Professional associations often speak about belonging, but belonging does not happen first. Inclusion does. For ACRL, inclusion is the on-ramp. Belonging is what sustains engagement. Leadership development is what transforms both into lasting impact.
If we want to expand membership, strengthen participation, and cultivate leaders across career stages, we must intentionally design for all three. Inclusion asks how we welcome new members. Belonging asks whether those members can shape the future of the association. Leadership development ensures they have the skills, confidence, and opportunity to do so.
Inclusion: Designing the On-Ramp for New Members
When a librarian joins ACRL—whether early in their career, midstream in leadership, or later as a seasoned professional—they are evaluating more than membership benefits. They are assessing relevance, clarity, and possibility.
Where do I fit?
How does this organization work?
Will this matter for my career?
Is there a pathway for someone like me?
ACRL offers sections, committees, discussion groups, conferences, institutes, publications, and elected roles. The opportunities are abundant. Yet abundance without orientation can feel overwhelming.
Inclusion must therefore be visible and intentional. It means offering a clearly articulated first-year roadmap. It means providing micro-volunteer opportunities that allow members to contribute without immediately committing to multi-year service. It means demystifying governance structures and making leadership pipelines transparent.
When members can see how someone moves from participation to committee leadership to elected office, the association feels navigable rather than opaque. Inclusion is clarity. Inclusion is access. Inclusion is design.
Belonging: When Participation Turns Into Influence
A librarian can be included and still feel peripheral. Belonging begins when participation turns into influence.
Belonging happens when members are invited into agenda-setting conversations. It happens when their institutional context is treated as expertise rather than limitation. It happens when their contributions shape outcomes and are publicly recognized.
Belonging requires psychological safety. It requires shared ownership. It requires influence.
For early career librarians, belonging means being given substantive work and having their ideas taken seriously in meetings. For mid-career librarians, it means being trusted with strategic direction rather than simply additional service. For seasoned librarians, it means being integrated into forward-looking initiatives, not quietly honored and sidelined.
Belonging is cultural. It is the difference between being present and being powerful.
Leadership Development Across Career Stages
If ACRL wants to cultivate a strong and representative leadership pipeline, leadership development must intentionally connect inclusion to belonging.
Early Career: From Orientation to Voice
Inclusion at this stage means clear entry points, mentorship access, and low-barrier volunteer roles. Belonging means sponsorship, visibility, and real influence. Leadership programs for early career librarians should focus on governance literacy, peer cohort building, and pathways to publication and presentation.
Mid-Career: From Service to Strategic Influence
Mid-career librarians often face competing institutional demands. Inclusion requires flexibility—virtual engagement options, modular leadership tracks, and programming that addresses budgeting, AI integration, workforce development, and assessment. Belonging means being invited into strategic conversations and being encouraged to pursue elected roles. Leadership development here must emphasize influence, governance navigation, and sponsorship networks.
Seasoned Librarians: From Experience to Integration
Seasoned professionals bring institutional memory, national networks, and intellectual depth. Inclusion means visible speaking and advisory opportunities. Belonging means integration into strategy and cross-generational leadership. Leadership development at this stage should support adaptive leadership and provide platforms for synthesis, mentorship, and forward-thinking contributions.
Institutional Equity: Addressing Structural Barriers
ACRL must also acknowledge institutional disparities. Librarians at community colleges, small private institutions, minority-serving institutions, and under-resourced campuses often face limited travel funding, lack of release time, and fewer professional networks.
Inclusion requires expanded virtual access, transparent nomination processes, and leadership grants. Belonging requires ensuring these members are not only present but influential.
Intellectual capital exists across institutional types. A leadership pipeline that reflects only well-resourced institutions limits the association’s future.
Inclusion Builds Membership. Belonging Sustains It.
Inclusion brings new members in. Belonging keeps them engaged. Leadership development transforms engagement into influence.
Inclusion without belonging creates turnover.
Belonging without inclusion limits growth.
If ACRL wants to cultivate a resilient, equitable, and future-focused leadership pipeline, it must design structures that connect entry to advancement. The goal is not simply to increase membership numbers, but to ensure that members across career stages and institutional contexts can see themselves reflected in the association’s future.
Inclusion opens the door. Belonging ensures members shape what happens inside. Leadership development builds the leaders who will carry the profession forward.
If all three align, we do more than strengthen an association. We strengthen academic librarianship itself.
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