Best Practices for Academic Interviews

The library profession has seen radical change in people’s thinking about all aspects of work and life, due in part to the sudden and prolonged shift to remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic and increasing calls for social justice and antiracism in our services and practices. While many manuals for hiring and interviewing exist, including those in professional library associations and organizations, they may already be out of step with the rapid changes of recent years. This document seeks to capture emerging best practices as well as recommendations to encourage organizations to audit their interview processes to determine how unexamined assumptions and traditional practices may be disadvantageous to some applicants.

This report was created by the members of the Core Academic Interviews Project Team (2021).

Xan Arch

Lori Birrell

Kristin E. Martin

Renna Redd