the U.S. and Canada, we expected that the number of participants from the intended population for our study would be small compared to those studies which include librarians who identify as white. To increase the pool of participants which, in turn, helps maintain participant privacy and confidentiality, we surveyed both U.S. and Canadian libraries. In addition, it was important to gather as much data as possible to better understand how fairness and equity play out in academia, given the research on inequity and racialized and Indigenous academic librarians (Carragher & Bryant, 2023; Brook et al., 2015; Damasco & Hodges, 2012).

Ethics and Consent

The research study received research ethics approval at the University of Toronto (REB Protocol #29124) and the University of British Columbia (BREB# H21-02220). Once protocols were issued, we recruited participants through listservs in Canada and the U.S., including Visible Minority Librarians of Canada (ViMLoC), Asian Pacific American Librarians Association (APALA), and American Library Association (ALA) Connect. Due to research ethics requirements and information privacy concerns with U.S.-based platforms, we stored data on a Canadian-owned and located platform, Simple Survey. Data remained in Canada for both the survey data and interview data as per research ethics protocols at the University of Toronto and the University of British Columbia. Privacy and confidentiality were important and as such, consent was obtained before the survey. We anonymized any identifiable information such as race, ethnicity, location, position titles, and any identifying descriptions in the open responses.

Data Analysis

The study had three coders (the authors). To ensure inter-coder reliability, we met several times throughout the analysis to review and discuss the survey data and open responses. We examined the closed responses first to identify challenging institutional processes. Next, we coded the open answers to further understand the context. We coded the open responses separately and then reviewed them together to identify where there may be vagueness in responses or coding discrepancies and then came to an agreement on the code for those responses. By coding separately, we were engaging in self-coding (Glazier et al., 2021) by first comparing our own selected codes identifying where our own biases may emerge and addressing this in discussions as a team. Once we coded the open answers, we grouped them into themes related to the four forms of organizational justice (i.e., distributive, procedural, interactional, and informational). We used a codebook approach, that is, a thematic analysis technique that is flexible in the coding but can include priori themes, which may be refined or further developed after some initial coding (Braun & Clarke, 2022). For example, some initial themes that emerged after a few rounds of coding were information/knowledge, power, and opportunity hoarding; however, after another round of coding, we noted themes regarding fairness and equity in outcomes, procedures, interactions, and information-sharing. Upon reflection on the impact and purpose of the study, the themes evolved into the different forms of organizational justice (i.e., distributive, procedural, interactional, and informational). Braun and Clarke (2022) write that “coding is [in this approach] primarily a process for identification of ‘themes.’” (p. 245). We grouped the codes that emerged from the analysis into relevant themes according to the definitions of the different forms of organizational justice and generated thematic tables to review the codes (see Tables 2, 3, 4, and 5). Due to the brevity of open responses, there was typically only one code per response. We counted the codes and expressed the results as percentages out of 111 responses.

In addition, we examined demographic data as a variable to identify any patterns related to a particular group. Most of the participants identified as African American or Black, East Asian American, or Latinx. When we looked at intersectional identities, there was great variation, and no specific groups were experiencing consistent issues in the dataset. Few respondents shared how their other identities impacted their experiences with the various organizational processes and practices. In addition, we examined career stage (e.g., early, mid, and late) as a variable to see if years of experience impacted how racialized and Indigenous librarians navigated the various organizational policies and practices. Again, there was no emergent theme from the data that indicated any differences between career stages. Using the responses from the closed question (i.e., yes, no, unsure) as a variable, we examined the reasoning for responses related to fairness and equity in the workplace.

Results

We analyzed a total of 111 responses and collected demographic information from participants, including information regarding ethnicity, gender identity, career stage, and location. The demographic results are as follows:

• All participants identified as Black, African American, Indigenous, Asian, or Latinx. Some participants identified as mixed or multi-racial.‡
• 78% identified as female or a woman, 14% identified as male, 5% identified as non-binary, and 3% preferred not to answer.
• On average, participants had worked at four different libraries in their careers.
• 40% identified as early career (i.e., zero to six years); 30% identified as having a mid-career (i.e., 7-15 years); 28% identified as late career (i.e., 15+ years); and 2% shared that they left the profession but provided responses according to the stage of their career right before they left.
• More respondents were working in the United States (65%) than in Canada (35%).
• Participants identified other intersectional identities as impacting their experience in their context, including first-generation, socio-economic status, sexual orientation, religious affiliation, immigrant, disabilities, or neurodivergence. The most frequently mentioned identities were first-generation and socio-economic status.

Overall, there were no specific group/groups related to race and ethnicity, gender, or other identities among the racialized librarians that experienced the same thing in the different areas (e.g., salary, workload, performance reviews, professional development, human resources, and management). We analyzed variables such as race/ethnicity and career stage, but no specific group/groups among the racialized librarians had a singular or dominant experience. Nonetheless, it is still important to identify where experiences of fairness and equity in the organizational processes and practices may emerge for racialized librarians to give space to understanding how racialized librarians navigate and experience academic culture and structures.

Salary

Yes/No responses made up most of the responses when participants were asked if their starting salary was reflective of their skills and/or abilities as well as equitable (see Figure 1). Those who indicated they had an equitable starting salary (41%) had reasons related to distributive justice and procedural justice (see Table 6). Those who shared reasons related to distributive justice identified that the employer or manager offered a higher salary than expected or a fair salary on par with colleagues. For example, one participant shared: “I did not negotiate. The starting salary was a flat rate that all librarians at the organization currently make.” Regarding procedure, those who perceived a fair salary indicated that institutional policies on starting salaries, salaries outlined by a collective agreement, and formula-based salary calculations contributed to an equitable outcome with salary. Participants who indicated that their starting salary was not reflective of their skills or abilities (44%) provided descriptions related to distributive, procedural, and interpersonal justice. For the responses related to distributive justice, participants indicated that they received a lower salary than expected after the initial offer or negotiation. One participant wrote: “I was told that I have room for growth—even though I have qualifications [multiple graduate degrees] and experience [publications and active with associations] far above the person that I was negotiating with.”

For responses related to procedural justice, many participants indicated frustration with being told that there were no negotiations allowed or that it was not practiced at the institution. For responses related to interpersonal justice, participants shared that either the experience itself was stressful, or awkward, or that a manager or negotiator had lied or double-backed on a verbal agreement about what they would receive. Though not all participants shared this experience, it is important to bring this issue to light as it relates to interpersonal injustice. One participant shared: “I was told negotiating was not possible because the other librarians hired [recently] did not negotiate salaries. I just learned that new hires did negotiate their starting salaries.” Integrity on the part of the manager or negotiator in this scenario is important in ensuring that librarians entering an organization trust their manager.

There were no emerging dominant codes or themes with those that responded unsure (15%). Participants expressed a variety of reasons, from “no experience with negotiations” to “not negotiating due to fear of losing an offer.” We categorized responses that did not go into detail, or that provided one-word answers, under N/A (35%) as there was not enough information to properly assign codes or themes to the responses.

Workload

The responses to fairness and equity in workload were either yes or no responses. No participants selected the option “unsure” for the question. Most participants (63%) indicated that their workload was fair and equitable. A significant portion of the responses fell either in distributive justice or respondents did not provide information (N/A). The coded responses that fell under distributive justice indicated that they had autonomy or a manager who was fair and equitable in distributing work. One participant shared in their response: “With my manager, I set yearly goals in these areas and there is a mid-year check-in. But I also have informal discussions with my manager when taking on projects to make sure they are not only appropriate for my work but that they are things that would serve me—basically my boss tries to make sure I don’t take on too much.” It is important to note that some participants indicated that the workload was equitable, however, every librarian in the organization had heavy or unreasonable workloads due to understaffing.

The participants who indicated that their workload was not fair and inequitable (37%) provided explanations related to distributive and informational justice. For the 18% of distributive justice responses, participants indicated the nature of the role, assigned DEIA work, understaffing, and the organization’s structure as reasons for an inequitable workload. For the 14% that indicated reasons related to informational justice, two reasons emerged: a lack of discussion in workload assignment with the manager, and/or a lack of communication of job expectations between the librarian and manager. One participant shared that their concerns about their workload were disregarded by their manager and had to take on DEIA work, saying: “I took on significantly more service work and diversity work than my colleagues, including invisible labor and consultations based solely on my identity.” Another participant observes that job descriptions with “other duties as assigned by the Dean of Libraries” as problematic as it does not indicate that one may be relieved of other duties to take on new duties. The vagueness of that phrasing also gives way for new duties to be added on after salary negotiations are finalized.

Performance Reviews

Regarding performance reviews, some participants (39%) indicated that it was inclusive and equitable. However, many of the open responses were one-word responses with little explanation (e.g., “it was fine/good/positive”). The responses that did provide context were mostly related to informational justice. These responses typically included the term “transparent” or referred to the clarity of the performance expectations. One participant wrote: “Positive, due to transparent and open discussions, and continuous dialogue with my manager.” Participants who indicated that their performance review was not inclusive, or inequitable (22%) shared reasons related to distributive and informational justice. Those who experienced distributive injustice all indicated a lack of recognition of merit in the work they were doing as a librarian. For example, one librarian wrote: “There is zero appreciation of DEI work [at my library]. Also, my supervisor was not prepared and had no idea what I was doing.” Informational injustice was connected to managerial practices where participants shared issues of transparency of performance expectations, or a lack of meetings to build towards the final performance reviews. This lack of feedback over the year led to unexpected negative feedback in annual reviews.

A good portion (39%) of the participants responded “unsure.” Further examination of these responses, however, indicated that they did not know if their experience was normal or better compared to their colleagues, or that they were unsure why they were doing well or poorly. In addition, some responses indicated that they did not have performance reviews at their organization or that they had not experienced a performance review at another institution so they could not compare experiences.

Professional Development

Another interesting finding was that most participants (74%) indicated that professional development was fair and equitable in terms of financial support. The two areas of justice that emerged in the explanations were distributive and information justice. For distributive justice, participants indicated that their manager played a role in ensuring requests were supported and funded. For information justice, the major reason was transparency from management about the amount of professional development funds available to librarians, even in situations when funds were low or cut for the year. Union and contract/policy language that clearly outlines the exact funds available was another reason expressed by participants. One participant shared: “At my current institution, the PD funds are the same for everyone, with an extra fund that we can apply to if we need more money. I have never applied for extra funds before. I have not had issues in the past getting approval for time off to attend PD opportunities.” For participants who experienced unfair and inequitable funding for professional development (14%), the reasons ranged among all four forms of justice from being denied professional development opportunities related to their work (distributive), lack of procedures for requesting funds (procedural), discouragement from a manager (interpersonal), to lack of clear explanations for decisions (informational). One participant wrote: “There is no clear amount provided and evasive explanations. My professional development needs are met with derision.” Those who indicated “unsure” (12%)

shared that they did not know if there was fairness and equity in the distribution of funds due to a lack of experience at other institutions.

Human Resources

Most participants who responded that human resources provided supportive procedures to create an inclusive and equitable working environment (26%) indicated reasons related to interpersonal and procedural justice. Respondents indicated that human resources were responsive and supportive to issues or complaints reported. One participant shared: “Employees are assigned an HR specialist to help them with any problems and respond to questions fairly quickly.” In addition, participants indicated that procedures were clearly outlined by the institution in reporting incidents. Participants who indicated that human resources did not provide supportive procedures (50%) provided reasons related to procedural and interpersonal injustice. Those who provided explanations related to procedural injustice identified that the request for funds was vague, unclear, or lacked procedure. This made the experience confusing or discouraged reporting of incidents. One participant shared: “No HR processes in my current library. There are lots of bureaucratic processes to talk to someone, and then they ask you what you want done to correct the situation.” Reasons related to interpersonal injustice identified fear of retaliation from the institution, discouragement from human resources in reporting incidents, or staffing issues in the human resources department leading to delays in responding to incidents. One participant shared: “No one records issues so there is no record of repeated behavior. We are afraid of retaliation.” Interestingly, participants who chose “unsure” (24%)

shared that they were not aware or had experience with human resources policies or procedures. Some even indicated a lack of procedures as well as discouragement from human resources or management to pursue issues.

Management

Overall, interpersonal justice was an important form of justice for participants related to management. Participants who selected “yes” (45%) provided explanations all related to interpersonal justice. Many shared that their manager was either engaged with diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) work, advocated for resources for the work, or supported and followed up with DEIA-related concerns.

One participant wrote: “My manager who identifies as a cis-gendered woman regularly discusses issues of EDI in our 1:1 and is seeking active ways to incorporate action items system-wide. They are not dependent on me to lead efforts but take efforts into their own hands.” Participants who selected “no” (36%) also provided reasons all related to interpersonal justice. They shared reasons around fear and avoidance of “complicated” or DEIA issues/incidents, performative or “lip service” DEIA work, lack of support for DEIA initiatives proposed by librarians, or experiences of overt racism with their manager. One participant observes in their library: “My library director and senior administration are too afraid of addressing harassment, prejudice, homophobia, or any other exclusive and violent behavior from bad actors in the library. They ignore the problem, which results in personnel loss of good librarians.” Those who chose “unsure” (19%) were also related to interpersonal justice or did not provide a reason. Some shared they have yet to see any DEIA-related work, or they shared that performativity or “lip service” was a factor in their response as they are not sure or have yet to observe changes in the institution despite the publication of statements of support.

Discussion

Organizational justice lends some useful concepts in reflecting on dominant and taken-for-granted structures as well as day-to-day practices that impact librarians. The results provide a snapshot of how particular forms of justice emerge in some areas. For example, interpersonal justice and management are closely tied and, therefore, managers need to examine how their practices may impact the experience of fairness and equitable treatment when interacting with librarians. Hoy and Tarter (2004) draw on the organizational justice literature to identify core principles of organizational justice:

• The equity principle is equity and equality balanced in compensation, rewards, and recognition.
• The perception principle emphasizes the importance of communicating procedures that ensure fairness.
• The interpersonal principle centers on respect, sensitivity, and dignity towards others in communication and action.
• The consistency principle focuses on procedural behaviors and consistency of response and action that is fair in varying situations.
• The voice principle is the inclusion of staff in decision-making through engaged informal and formal conversations.
• The egalitarian principle is another inclusive principle that emphasizes the importance of collective benefit rather than self-interest.
• The correction principle removes ego from practice and gives space to librarians and staff to provide feedback, prompting a reversal or correction in a decision.
• The accuracy principle is the action of gathering information so that decisions are based on different perspectives to ensure a fair outcome.
• The representative principle is the sensitivity to the various groups that would be impacted by a decision and ensuring that representation is present and involved in the decision.
• The ethical principle is moral and ethical standards focused on authenticity, honesty, integrity, and vulnerability.

Distributive Justice

The areas that identified the most occurrences of distributive justice were salary and workload. In the area of salary, distributive justice issues mainly lie in the practice of not meeting participants’ salary expectations, or of negotiated extras not being honored by management. Salary negotiation practices typically involve discussion between management and a potential hire after an interview. Job postings do not necessarily include salary ranges and, as a result, it can be frustrating for librarians to learn after an interview that the institution’s budget can only meet a lower salary range. The equity principle is important in ensuring that institutions budget for positions with salaries that can meet the expectations of a potential hire. If not, other offerings such as professional development funds, stipends, or other funds to cover office furniture should be offered to candidates. The positive experiences shared by some participants indicated that when the distribution formula of salaries was shared by management, participants were satisfied with negotiated offers because they knew what to ask for or had clear expectations. The perception principle plays a part in ensuring that during the negotiation process, so it is important to be transparent from the start of the interview process about how salary offerings work at the institution.

Workload practices that impact distributive justice include allowing understaffing issues to persist and creating a contract or new positions where the overflow of work is distributed to one position. Librarians in precarious positions or new to the profession may not voice their concerns and may also take on more work than necessary. The equity principle is important in ensuring that workloads are reviewed throughout the year with the individual librarians and that librarians are given opportunities to adjust their workloads, particularly when they are new to a position. In addition, the correction principle should be adopted by managers who should be able to push back on institutional pressures to take on more work. Managers can also pull back on projects if senior administration refuses to fund more positions to deal with understaffing. Agreeing to continue with the same workload with no staff legitimizes narratives that libraries do not need funding or are overstaffed.

Procedural Justice

The areas that were of concern in procedural justice were salary and human resources. In the area of salary, some practices were identified as good models for salary negotiations, and one practice was identified as problematic. The practice of formula-based salary, collective agreements with clear salary ranges, or salary information/policies was perceived to be fair and equitable. The perception principle ensures that salary formulas outline clear steps in how salaries are calculated and gives some librarians a starting point. Where participants identified salary as a problem was in being denied negotiations and given a salary offer. In addition, a few participants identified how they found out others were able to negotiate when they were denied negotiations. Perception, as well as consistency as a principle, are important in making procedures clear before and during salary negotiations, and ensure that procedures, such as salary negotiations, are offered to all librarians rather than a select few.

Human resources is another area of concern when it comes to procedural justice. Most participants who identified an issue with HR indicated that the vagueness or lack of procedure in reporting incidents or addressing a problem resulted in unfair or inequitable situations at work. Perception and consistency principles are important in ensuring that procedures are clear and consistent. Adopting correction and ethical principles is also important in ensuring that any missteps in handling incident reporting are corrected by management or HR. Moreover, maintaining an ethical principle means that HR and management take on the responsibility of ensuring that procedures are improved upon to ensure that librarians are supported and in a safe working environment.

Interpersonal Justice

Human resources and management were areas where interpersonal justice was important in ensuring equity in the workplace. For human resources, the fear of reprisal and lack of trust were a common concern. Human resources have reporting lines to senior administration, which can make reporting incidents such as ones related to managers difficult. In addition, some participants noted that human resources had high turnover or were understaffed, making it difficult to reach a staff member or creating problems with communication. Participants who had positive experiences identified speedy responses to inquiries. The correction and representative principles are valuable in that they ensure managers and institutions rectify any issues when it comes to reporting incidents. Therefore, when librarians voice concerns about issues with HR, management should advocate for better response times or more support for their department so that inquiries are addressed by HR.

In management, participants who had positive experiences identified managers who either initiated or engaged with DEIA work and communicated this with staff and librarians. Management may not have to be involved in DEIA work or training; however, taking initiative and engaging with DEIA work or participating in DEIA training that results in the adoption of inclusive approaches, uses the ethical principle. The interpersonal principle is also an important part of ensuring that staff and librarians are treated with respect and sensitivity on the part of the manager. Participants who identified problematic management behaviors shared fear and avoidance of “complicated” or DEIA issues/incidents, performative or “lip service” DEIA work, lack of support for DEIA initiatives proposed by librarians, or experiences of overt racism with their manager. Institutions must identify the need to educate and train managers on DEIA issues and topics so that they are equipped to respond, have conversations, and engage with DEIA work that results in redress. For example, if an incident is initially dismissed, rather than doubling down on their earlier misstep, human resources and/or the manager should reflect on their decisions, acknowledge having made a mistake, and offer recourse. Norlin (2021) writes that “[m]anagers who avoid conflict and ignore problems may think that ignorance is bliss, but tension and strife in the workplace can increase the stress level for everyone” (p. 9). This requires the adoption of the correction principle as well as the interpersonal and ethical principles where communication and humility are embodied practice in management.

Informational Justice

Atkins and Mahmud (2021) explain that informational justice is “a broadly useful frame for informational justice focuses on equitable inclusion of people, groups, and communities as they are sources of information, and they actively contribute to, seek, process, and analyze information” (p. 375). Information justice emerges in salary, workload, performance reviews, and professional development. The dominant theme in the institutional practice goes back to communication and inclusion in decision-making regarding policies and procedures. As information professionals, it is natural that participants highly value informational justice. The perception, voice, accuracy, and representative principles are important in supporting informational justice. Managers and supervisors must ensure there is informal and formal communication related to workload, performance review meetings, and changes to funding or policies around professional development. Moreover, the inclusion of staff and librarians in decision-making is important in creating an inclusive and equitable work environment, particularly when individual work will be impacted or when there are changes to institutional policies. The accuracy and representative principles are also important in instilling the idea that good practice is the inclusion of different perspectives when making those decisions.

Limitations and Future Research

In no way should this research study essentialize racialized and Indigenous librarians or managers. Racialized and Indigenous librarians have varying experiences and encompass a large group, and individual contexts can create very different experiences. Rather, this study provides a snapshot of how racialized and Indigenous librarians are impacted by managerial and institutional practices. It is worth studying this subject further to gather different perspectives utilizing different questions and approaches to add more data and analyses to the research topic. For example, interviews with participants to understand their interpretation of a fair and equitable working environment and its impact on their mental health, willingness to stay at the organization, or job satisfaction. Some open responses gave details and clear explanations for selected choices in the closed responses, but it is a limitation of survey open responses that many receive only one-word responses that do not provide clear explanations. The original design of the study included interviews, which, even with a small sample, yielded an unexpected focus on issues of identity/cultural taxation. Thus, we separated the interview data from the survey data to give this important theme sufficient space. It would be worth studying the topic further to understand how racialized and Indigenous librarians contribute to and navigate organizational justice in academic libraries. In addition, the study could be expanded to examine how professional librarians in general experience and navigate organizational practices in the areas of salary negotiation, workload, performance reviews, professional development, and management. This would provide an overall view of how these areas in an organization impact the library profession.

Conclusion

The research on organizational justice can help institutions and management assess organizational policies, processes, interactions, and information-sharing practices to better identify where fairness and equity exist in the organization. It can be a helpful conceptual tool to examine distributive, procedural, interactional, and informational justice in the organization. One of the more important features of organizational justice is that it places the worker at the center and weighs their perspectives more heavily. In addition, the focus on fairness and equity is an important feature of organizational justice. Academic libraries are intended to be spaces and places that support fairness and equity. We must practice what we preach.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the participants for their time and willingness to share their experiences. It is not easy to reflect on and share experiences that may still impact one’s personal and professional life. We hope you will experience some form of justice in your organization to support your important work. The authors would also like to thank the editor and reviewers for their time and valuable feedback.

References

Adams, J. S., & Freedman, S. (1976). Equity theory revisited: Comments and annotated bibliography. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 9, 43–90. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0065-2601(08)60058-1

Adams, J. S. (1963). Towards an understanding of inequity. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 67(5), 422–436. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0040968

Alabi, J. (2015). “This actually happened”: An analysis of librarians’ responses to a survey about racial microaggressions. Journal of Library Administration, 55(3), 179–191. https://doi.org/10.1080/01930826.2015.1034040

Alsulami, S. A., & Sherwood, G. (2020). The experience of culturally diverse faculty in academic environments: A multi-country scoping review. Nurse Education in Practice, 44, 102777. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nepr.2020.102777

Anantachai, T. & Chesley, C. (2018). The burden of care: Cultural taxation of women of color librarians on the tenure-track. In R. Chou, & A. Pho (Eds.), Pushing the margins: Women of color and intersectionality in LIS (pp. 301–327). Library Juice Press.

Atkins, L.C., & Mahmud, A. (2021). Informational justice: Equity of access, implementation, and interaction. In W. Leal Filho, A. Marisa Azul, L. Brandli, A. Lange Salvia, P.G. Özuyar, T. Wall (Eds.), Peace, justice and strong institutions: Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (pp. 417–428). Springer.

Bloch, R., Hartl, J., O’Connell, C., & O’Siochru, C. (2022). English and German academics’ perspectives on metrics in higher education: evaluating dimensions of fairness and organisational justice. Higher Education, 83(4), 765–785. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-021-00703-w

Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2022). Thematic analysis: A practical guide. Sage.

Brewster, L., Jones, E., Priestley, M., Wilbraham, S. J., Spanner, L., & Hughes, G. (2022). ‘Look after the staff and they would look after the students’ cultures of wellbeing and mental health in the university setting. Journal of Further and Higher Education, 46(4), 548–560. https://doi.org/10.1080/0309877X.2021.1986473

Brook, F., Ellenwood, D., & Lazzaro, A. E. (2015). In pursuit of antiracist social justice: Denaturalizing whiteness in the academic library. Library Trends, 64(2), 246-284. http://doi.org/10.1353/lib.2015.0048

Caragher, K., & Bryant, T. (2023). Black and non-Black library workers’ perceptions of hiring, retention, and promotion racial equity practices. Journal of Library Administration, 63(2), 137–178. https://doi.org/10.1080/01930826.2022.2159239

Carrell, M. R., & Dittrich, J. E. (1978). Equity theory: The recent literature, methodological considerations, and new directions. Academy of Management Review, 3(2), 202–210. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.1978.4294844

Colquitt, J. A., & Zipay, K. P. (2015). Justice, fairness, and employee reactions. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational. Behavior, 2(1), 75–99. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-orgpsych-032414-111457

Colquitt, J. A., Greenberg, J., & Zapata-Phelan, C. P. (2005). What is organizational justice? A historical overview. In J. Greenberg & J. A. Colquitt (Eds.), Handbook of organizational justice (pp. 3–56). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers.

Covarrubias, A., Nava, P. E., Lara, A., Burciaga, R., & Solórzano, D. G. (2018). Expanding educational pipelines: Critical race quantitative intersectionality as a transactional methodology. In J. T. DeCuir-Gunby, T. K. Chapman, & P. A. Schutz (Eds.), Understanding critical race research methods and methodologies (pp. 138–149). Routledge.

Damasco, I. T., & Hodges, D. (2012). Tenure and promotion experiences of academic librarians of color. College & Research Libraries, 73(3), 279–301. https://doi.org/10.5860/crl-244

Deborah, S. O., & Eunice, O. O. (2022). Organisational justice as correlate of turnover intentions among academic librarians in South-West Nigeria. Academy of Strategic Management Journal, 21, 1–12.

Doan, J. M., & Kennedy, R. B. (2022). Diversity fatigue: Acknowledging and moving beyond repetitious emotional labor. In Practicing social justice in libraries (pp. 145–153). Routledge.

Donglong, Z., Taejun, C., Julie, A., & Sanghun, L. (2020). The structural relationship between organizational justice and organizational citizenship behavior in university faculty in China: the mediating effect of organizational commitment. Asia Pacific Education Review, 21, 167–179. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12564-019-09617-w

Galbraith, Q., Kelley, H., & Groesbeck, M. (2018). Is there a racial wage gap in research libraries? An analysis of ARL libraries. College & Research Libraries, 79(7), 863. https://doi.org/10.5860/crl.79.7.863

Glazier, R. A., Boydstun, A. E., & Feezell, J. T. (2021). Self-coding: A method to assess semantic validity and bias when coding open-ended responses. Research & Politics, 8(3). https://doi.org/10.1177/20531680211031752

Gravett, S., & Anderson, S. (2020). Enacting organizational justice and institutional learning in faculty dispute resolution processes: Lessons learned from a study of the UNC system. Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal, 32, 167–195. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10672-020-09350-2

Greenberg, J. (1990). Organizational justice: Yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Journal of Management, 16(2), 399–432. https://doi.org/10.1177/014920639001600208

Greenberg, J. (1987). A taxonomy of organizational justice theories. Academy of Management Review, 12(1), 9–22. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.1987.4306437

Griffith, E., & Dasgupta, N. (2018). How the demographic composition of academic science and engineering departments influences workplace culture, faculty experience, and retention risk. Social Sciences, 7(5), 71–96. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci7050071

Guh, W. Y., Lin, S. P., Fan, C. J., & Yang, C. F. (2013). Effects of organizational justice on organizational citizenship behaviors: Mediating effects of institutional trust and affective commitment. Psychological Reports, 112(3), 818–834. https://doi.org/10.2466/01.21.PR0.112.3.818-834

Guss, S., Stout, J., & Cunningham, S. (2023). # NotAllLibraries: Toxicity in academic libraries and retention of librarians. Proceedings of ACRL 2023, Pittsburgh, PA. https://www.ala.org/acrl/conferences/acrl2023/papers

Güven, S., & Güven, B. (2020). Organizational justice and being a woman; What female lecturers say. International Journal of Progressive Education, 16(4), 302–311.

Hoang, T., Suh, J., & Sabharwal, M. (2022). Beyond a numbers game? Impact of diversity and inclusion on the perception of organizational justice. Public Administration Review, 82(3), 537–555. https://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13463

Hoy, W. K., & Tarter, C. J. (2004). Organizational justice in schools: No justice without trust. International Journal of Educational Management, 18(4), 250–259. https://doi.org/10.1108/09513540410538831

Hulbert, I. G., & Kendrick, C. (2023, April 18). By Any measure: The racial demographics of librarians. https://doi.org/10.18665/sr.318716

Jahangiri, P., Hashempour, L., Heshmati, B., & Saberi, M. K. (2020). Predicting the quality of work life of librarians in public libraries based on organizational justice dimensions. LIBRES: Library & Information Science Research Electronic Journal, 30(2), 68–80.

Jennings, A., & Kinzer, K. (2022). Whiteness from the top down: Systemic change as antiracist action in LIS. Reference Services Review, 50(1), 64–80. https://doi.org/10.1108/RSR-07-2021-0027

Joseph, T. D., & Hirshfield, L. E. (2023). Reexamining racism, sexism, and identity taxation in the academy. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 46(6), 1101–1108. https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2022.2143719

Judge, T. A., & Colquitt, J. A. (2004). Organizational justice and stress: The mediating role of work-family conflict. Journal of Applied Psychology, 89(3), 395–404. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.89.3.395

Kendrick, K. D., & Damasco, I. T. (2019). Low morale in ethnic and racial minority academic librarians: An experiential study. Library Trends, 68(2), 174–212. https://doi.org/10.1353/lib.2019.0036

Khan, I. U., Idris, M., & Amin, R. U. (2021). Leadership style and performance in higher education: The role of organizational justice. International Journal of Leadership in Education, 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1080/13603124.2020.1854868

Kumaran, M. (2015). Succession planning process that includes visible minority librarians. Library Management, 36(6/7), 434–447. https://doi.org/10.1108/LM-12-2014-0138

Kumaran, M., & Cai, H. (2015). Identifying the Visible Minority Librarians in Canada: A National Survey. Evidence-Based Library and Information Practice, 108–126. https://doi.org/10.18438/B8ZC88

Leftwich, A. M., Dai, J. Y., & Rawls, M. (2022). Temporary invitations to the party: Reflections on recruitments as performative action in diversity residencies. In P. Gorecki & A. Petrovich (Eds.), Residencies revisited: Reflections on library residency programs from the past and present (pp. 307–326). Library Juice Press.

Leventhal, G. S. (1980). What should be done with equity theory? New approaches to the study of fairness in social relationships. In Social exchange: Advances in theory and research (pp. 27–55). Springer US.

Li, Y. (2021). Racial pay gap: An analysis of CARL libraries. College & Research Libraries, 82(3), 436–454. https://doi.org/10.5860/crl.82.3.436

Lopez, E. (2022). Improving dysfunctional recruitment and retention in academic libraries by honoring the whole person. In S. Acadia (Ed.), Libraries as dysfunctional organizations and workplaces (pp. 72–94). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003159155-3

Matteson, M. L., Ming, Y., & Silva, D. E. (2021). The relationship between work conditions and perceptions of organizational justice among library employees. Library & Information Science Research, 43(2), 101093. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lisr.2021.101093

Niehoff, B. P., & Moorman, R. H. (1993). Justice as a mediator of the relationship between methods of monitoring and organizational citizenship behavior. The Academy of Management Journal, 36(3), 527–556. https://doi.org/10.2307/256591

Nyunt, G., O’Meara, K., Bach, L. & LaFave, A. (2022). Tenure undone: Faculty experiences of organizational justice when tenure seems or becomes unattainable. Equity & Excellence in Education, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1080/10665684.2021.2010013

Norlin, E. (2021). The six-step guide to library worker engagement. ALA Edition.

O’Connell, C., O’Siochru, C., & Rao, N. (2021). Academic perspectives on metrics: Procedural justice as a key factor in evaluations of fairness. Studies in Higher Education, 46(3), 548–562. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2019.1643306

Oates, E. Q. (2023). Battered but not broken: A composite of the experiences of Black librarians at public, 2-Year colleges. Community College Review, 51(2), 147–172. https://doi.org/10.1177/00915521221145313

Ontario Human Rights Commission. (2017). Under suspicion: Research and consultation report on racial profiling in Ontario. https://www.ohrc.on.ca/en/under-suspicion-research-and-consultation-report-racial-profiling-ontario

Padilla, A. M. (1994). Research news and comment: Ethnic minority scholars; research, and mentoring: Current and future issues. Educational Researcher, 23(4), 24–27. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X023004024

Pifer, M. J., Baker, V. L., & Lunsford, L. G. (2019). Culture, colleagues, and leadership: The academic department as a location of faculty experiences in liberal arts colleges. The Review of Higher Education, 42(2), 537–564. https://doi.org/10.1353/rhe.2019.0006

Polk, D. M. (2022). Equity theory: Evaluating fairness. In D. Chadee (Ed.), Theories in social Psychology (pp. 217–249). 2nd ed. Wiley.

Pritchard, R. D. (1969). Equity theory: A review and critique. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 4(2), 176–211. https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1016/0030-5073(69)90005-1

Ray, V. (2019). A theory of racialized organizations. American Sociological Review, 84(1), 26–53. https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122418822335

Revitt, E., Magnus, E., Schrader, A., & Wright, J. (2019, March 25). 2018 census of Canadian academic librarians: User guide and results summary. https://capalibrarians.org/statements/census-of-academic-librarians/

Riley-Reid, T. (2017). Breaking down barriers: Making it easier for academic librarians of color to stay. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 43(5), 392–396. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2017.06.017

Scheyett, A. (2021). Voice and justice. Social Work, 66(1), 5–7. https://doi.org/10.1093/sw/swaa051

Shan, S., Ishaq, H. M., & Shaheen, M. A. (2015). Impact of organizational justice on job performance in libraries: Mediating role of leader-member exchange relationship. Library Management, 36(1/2), 70–85. https://doi.org/10.1108/LM-01-2014-0003

Shearer, J. J., & Chiewphasa, B. B. (2022). Radical re-imagination: centering a BIPOC library workforce in an asset-based autoethnography. Reference Services Review, 50(1), 113–126. https://doi.org/10.1108/RSR-07-2021-0029

Sood, A., Rishel Brakey, H., Myers, O., Greenberg, N., Tigges, B., Sigl, D., & Wilson, B. (2020). Exiting medicine faculty want the organizational culture and climate to change. The Chronicle of Mentoring & Coaching, 4(SI13), 359–364. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33244484

Vassie, C., Smith, S., & Leedham-Green, K. (2020). Factors impacting on retention, success and equitable participation in clinical academic careers: A scoping review and meta-thematic synthesis. BMJ Open, 10(3), e033480. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2019-033480

Walker, S. (2015). Critical Race Theory and the recruitment, retention and promotion of a librarian of color: A counterstory. In R. Hankins & M. Juárez (Eds.), Where are all the librarians of color? The experiences of people of color in academia (pp. 135–160). Library Juice Press.

Williams, M. T., Khanna Roy, A., MacIntyre, M. P., & Faber, S. (2022). The traumatizing impact of racism in Canadians of colour. Current Trauma Reports, 8(2), 17–34. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40719-022-00225-5

Wiseman, J., & Stillwell, A. (2022). Organizational justice: Typology, antecedents and consequences. Encyclopedia, 2(3), 1287–1295. https://doi.org/10.3390/encyclopedia2030086

Appendix A: Survey Tool

What is your racial and/or ethnic identity?

What is your gender identity?

To better understand the complexity of your experience, please share any other identities that impact your professional experience:

What stage are you at in your library career?

• Early Career (0-6 years)
• Mid-career (7-15 years)
• Late Career (15+ years)
• Retired
• Left the Profession—At what stage did you leave the profession?

How many libraries have you worked for in your career?

How many years have you been with your current library?

• 0-5 years
• 6-10 years
• 11-15 years
• 16-20 years
• 20+ years

Where is your library located?

• United States
• Canada
• Other:

At your current library, what organizational structures exist? Check any that apply:

• Tenure/Permanent Status
• Unionization of Librarians
• Assistant, Associate, and Full Librarian Ranking
• Librarian I, II, III, IV ranking
• Faculty or Academic Status
• Not applicable

Is/was your starting salary reflective of your skills/abilities and equitable?

• Yes
• No
• Unsure

How was your experience with negotiating your starting salary?

Is your workload fair and equitable compared to your colleagues?

• Yes
• No

How was your experience with workload assignments and discussions?

Have performance reviews been inclusive and equitable?

• Yes
• No
• Unsure

What has your experience been like with performance reviews?

Have you been given fair and equitable financial support for professional development opportunities?

• Yes
• No
• Unsure

What is your experience with obtaining approval and financial support for professional development opportunities?

Has human resources provided supportive procedures to create an inclusive, and equitable working environment?

• Yes
• No
• Unsure

What human resources processes are present in your organization that allow you to report issues with supervisors, managers, colleagues, and patrons?

Has your manager or senior leaders in the library or organization contributed to an inclusive and equitable working environment?

• Yes
• No
• Unsure

How has your manager or senior leadership addressed any of your concerns or supported you?

Are there any other organizational structures that have impacted your career progression or interest in staying at a library?

• * Silvia Si Wing Vong is Assistant Professor at University of Toronto, email: silvia.vong@mail.utoronto.ca; Elaina Norlin is Professional Development Program Coordinator at Association of Southeastern Research Libraries (ASERL), email: enorlin@aserl.org; Allan Cho is Community Engagement Librarian at University of British Columbia, email: allan.cho@ubc.ca. ©2025 Silvia Si Wing Vong, Elaina Norlin, and Allan Cho, Attribution-NonCommercial (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) CC BY-NC.

• † Many scholars and participants have their preferences for identification and as such, to respect the diverse views and move away from imposing labels on individuals, the terms BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color), visible minority, racialized and/or librarians of color are used throughout the article. It is important to note that these terms are not inclusive of all groups. For example, the term visible minority excludes Indigenous and First Nations peoples. Moreover, the issues around these terms have been long debated by scholars in various fields.

• ‡ To protect participants’ privacy and confidentiality particularly since racialized and Indigenous librarians are a small group in the profession, we have opted not to share specific numbers or ethnicity as some have very specific racial and ethnic identities that may be easily identifiable.