Vocational awe

For an embarassingly long period in my life, I laboured under the misguided belief that it was o.k. not to be adequately remunerated, because I was doing something I found necessary and worthwhile. Perish the thought. The term "vocational awe", coined by Fobazi Ettarh, aptly captures this phenomenon:

Vocational awe describes the set of ideas, values, and assumptions librarians have about themselves and the profession that result in notions that libraries as institutions are inherently good, sacred notions, and therefore beyond critique. I argue that the concept of vocational awe directly correlates to problems within librarianship like burnout and low salary. This article aims to describe the phenomenon and its effects on library philosophies and practices so that they may be recognized and deconstructed.

Source: Vocational Awe and Librarianship: The Lies We Tell Ourselves by Fobazi Ettarh.

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