Toxic Resilience

Why libraries can't keep running on empty

By LibraryHR

October 23^rd, 2025

Whether you have been in our profession for decades or are relatively new, I believe that many of us work in environments that that celebrate resilience, but rarely questions the cost.

From speaking with staff in interviews or at events, to reading commentary in various online communities, library staff describe the same pattern. They love their work, they believe in their mission, and they are utterly exhausted. They show up every day in under-staffed branches, handle challenges far outside their job descriptions, and absorb the anger of patrons, politicians, and sometimes even colleagues. “I’m hanging in there” is a common refrain.

That phrase has become our professional armor. It sounds sturdy, but it is brittle. Beneath it sits fatigue so deep that even rest does not touch it. Some call it resilience. I call it toxic resilience, the Herculean but batsh*t ability to keep functioning long after the system that supports you has failed to.

The Pressure That Never Stops

Resilience is the capacity to withstand or to recover quickly from difficulties; the bend but don't break philosophy you hear football coaches refer to when their defense sucks. But in our profession today, the bending never stops.

We are navigating censorship challenges, budget freezes, and cuts verbal abuse, political interference, and growing demands for social services we were never resourced to provide. Frontline staff de-escalate crises one minute and run toddler storytime the next. Managers are shuffling resources to keep the desk staffed because two people called out sick. Directors are being told by their boards to cancel programs last minute because they promote witchcraft.

This expectation of resilience is not just unsustainable. It is patently unfair.

What makes this so insidious is that our culture still labels this overextension as dedication. We applaud the ones who stay late, who power through, who absorb the emotional heat so others can cool down. However, when effort becomes survival, resilience turns toxic.

The Research Behind the Reality

Over the past few years, burnout in public service sectors has reached historic levels. A 2024 study in Public Library Quarterly found that over 60% of library workers reported moderate to high burnout symptoms, citing “emotional exhaustion” and “role overload” as top factors. Another, from the Urban Libraries Council, noted that libraries are increasingly serving as de facto social safety nets, providing everything from housing referrals to harm-reduction services, often without specialized training or support.

Layered on top of this is what Fobazi Ettarh famously calls vocational awe: the belief that working in libraries is so noble that personal sacrifice is expected. That belief, while born from pride, easily becomes a trap. As Ettarh wrote, “Vocational awe valorizes burnout by framing it as proof of dedication.”

And it is not just theory. ALA's most recent staff survey shows that libraries are struggling with pay inequity, retention, and high emotional load -- factors strongly correlated with turnover intention and health decline.

When Leaders Burn Out Too

The smoldering rubble of toxic resilience smacks our leaders as much as it hits our frontline staff.

A deputy director I coached last year told me, “I’m supposed to show up cool, calm, and collected, but I’m barely keeping my stuff together.” Her days had become a blur of squelching one forest fire after another. She was mitigating interpersonal conflict between her direct reports and her boss. Her buildings were having issues due to deferred maintenance. She had to take over a large project because a department head suddenly quit. She confessed that she had started answering emails in the middle of sleepless nights because it was “the only quiet time left.”

As a coach, I often ask folks what would happen if you stopped doing something. While I do believe that the yes and philosophy has it place, I also argue that no but is a quick and effective way to clean your plate during periods of significant overwhelm.

When I asked what would happen if she stopped doing that, she laughed and grumpled, “It's not an option.”

That’s the illusion of control that toxic resilience creates. We believe the system is fragile and we are the only thing holding it up, so we keep pushing. We stop delegating. We start normalizing the impossible. We tacitly teach our teams that exhaustion is just part of the job.

From Personal to System Resilience

The real antidote isn’t asking people to be tougher. It’s designing systems that don’t require constant toughness to survive.

System resilience looks like:

Adequate staffing so that service excellence continues in spite of absences.
Cross-training so knowledge is shared and not pooled in one silo, or worse yet, with one person.
Decompression time built into schedules after high-stress incidents.
Boundaries that leaders actually model, like leaving on time, taking time off, saying no.

It also means shifting our language. Instead of “do more with less,” we need to say “do the right work with what we have.” Instead of “we’re a family,” we need to say “we’re a team with roles and limits.”

The Leadership Imperative

As leaders, we set the pace. When we work through lunch, others think they should too. When we glorify sacrifice, we teach people that boundaries are optional.

Our role is to model what sustainable commitment looks like by showing that passion can coexist with rest and that urgency can coexist with limits.

The first step is honesty. We have to name what is happening. We have to stop using resilience as a convenient synonym for survival. Resilience should be about renewal, not endurance.

Nothing built on exhaustion is long for this world. So please, take the break. Cancel the meeting. Sunset the program that no longer serves its purpose. Create capacity where none exists. Remind your team and yourself that libraries are built to last, but people aren’t machines.

Works Cited

Ettarh, F. (2018). Vocational Awe and Librarianship: The Lies We Tell Ourselves. In the Library with the Lead Pipe.
American Library Association. (2024). State of America’s Libraries Report.
Public Library Quarterly. (2024). Burnout and Well-Being Among Public Library Employees.
Urban Libraries Council. (2023). Libraries as Community Health and Wellness Hubs.
Edmondson, A. (2023). The Fearless Organization. Harvard Business Review Press.

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