Neurospicy Libraries: No. 3 Recruitment and Interviews Report

Fitzpatrick, Joanne and Walsh, Andrew (2023) Neurospicy Libraries: No. 3 Recruitment and Interviews Report. [Report]

Abstract

This third report, as part of the Neurospicy Libraries project, focusses on issues around recruitment and selection, as experienced by a range of neurodivergent library workers. The data comes from 27 participants in an anonymous open survey, closing August 2023. The focus of these reports is not to go through a full objective research process with shared data, comprehensive literature reviews and systematic analysis. The approach is much more informal, and can be thought of as a collection of anonymous lived experiences that are communicated through the Neurospicy Project leads who are acting as ‘cover’ for the respondents who engaged. Participants would not necessarily disclose their neurodivergence publicly or even within a closed workplace, and even further than this would not submit responses of this nature to a formal research project even if anonymity was offered and prefer to offer information to grass roots, practicality focussed projects lead by peers only. Responses do however act as evidence to support communication from the Neurospicy Libraries project leads –this is not just us, this is the voice of many individuals working in libraries now who are struggling in private Respondents are all self identified neurodivergent individuals working in libraries in the UK, and while the project is affiliated with academic libraries north, they do include individuals working in other areas of the UK and other library sectors outside of academic settings. Participants were asked to respond to a range of multiple choice and free text questions via Google Forms, and were not asked about any contextual information beyond how they would describe their neurodivergency. All responses were anonymous. Participants were not asked about sharing of the full dataset beforehand and so the full responses are not available to be shared.