Librarian Mentorship Through Mutual Scholarship: An Approach to Foster Higher Morale and Strengthen Collegiality

No library is immune from developing a dysfunctional or toxic workplace culture. Negative working conditions can trigger feelings of low morale, non-inclusivity, and burnout. For academic librarians, these experiences can be detrimental to achieving tenure and promotion. Developing a research agenda is a critical part of career advancement, but actualizing it can be difficult in high-stress, complex psychosocial higher education environments. Without taking action, libraries risk losing talent and perpetuating workplace toxicity. This chapter promotes investing in mentorship, with an emphasis on mutual scholarship, to foster higher morale and strengthen collegiality. We contend that mentoring is an underutilized strategy for cultivating well-being within work cultures. To amplify the impact of mentoring programs, we introduce a mutual scholarship model that leverages the benefits of emotional intelligence (EI).