Contract Academic Librarians in Canada

The temporary contract is often framed to Master of Library and Information Studies (MLIS) graduate students as a key gateway into the field academic librarianship (Lacey 2019), yet outside few important studies personal reflections, literature on this topic relatively scarce. This paper reports demographics participant librarians who have held contracts in Canada, their career paths, conditions under which they contracts, experiences workplace integration other positive negative outcomes. Study participants (n=95) one or more an librarian Canada during career. An online survey was distributed, asking closed open-ended questions. data were analyzed using Excel, Qualtrics, NVivo, manual methods. Participants derived new skills, networks, satisfaction confidence from (though sometimes only retrospect), while others felt excluded, overworked, undervalued, prevented making life decisions. And many all these things at same time, meaning that are caught difficult set competing structural emotional experiences.