Interventions for Reducing, Preventing, or Overcoming Librarian Burnout: A Scoping Review

Natalie Logue, Jessica C. Garner, and Stephanie Hendren*

This scoping review categorizes the interventions discussed or explored among academic librarians to address the issue of burnout. Through a scoping review of the literature going back as far as 1982, the pattern of interventions suggests a strong emphasis on the individual managing their burnout through personal actions. However, in more recent years there has been a significant increase in the suggestion of organizations taking responsibility to reduce rates of burnout. More quantitative research is needed before specific interventions can be identified as effective.

Background

Job burnout is a phenomenon that describes the culmination of three psychological symptoms: exhaustion, cynicism, and lacking professional efficacy (Maslach, 2001). These symptoms can rise from job duties or personal relationships that are a necessity to be successful in a certain position. Since the development of the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) and other tools to measure burnout, there have been many explorations of burnout in the library literature (Bartlett, 2018; Cameron et al., 2021; Casucci et al., 2020; Dixon, 2022).

Several survey studies have examined the frequency and causes of job-related burnout in academic librarians. A survey of 176 liaison librarians who were members of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) discovered that length of time as a librarian or length at a single organization did not have a direct correlation to burnout scores (Nardine, 2019). Shupe et al. (2015) conducted a survey of 282 respondents that looked at important workplace factors such as role ambiguity and role overload, which are known role-related stressors that may contribute to job burnout. Their mean levels of both contributors were found to be similar to the levels reported in populations such as nursing executives and social service employees. Several other studies have also examined general demographic details, level of job burnout, and results of job burnout (Martin, 2020; Matteson, 2016; Matteson & Miller, 2013; Wood, 2020).

However, fewer narrative review papers examine or evaluate interventions to reduce, prevent, or overcome burnout. To date, a scoping review or other comprehensive review has not been identified in the library literature though there have been several narrative reviews that discuss burnout and interventions in general. Additionally, discussed interventions cover a significant number of suggestions that range from person-focused interventions to organizational interventions. We therefore sought to systematically categorize all the current literature that proposes an intervention for reducing or preventing burnout to better understand what solutions are most recommended and which interventions have been studied through original research.

Objectives

The objective for this scoping review is to identify and categorize all suggested or studied interventions in library literature hypothesized to prevent, reduce, or overcome burnout for library professionals working within the United States. Additionally, the scoping review will answer the following questions:

1. What library settings or library workers are represented or underrepresented in the literature?
2. Who is expected to perform the burnout interventions (i.e., the library worker, the supervisor, the university)? For the purposes of this review, we will consider any intervention the person experiencing burnout implements as a personal intervention and any intervention implemented by someone or something other than the person experiencing burnout (such as a supervisor, a library, or a university) an organizational intervention.

Methods

The authors conducted a scoping review in accordance with the methods outlined in the JBI Manual for Evidence Synthesis, Chapter 11.3: “Scoping Reviews” (Peters et al., 2020). The project also follows the PRISMA-ScR reporting guidelines (Tricco et al., 2018). This project and its protocol were registered through the Open Science Framework (OSF) Registries on February 22, 2021, after the searches were run and before data extraction began (Hendren et al., 2021). All final work, including the supplements and data extraction results for this project, can be found on the project page hosted on the Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/j3ew6/).

Eligibility Criteria

Our eligibility criteria included publications that: 1) are written in English and had a setting or focus on libraries or librarians within the United States (we chose to limit to the United States due to differing cultures and work-related resources worldwide [e.g., vacation time, maternity/paternity leaves, etc.] that could impact the findings); 2) discuss or evaluate interventions relating to workplace-related burnout (this could include articles whose study focus was not burnout interventions [e.g., measuring the prevalence of burnout in academic librarians] but that made recommendations in their discussions or conclusions. Publications that made general recommendations for all library types and were feasible for an academic library setting were also considered); 3) had an audience or study population that included academic librarians in some capacity (for the purposes of this scoping review, we defined academic librarians and settings in our protocol); 4) discuss any intervention in relation to workplace-related burnout, which could include interventions to prevent burnout from occurring or reduce existing burnout.

Exclusion criteria included a non-English language or settings outside of the United States, no mention of a burnout intervention, or a burnout discussion that is not centered from the library workplace (e.g., personal or familial burnout), or studies that were exclusively focused on an audience or population that included no librarians. Publication types of books, book chapters, and conference abstracts were excluded. Book reviews and dissertations were additional publication types excluded after the registration of the scoping review protocol but were added to the exclusion criteria due to their similar nature to books. An additional exclusion criteria for satirical papers was added during the screening process.

Search

A comprehensive search was developed around the two main concepts for analysis: librarians/libraries and burnout. Keywords were not limited to “academic librarianship” in order to capture literature that might generally speak about multiple types of libraries. Additional keywords for burnout, such as “chronic stress” and “mental exhaustion,” were also included. The search was developed and peer reviewed by all authors before it was translated to each database, adding in appropriate controlled vocabulary as available.

The databases Medline (OVID), Web of Science (Clarivate), LISTA with Full Text (EbscoHost), Library Science Database (Proquest), and PsycInfo (EbscoHost) were searched on November 23, 2020, with no date limitations or other filters, then updated on July 28, 2022. Ovid and PsycInfo were chosen to insure coverage the mental health topic side in addition to acknowledging the number of librarians who work as medical librarians or work in medical settings, such as hospital librarians. Web of Science was utilized to provide a broad, catch-all coverage due to the multidisciplinary coverage and size of the database. All citations were imported into Covidence for de-duplication and screening (Covidence systematic review software, Veritas Health Innovation, Melbourne, Australia. Available at www.covidence.org). These databases include two changes from our original protocol: Ovid was chosen over PubMed to utilize the database’s adjacency search function, and PsycINFO was selected over Academic Search Complete to ensure we included a database that heavily focused on psychological science. All reproducible search strategies are available on the OSF project page (https://osf.io/f8np4).

Study Selection and Data Extraction

Two authors independently reviewed all articles at both the title/abstract and full-text levels by using Covidence. Any disagreements in voting were broken by the third author. Articles that made it to inclusion had data extracted via a standard template developed by the authors and uploaded into Covidence’s Data Extraction, version 2.0. The types of information extracted from each article included: 1) study title, authors, and journal title; 2) the aim or purpose of the publication; 3) the population that served as the main focus of the publication, including sample size and methodology if applicable; 4) specific interventions identified in the literature, either verbatim or as a summarized concept; 5) and the measured outcomes, if applicable, or general key findings. All data extraction was conducted independently by two authors and discrepancies in responses were arbitrated by the third author within Covidence. Extracting the methodology used in each included article was done in lieu of critical appraisal to quantify the number of original research papers vs. opinion papers. The broad variety of papers and intervention types meant the pool was too heterogeneous to allow for proper critical appraisal.

Charting and Synthesis of Results

The authors began by charting the interventions identified during the data extraction into conceptual categories and intervention type (i.e., personal versus organizational). The conception categories were identified by all three authors and included, but were not limited to, “Professional Development,” “Exercise,” and “Change of Attitude.” The authors each sorted a third of the interventions identified from the literature into conceptual categories. Additional categories were added as necessary through a discussion and unanimous agreement of the authors. It was determined the interventions could exist in more than one category and that categories should be split between “Organizational” and “Personal” intervention types, based on how the intervention was discussed in the article. The resulting chart of categories and intervention types was translated into a simple list of every intervention included on the chart, meaning some interventions appeared multiple times. The identifying article number attached to each intervention ensured that even if interventions appeared in the exact same language on multiple papers, those would remain distinguishable. The final results were entered into PowerBI to develop a report that allowed for close investigation of each category and to sort based on Organizational or Personal responsibility. Narrative summary was utilized for all other data categories.

Results

Search and Study Selection

The comprehensive search produced 1,352 references, 387 of which were identified via Covidence as duplicate citations. The remaining 965 were screened for eligibility and resulted in the inclusion of 68 publications (see Figure 1). Two publications could not be retrieved:

both were connected to an online archive that had since shut down and no longer provided the full text or any contact information to try and obtain the papers. Thus, these two could not be considered further even though the titles and abstracts met the inclusion criteria. The reasons for exclusion for all citations evaluated at the full text level are available on the OSF project page (https://osf.io/8bu4q).

Study Characteristics

All included studies and their characteristics can be viewed in Appendix III (on https://osf.io/j3ew6/). The publication date of included studies ranged from 1982 to 2022; however, there were several years within that range that did not produce any included studies. There was a significant increase in studies published between 2015 and 2020. Twenty-one studies focused directly on the impact of burnout interventions on academic libraries. Four publications focused on, were written by, or included public library workers in some capacity. Three publications highlighted special librarians such as archivists and hospital librarians. Only 17 were original studies that focused on evaluating a specific implemented intervention; most were surveys, and one was a mixed methods study that used a survey and qualitative data analysis. Most publications were otherwise narrative reviews or opinion papers that discussed potential solutions and individual experiences.

Intervention Characteristics

A total of 517 interventions were identified across all included articles. Seventeen of the 517 interventions were duplicated into two intervention categories. This was most often because the intervention was too vague to be narrowed down to one category (e.g. “self-care” can refer to both physical and mental care, so it was sorted into both). Each intervention was identified as either an organizational intervention or a personal intervention.

Organizational interventions are defined as an intervention provided or supported by the employer/library. Personal interventions are defined as employee/librarian initiated. Some categories are duplicated to make a distinction between organizational responsibility and personal responsibility. For example, Support Networks (Professional) appears as both a personal and an organizational intervention. But some interventions, such as Sleep, which was identified as a personal intervention, did not have a corresponding organizational category. Ultimately, we ended with 533 interventions sorted into 34 intervention groups, with six duplicated as both Organization and Personal depending on how the author referred to the intervention (see Appendix III).

Personal interventions categories made up 67.35% of all the interventions as compared to 32.65% of the interventions being supported by organizations (see Figure 2). The top four personal intervention categories were General Care of the Mind (41), Professional Development (28), and Support Network (Professional) (25). General Care of the Body and Self-reflection were close behind with 24 mentions each. General Care of the Mind was the third overall most common intervention. Although personal interventions were suggested more often than organization interventions, the type of interventions were more varied for personal than for organizational. The top three organizational intervention categories focused on the workplace as a whole, rather than providing support to individuals. These included Improve Work Culture (47), Improve Communication (33), and Professional Development (22).

The most common types of interventions mentioned overall were in the categories of Improve Work Culture (organizational intervention) (8.8%), General Care of the Mind (personal intervention) (7.7%), and Improve Communication (organizational intervention) (6.2%). Meditation, mindfulness, and yoga were the most common interventions mentioned regarding the care of the mind. The interventions categorized under Improve Work Culture (organizational intervention) were significantly more varied; however, a few themes did repeat. The most notable of which were participatory management and general non-specific calls for improvement to the culture or help from management or organizations. Improve Communication (organizational intervention) had a similar pattern to Improve Work Culture, with many unique interventions identified. The themes visible throughout included hearing more often from library leadership and expectations around receiving specific details such as deadlines and task responsibilities.

Among the least common interventions Job/Task Restructuring (organizational intervention) and Job Reinvention (personal intervention), with two mentions each. Cross train, as a personal intervention, also had only two mentions in the literature.

One of the most interesting trends in the literature is seen in Figure 3. In this chart the Y axis represents the number of publications in a year that provided each type of intervention. The size represents the number of individual interventions mentioned in those papers. Between 2010 and 2020, there is a significant uptick in the number of organization interventions and the number of papers of that discuss organizational interventions.

Study Outcomes

Early research into burnout among librarians indicated a low level of burnout and risk of burnout within the profession (Smith & Nelson, 1983). From 262 responses, Smith and Nelson (1983) concluded the primary factor causing burnout was an inability of the individual to relax and have a solid self-awareness. This trend of placing the burden to identify and solve the issue on the individual experiencing burnout was repeated across the literature, as indicated by the percent of interventions recorded as personal compared to those recorded as organizational. However, as Dixon quotes in her article, “You can’t self-care your way out of systemic issues” (Jensen, as cited in Dixon, 2022).

Colon-Aquirre and Kavanagh’s study in 2020 was one of the most comprehensive quantitative studies measuring burnout among academic librarians since Smith and Nelson’s study (1983). Colon-Aquirre and Kavanagh identified several factors outside of individual intervention that showed a clear impact on burnout and risk of burnout. Specifically, this paper identified that librarians who self-identified as LGBTQIA1, though a small part of the overall study population, indicated significantly higher rates of exhaustion, ineffectiveness, and cynicism (Colon-Aguirre & Kavanagh, 2020). Several studies performed after Smith and Nelson’s (1983) survey reported positive impacts of organizational interventions (Barr-Walker et al., 2020; Demetres et al., 2020; Dickinson & George, 2005; Martin, 2020; McHone-Chase, 2020). Where the organization set specific tasks and expectations, these studies reported workers had an increased sense of empowerment and were able to dedicate their efforts to a single focus. Often, these organizational interventions were paired with individual strategies and interventions to combat burnout as a targeted approach, rather than a sweeping solution. Organizational interventions were not universally positive. Matteson and Miller (2013) found organizational interventions correlated to increased emotional labor in the form of false positivity which counter-productively increased rates of burnout. Casucci et al. (2020) also found that gamified interventions did not impact burnout among their employees. While no decisive solution was presented in any given paper, the research demonstrates an ongoing challenge for librarians and organizations to measure and intervene burnout among the profession.

Discussion

This scoping review focused on categorizing and quantifying burnout interventions suggested in library literature. Results showed an emphasis on personal interventions versus organizational ones. Just over 65% of the interventions identified were expected to be carried out by the individuals. This phenomenon was noted in a few of the included papers as well (Duffy et al., 2021; Johnson, 2018; Tolley, 2020).

This scoping review also found significant under-representation of some groups in the study population. While the focus limited results to those papers that included academic librarians, public librarians were found to be significantly represented in the results. The results included a surprising diversity of library types and job titles. However, librarians from cultural and racial minority groups were conspicuously absent. The lack of representation in the literature by members of the LGBTQIA1 and librarians of color fails to present the struggle of identity and addressing burnout among individuals who may also be facing equity and inclusions concerns in their lives.

A significant weakness of this review comes from the lack of quantitative studies on this topic related to libraries, despite employing a comprehensive search. This scoping review found that the majority of the literature on library burnout was presented in case studies, narratives, self-reflections, and think pieces (Corrado, 2022; Dixon, 2022; Ewen, 2022; Johnson, 2018). Qualitative studies that dominated the literature lack the formality of structured studies as well as any assessment of the intervention success rates. The absence of a substantial representation of quantitative studies has created a void in the literature. Formal quantitative studies exist for fields that are considered at a high risk for burnout, such as nursing, healthcare, and legal work. The same model should be applied to a library space and would provide concrete evidence on how burnout impacts the field. Due to this weakness in the literature, this review was only able to categorize the types of burnout interventions discussed and not assess any potential effectiveness. Future research should focus on interventional studies to evaluate the effectiveness of the suggested interventions cataloged by this scoping review.

This review excluded self-identified humor or satire publications, conference abstracts, book chapters, and book reviews. Self-identified humor or satire publications were excluded because these types of literature did not seriously address the issues at the focus of this study. Conference abstracts were excluded because they are not always published or easy to retrieve. Conference abstracts also do not provide the full body of work. Book reviews were not included because only a brief review of the book is provided and this study focused on identifiable results. Book chapters were not included because we originally thought that they would lean more toward a philosophical review and would lack intervention recommendations or quantitative studies. During the screening period, 12 books or book chapters were discovered to be potentially relevant to the topic but were not fully screened due to publication type. In future instances of this review, it would be recommended to include book chapters as they may go into more detail on how and where burnout interventions were implemented and evaluated.

Future Research Considerations

Based on the results found in this scoping review, recommendations for future research focus on increasing the diversity of populations, obtaining more measurable results, and identifying new sources. The absence of underrepresented librarians in the literature limits the use and applicability of any conclusions drawn from this study. Future research should deliberately include publications that focus on representing underrepresented voices and experiences in the United States. In the September 2018 issue of Forum Magazine, the article “The Value of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion” by Brooke Morris states that

Having a well-represented, diverse, inclusive staff also increases productivity, as diverse, inclusive staff also increases productivity, as diverse groups of problem solvers offer different opinions and viewpoints, making them better equipped at solving problems than groups made up of individuals who are all the same. (2018, p. 40)

While this article discusses library staff as a whole, the message of having a diverse group of problem solvers is also needed when addressing the large issue of librarian burnout. Including underrepresented librarians’ experiences and perspectives would bring a different lens to the problem of librarian burnout that is missing from the current literature.

In addition, future research needs to focus on empirical evidence of recommended interventions by organizations. This scoping review had 174 interventions that originated within organizations. However, organizations rarely assessed the intervention that was provided to library employees. As noted previously, the most notable organizational interventions were participatory management and general non-specific calls for improvement to the culture or help from management or organizations. Our recommendation is that organizations include a plan for assessing the interventions that are provided to librarians and all library employees. For future research, we recommend a focus on quantitative research with an emphasize on assessment. While think pieces, narratives, and listicles have their place within the literature of librarian burnout they rarely provide true assessment of the outcome.

Acknowledgments

This work was produced in part by Battelle Savannah River Alliance, LLC, under Contract No. 89303321CEM000080 with the U.S. Department of Energy. Publisher acknowledges the U.S. Government license to provide public access under the DOE Public Access Plan (http://energy.gov/downloads/doe-public-access-plan).

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*Ruhlmann, E. (2017). Mindful librarianship. American Libraries, 48(6), 44–47. https://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/2017/06/01/mindful-librarianship/

*Salvesen, L., & Berg, C. (2021). “Who says I am coping”: The emotional affect of New Jersey academic librarians during the COVID-19 pandemic. Journal of Academic Librarianship, 47(5). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2021.102422

*Schwartz, M. (2020). Gig librarianship: We need stable jobs at sustainable salaries. Library Journal, 145(3), 6. https://www.libraryjournal.com/story/Gig-Librarianship-Editorial

*Sheesley, D. F. (2001). Burnout and the academic teaching librarian: An examination of the problem and suggested solutions. Journal of Academic Librarianship, 27(6), 447–451. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0099-1333(01)00264-6

*Shupe, E. I., & Pung, S. K. (2011). Understanding the changing role of academic librarians from a psychological perspective: A literature review. Journal of Academic Librarianship, 37(5), 409. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2011.06.005

*Shupe, E. I., Wambaugh, S. K., & Bramble, R. J. (2015). Role-related stress experienced by academic librarians. Journal of Academic Librarianship, 41(3), 264. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2015.03.016

*Smith, N. M., Bybee, H. C., & Raish, M. H. (1988). Burnout and the library administrator: Carrier or cure. Journal of Library Administration, 9(2), 13–21. https://doi.org/10.1300/J111V09N02_03

*Smith, N. M., & Nelson, V. C. (1983a). Burnout: A survey of academic reference librarians. College & Research Libraries, 44(3), 245–250. https://doi.org/10.5860/crl_44_03_245

*Smith, N. M., & Nelson, V. C. (1983b). Helping may be harmful: The implications of burnout for the special librarian. Special Libraries, 74(1), 14–19.

*Snuffing out burnout. (2000). Library Mosaics, 11(2), 22–22.

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*Taylor, H. A. (1987). From dust to ashes: burnout in the archives. Midwestern Archivist, 12(2), 73–82. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41101701

*Thomas, J. R., & Holley, R. P. (2012). Management versus repetitive tasks - avoiding “working for the weekend”: A crash course in motivating library staff faced with seemingly endless tasks. New Library World, 113(9/10), 462–473. https://doi.org/10.1108/03074801211273939

*Tolley, R. (2020). The weight we carry. American Libraries, 51(11/12), 44–47. https://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/2020/11/02/weight-we-carry-trauma-informed-library-services/

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Appendix I

Final Search Strategies

Librarian: Steph Hendren, MLIS; Duke University Medical Center Library & Archives, Duke University School of Medicine

Search Peer Reviewed By: Natalie Logue, MLIS; Savannah River National Laboratory and Jessica Garner, MLIS; Georgia Southern University

Date of original conducted searches: November 23, 2020

Date of updated conducted searches: July 28, 2022

Database: Web of Science (Clarivate)

Specific Indexes included from the Core Collection: Science Citation Index Expanded: 1900–present; Social Sciences Citation Index: 1900–present; Arts & Humanities Citation Index: 1990–present; Emerging Sources Citation Index: 2015–present.

Concept	Search String	Original Results (Nov. 23, 2020)	Updated Results (July 28, 2022)
1. Library/ Librarian Terms	TS 5 (librarian OR librarians OR librarianship OR “information professional” OR “information professionals” OR “information specialist” OR “information specialists” OR informationist OR informationists OR “media specialist” OR “media specialists” OR archivist OR archivists OR library OR libraries OR archive OR archives) OR SO 5 (librarian OR librarians OR librarianship OR “information professional” OR “information professionals” OR “information specialist” OR “information specialists” OR informationist OR informationists OR “media specialist” OR “media specialists” OR archivist OR archivists OR library OR libraries OR archive OR archives)	443,140	497,131
2. Burnout terms	TS 5 (burnout OR burn-out OR “burn out” OR “burned out” OR “burning out” OR ((chronic OR chronically OR mental OR mentally OR occupation OR occupations OR occupational OR job OR jobs OR emotional OR emotionally) NEAR/3 (stress OR stressed OR stressing OR stressful OR exhaustion OR exhausted OR exhausting)))	84,789	103,336
3.	1 AND 2	290	393
4.	Date filter: 2020–present	NA	150

Database: Library Science Database (ProQuest)

Concept	Search String	Original Results (Nov. 23, 2020)	Updated Results (July 28, 2023)
1. Library/Librarian Terms	MAINSUBJECT.EXACT(“Library staff”) OR MAINSUBJECT.EXACT(“Libraries”) OR NOFT(librarian OR librarians OR librarianship OR “information professional” OR “information professionals” OR “information specialist” OR “information specialists” OR informationist OR informationists OR “media specialist” OR “media specialists” OR archivist OR archivists OR library OR libraries OR archive OR archives)	923,391	969,414
2. Burnout terms	MAINSUBJECT.EXACT(“Burnout”) OR MAINSUBJECT.EXACT(“Occupational stress”) OR NOFT(burnout OR burn-out OR “burn out” OR “burned out” OR “burning out” OR ((chronic OR chronically OR mental OR mentally OR occupation OR occupations OR occupational OR job OR jobs OR emotional OR emotionally) NEAR/3 (stress OR stressed OR stressing OR stressful OR exhaustion OR exhausted OR exhausting)))	488	678
3.	1 AND 2	252	314
4.	Date filter: 2020–present	NA	77

Database: Medline (OVID)

Concept	Search String	Original Results (Nov. 23, 2020)	Updated Results (July 28, 2022)
1. Library/Librarian Terms	(exp Librarians/ OR exp Information Centers/ OR exp Libraries/ OR exp Libraries, Special/ OR exp Archives/ OR (librarian OR librarians OR librarianship OR “information professional” OR “information professionals” OR “information specialist” OR “information specialists” OR informationist OR informationists OR “media specialist” OR “media specialists” OR archivist OR archivists OR archive OR archives OR library OR libraries OR archive OR archives).ti,ab,kw,jn.)	197,312	227,843
2. Burnout terms	(exp burnout, psychological/ OR exp burnout, professional/ OR (burnout OR burn-out OR “burn out” OR “burned out” OR “burning out”). ti,ab,kw,jn. OR ((chronic OR chronically OR mental OR mentally OR occupation OR occupations OR occupational OR job OR jobs OR emotional OR emotionally) ADJ3 (stress OR stressed OR stressing OR stressful OR exhaustion OR exhausted OR exhausting)). ti,ab,kw,jn.)	54,132	65,065
3.	1 AND 2	152	152

Database: LISTA with Full Text (EbscoHost)

Concept	Search String	Original Results (Nov. 23, 2020)	Updated Results (July 28, 2022)
1. Library/ Librarian Terms	DE “LIBRARIES” OR DE “ACADEMIC libraries” OR DE “ARTISTS’ libraries” OR DE “ASSOCIATION libraries” OR DE “BIBLIOGRAPHICAL libraries” OR DE “BOOKBINDING libraries” OR DE “BRANCH libraries” OR DE “CARNEGIE libraries” OR DE “CENTRAL libraries” OR DE “CHILDREN’S libraries” OR DE “DATA libraries” OR DE “DEPOSITORY libraries” OR DE “DESIGN libraries” OR DE “DIGITAL libraries” OR DE “HYBRID libraries” OR DE “JOINT-use libraries” OR DE “LGBTQ libraries” OR DE “PRIVATE libraries” OR DE “PROPRIETARY libraries” OR DE “PUBLIC libraries” OR DE “RENTAL libraries” OR DE “RESEARCH libraries” OR DE “SCHOOL libraries” OR DE “SMALL libraries” OR DE “SPECIAL libraries” OR DE “LIBRARIANS” OR DE “LIBRARY administration” OR DE “LIBRARY personnel” OR TI(librarian OR librarians OR librarianship OR “information professional” OR “information professionals” OR “information specialist” OR “information specialists” OR informationist OR informationists OR “media specialist” OR “media specialists” OR archivist OR archivists OR library OR libraries OR archive OR archives) OR AB(librarian OR librarians OR librarianship OR “information professional” OR “information professionals” OR “information specialist” OR “information specialists” OR informationist OR informationists OR “media specialist” OR “media specialists” OR archivist OR archivists OR library OR libraries OR archive OR archives) OR JN(librarian OR librarians OR librarianship OR “information professional” OR “information professionals” OR “information specialist” OR “information specialists” OR informationist OR informationists OR “media specialist” OR “media specialists” OR archivist OR archivists OR library OR libraries OR archive OR archives)	215,381	355,528
2. Burnout terms	TI(burnout OR burn-out OR “burn out” OR “burned out” OR “burning out” OR ((chronic OR chronically OR mental OR mentally OR occupation OR occupations OR occupational OR job OR jobs OR emotional OR emotionally) NEAR/3 (stress OR stressed OR stressing OR stressful OR exhaustion OR exhausted OR exhausting))) OR AB(burnout OR burn-out OR “burn out” OR “burned out” OR “burning out” OR ((chronic OR chronically OR mental OR mentally OR occupation OR occupations OR occupational OR job OR jobs OR emotional OR emotionally) NEAR/3 (stress OR stressed OR stressing OR stressful OR exhaustion OR exhausted OR exhausting))) OR SO(burnout OR burn-out OR “burn out” OR “burned out” OR “burning out” OR ((chronic OR chronically OR mental OR mentally OR occupation OR occupations OR occupational OR job OR jobs OR emotional OR emotionally) NEAR/3 (stress OR stressed OR stressing OR stressful OR exhaustion OR exhausted OR exhausting)))	182	508
3.	1 AND 2	127	203
4.	Publication date filter: 2020–present	NA	42

Database: PsycInfo (EbscoHost)

Concept	Search String	Original Results (Nov. 23, 2020)	Updated Results (July 28, 2022)
1. Library/Librarian Terms	DE “Libraries” OR DE “Digital Libraries” OR DE “School Libraries” OR DE “Information Specialists” OR DE “Librarians” OR TI(librarian OR librarians OR librarianship OR “information professional” OR “information professionals” OR “information specialist” OR “information specialists” OR informationist OR informationists OR “media specialist” OR “media specialists” OR archivist OR archivists OR library OR libraries OR archive OR archives) OR AB(librarian OR librarians OR librarianship OR “information professional” OR “information professionals” OR “information specialist” OR “information specialists” OR informationist OR informationists OR “media specialist” OR “media specialists” OR archivist OR archivists OR library OR libraries OR archive OR archives) OR SO(librarian OR librarians OR librarianship OR “information professional” OR “information professionals” OR “information specialist” OR “information specialists” OR informationist OR informationists OR “media specialist” OR “media specialists” OR archivist OR archivists OR library OR libraries OR archive OR archives)	56,640	60,797
2. Burnout terms	DE “Occupational Stress” OR DE “Compassion Fatigue” OR TI(burnout OR burn-out OR “burn out” OR “burned out” OR “burning out” OR ((chronic OR chronically OR mental OR mentally OR occupation OR occupations OR occupational OR job OR jobs OR emotional OR emotionally) NEAR/3 (stress OR stressed OR stressing OR stressful OR exhaustion OR exhausted OR exhausting))) OR AB(burnout OR burn-out OR “burn out” OR “burned out” OR “burning out” OR ((chronic OR chronically OR mental OR mentally OR occupation OR occupations OR job OR jobs OR occupational OR emotional OR emotionally) NEAR/3 (stress OR stressed OR stressing OR stressful OR exhaustion OR exhausted OR exhausting))) OR SO(burnout OR burn-out OR “burn out” OR “burned out” OR “burning out” OR ((chronic OR chronically OR mental OR mentally OR occupation OR occupations OR occupational OR job OR jobs OR emotional OR emotionally) NEAR/3 (stress OR stressed OR stressing OR stressful OR exhaustion OR exhausted OR exhausting)))	26,271	29,865
3.	1 AND 2	130	162
4.	Publication date filter: 2020–present	NA	39