When I’m feeling particularly burdened by a never-ending task list, I try to flip the script. I keep a list of all the things I did in the day. Every meeting, each project I work on, gets a little note in my diary. Even if the project isn’t finished, or I don’t complete the task and it still lingers on the task list, it gets a mention next to the day. An acknowledgment that I attended to it and made some progress.
It is a simple and familiar practice: listing the activity that makes up our day. Tracking what we do is a nice accompaniment to tracking what still needs doing.
And yet. The picture it creates is still incomplete. It lacks meaning.
We can list our activities and lose sight of their impact—on our colleagues, on our organizations, on library patrons, and even beyond our immediate circle of connection.
This quarter I’m inviting you to practice noticing and telling the stories beneath your activity. Create an Opening is a free community story-gathering practice about what libraries make possible.
Explore Create an Opening
This difference between activity and impact matters in libraries. A reference conversation is an activity. A person feeling safe enough to ask the question and engage in the conversation is an impact. Creating a guide is an activity. Helping someone find a path into an unfamiliar subject is an impact.
Attending to the impact of our work and connecting with the meaning underneath is a deeper layer of practice.
The actual work activity matters. Counts and metrics also matter. But they don’t convey the impact. They fall short of communicating why the work matters.
This requires voice.
Our theme this quarter is Exercising Voice. From now through the end of the year, I’ll be exploring facets of this question:
How do we speak with clarity and courage about the work that matters without disappearing into the role?
“Exercising” is intentional. Voice is not something we either possess or lack. It is something we use, test, strengthen, adjust, and sometimes recover.
We may know that something matters and still struggle to articulate why. We may have words in private and lose them in a meeting. We may communicate constantly while wondering whether the voice others hear is recognizably our own.
Over the next three months we will explore library storytelling and advocacy, professional identity, authentic voice in relation to AI, courageous conversations, overlooked voices, and forms of leadership that do not require self-erasure.
We’re beginning with one small step toward a deeper practice: pausing over an ordinary moment long enough to notice what it made possible.
From Listing Activity to Noticing Impact
Before we can tell a meaningful story about our work, we have to recognize that a story is there.
That may mean asking a different question. Not only: What did we do?
But also: What became possible because this work happened?
Who found a way forward? What changed in someone’s understanding? Where did a person experience connection or belonging? What nearly invisible act of attention made the visible outcome possible?
Storytelling is not a substitute for data, nor is it a way to make ordinary work sound dramatic. It helps us interpret what our activities and evidence are telling us. It gives language to significance that might otherwise remain unseen.
Create an Opening
From October 1 through November 30, Create an Opening invites us to gather small but meaningful stories from library life inside the Fosgail Community.
Each Monday, a new prompt will offer a place to begin. A response may be only a few sentences. The purpose is not to produce a polished account of an entire career. It is to notice one moment and try putting its meaning into words.
For those of you who aren’t part of the Fosgail Community yet, I’ll also share the prompts here so you may follow along on your own.
This week’s story prompt: Who opened the door?
Who first helped you imagine that you might belong in library work?
Tell us about the person, place, experience, or unexpected turn that opened the door. You might share something they said, something they modeled, or one small moment that helped you see a possibility you had not seen before.
Your story does not need to cover your entire path into librarianship. One moment is enough.
Open Membership in the Fosgail Community is free. Join us when a prompt brings a story to mind. Read what others notice. Respond as you are able.
Join the Fosgail Community
This is an invitation to practice, not a contest. A few honest sentences are enough.