Call it what you want (librarian, library media specialist, faculty-adjacent), the reality is a diagnosis more than a title. In the machinery of schools and universities, the librarian is the classic “third space” professional: credentialed, expert, and accountable for the intellectual life of a campus, yet structurally barred from the status, power, and protections of those whose fields are institutionally legible.
The ambiguity is not accidental. As Whitchurch and others have documented, this is the design: institutions manufacture roles that remain neither fully faculty nor purely staff, ensuring maximum flexibility and minimum recognition. The result is a position that is both essential and exposed, tasked with teaching, curation, and leadership, but always at the pleasure of those who hold actual authority (Whitchurch 2008; Lead Pipe, 2020).
This structural ambiguity breeds a familiar choreography of professional erasure. In practice, librarians are treated as support personnel, collection development as shopping, information literacy as tech help, instructional partnership as “assisting.” A 2023 survey of secondary principals found that while nearly all recognized librarians’ instructional role in the abstract, most saw it as subordinate or supplemental, with only 8 percent believing administrators should initiate collaboration (Shannon & Shannon, 2023). The “collaboration” on offer is a managed performance: you are invited to contribute, but the agenda, terms, and boundaries are set elsewhere.
It is not uncommon to find yourself defending professional decisions to committees composed of people with no training in your field. Each “stakeholder” is armed with their own confidence, each decision another opportunity to rehearse your legitimacy. Librarians are expected to absorb the demands of every new policy shift or budget regime, quietly grateful for the privilege of continued existence. Even those classified as faculty are reminded, in practice if not in policy, that theirs is a conditional autonomy. Recent research on academic freedom in libraries confirms the lived reality: only about half of academic librarians feel protected in their work, with faculty status producing marginally more confidence but little structural change (Lead Pipe, 2020).
The consequences are not subtle. According to the same research, more than a third of librarians have experienced informal punishment or professional isolation for exercising professional judgment. Fear of reprisal (whether for collection decisions, public programming, or simply dissenting from managerial priorities) shapes the daily behavior of library workers at every level. Nearly half of surveyed librarians report that speaking up is as likely to damage their career as to improve the institution (Lead Pipe, 2020; Kendrick, 2017). The mental health impacts are well-documented; so too is the attrition that follows persistent silencing.
The gap between the rhetoric of intellectual freedom and the reality of academic freedom for librarians is both profound and widely ignored. The profession has long championed the user’s right to read, question, and dissent; its own right to teach, advocate, and critique is, at best, ambiguous and, at worst, illusory. Even those libraries with nominal “faculty status” for librarians rarely deliver the autonomy, due process, or voice available to disciplinary faculty (Lead Pipe, 2020; Fleming-May & Douglass, 2014).
Institutions are quick to celebrate the library’s centrality to the academic mission, until the library’s work becomes controversial, or until power is genuinely at stake. The “third space” is a structural holding pen: essential when convenient, invisible when contentious, and always up for renegotiation. As various levels education contract into permanent austerity and public schools double down on compliance and managerialism, the library becomes a bellwether for institutional health: you can measure the seriousness of a school’s intellectual life by the autonomy it grants to its librarians.
To describe the place of the librarian is to describe an institutional contradiction. The library’s workers are held responsible for knowledge, but denied the standing to defend it on their own terms. Until that contradiction is addressed (that is, until power and responsibility are aligned) “collaboration” will remain a euphemism, “status” a negotiation, and “freedom” a conditional privilege. The library will persist, but the people who make it matter will continue to do so as tolerated guests in their own house.
References
Fleming-May, Rachel A., and Kimberly Douglass. “Framing Librarianship in the Academy: An Analysis Using Bolman and Deal’s Model of Organizations.” College & Research Libraries 75, no. 3 (2014): 389-415.
Kendrick, Kaetrena Davis. “The Low Morale Experience of Academic Librarians.” Journal of Library Administration, 2017.
Leebaw, Danya, and Alexis Logsdon. “Power and Status (and Lack Thereof) in Academe: Academic Freedom and Academic Librarians.” In the Library with the Lead Pipe, 2020.
Shannon, Donna M., and David Shannon. “Secondary School Principals’ Perceptions of the School Librarian’s Instructional Role.” School Library Research, vol. 13, 2023.
Whitchurch, Celia. “Shifting Identities and Blurring Boundaries: The Emergence of Third Space Professionals in UK Higher Education.” Higher Education Quarterly 62, no. 4 (2008): 377–96.
Casual Version
Unclassified: Dispatches from the Professional Gray Zone
Call it what you want, librarian, library media specialist, faculty adjacent. The title is just a nametag. The real story is the diagnosis. In the machinery of schools and universities, the librarian lives in what bureaucrats like to call “the third space”: credentialed and accountable for the intellectual life of a campus, yet locked out of the status and protections that come with fields the institution understands.
That is not an accident. It is the point. Administrations have perfected the art of creating roles that are not fully faculty or fully staff, so they can have your expertise without giving you power. The position is essential and exposed. You teach, you curate, you lead, but always at the pleasure of someone else’s authority.
In practice, the erasure is subtle but relentless. Librarians get treated as support staff. Collection development becomes “shopping.” Information literacy is “tech help.” Instructional partnership is “assisting.” Principals and administrators might nod along about your instructional role, but most see it as a backup act, not a headliner. Collaboration, when it happens, is on their terms. You can contribute, but you do not set the agenda.
It is not unusual to defend professional decisions to a committee of people who have never trained in your field. Everyone comes armed with confidence. You come armed with your CV, hoping that will be enough. Every new policy shift lands in your lap. Even if you have “faculty” on paper, the autonomy is conditional, and you know it. Research confirms it. Only about half of academic librarians feel genuinely protected in their work. The rest operate under a quiet, constant threat.
The fear has teeth. More than a third of librarians have faced subtle punishment or outright isolation for doing their jobs the way they think they should be done. Collection decisions, programming choices, even mild dissent from management can paint a target on your back. Nearly half say speaking up is as likely to hurt their career as it is to help the institution. That is not professional freedom. That is hostage negotiation.
We talk a big game about intellectual freedom for our users. But for ourselves, the right to teach, to advocate, to speak without fear is often an illusion. Even libraries with “faculty status” for librarians rarely match the autonomy or due process of disciplinary faculty. Institutions love to talk about the library’s central role in the mission, right up until the work becomes controversial or threatens someone’s control.
The third space is a holding pen. It is vital when convenient, invisible when dangerous, and always subject to renegotiation. As education sinks deeper into austerity and compliance, the library becomes a canary in the coal mine. If you want to know how seriously a school takes its intellectual life, look at how much freedom it gives its librarians.
Librarians are asked to be responsible for knowledge but denied the standing to defend it. Until that changes, until power matches responsibility, collaboration will remain a euphemism, status will be a moving target, and freedom will be whatever those in charge say it is this week. The library will survive. The people who make it matter will keep working. But they will do it as tolerated guests in their own house.