Follett Lecture

The Follett Lecture is given annually each year by the Follett Chair in Library and Information Science, a position established by Dominican University and the Follett Corporation in 2002.

The Low-Morale Experience: Exploring Fractals of the Phenome

Kaetrena Kendrick, Follett Chair
Thursday, April 10, 2025

Watch the recording (link opens in new window)

Kendrick, who has been studying and clarifying low-morale experience outcomes on library workers and in library workplaces since 2016, will summarize low-morale experience development and share insight into her later studies on leadership impacts and her ongoing data collection projects. She'll engage attendees further as the collective reflects on their own library workplace experiences and reimagines self-preservation and collective advocacy for sustainable and empathetic LIS industries.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick joined the faculty for the 2024-2025 academic year as our Follett Chair. Kendrick's research on low-morale experiences in library workplaces has been recognized as groundbreaking and validating for library employees at all levels. She is sought after for combining empathy, scholarship, and praxis to surface accountability, promote workplace belonging, and encourage well-being for improved organizational culture in libraries and archives. Kendrick earned her MSLS from the historic Clark Atlanta University School of Library and Information Studies before practicing academic librarianship and library/archives administration in the southeastern United States. In 2019, the Association of College and Research Libraries named Kendrick the ACRL Academic/Research Librarian of the Year. 

Past Follett Chairs and Lectures

The 2024-2025 Follett Chair, Kaetrena Davis Kendrick, explored low-morale experiences in academic and public libraries in a two-part Follett Fall Forum in October 2024 about her research into the causes and impacts of low-morale experiences and how these challenges are particularly acute for library workers from historically marginalized racial and ethnic backgrounds:

  • "The Low-Morale Experience in Academic and Public Libraries: Development, Influences, and Impacts"
  • "The Low-Morale Experience: Differentiation and Continuing Research"

In addition to the Follett Fall Forums in October 2024, Kendrick taught a course in the spring, Critical Hope and Self-Preservation in Contemporary Librarianship, and delivered the Follett Lecture in April 2025, titled "The Low-Morale Experience: Exploring Fractals of the Phenomenon & Considering Humane Library Futures.

The 2023-2024 Follett Chair, Dr. Lynn Connaway, hosted Chicago-area library leaders for a fall round table workshop titled "New Model Library: Pandemic Effects and Library Directions." Dr. Connaway also taught a spring research methods course for students in the SOIS doctoral program and presented "Expanding Relationships: Libraries' Impact on the Global Community" as her Follett Lecture on April 18, 2024.

The 2022-2023 Follett Chair, Cutcha Risling Baldy, presented two spring mini-courses and the Follett Lecture, “Grandfather’s Boarding School Journals: An Indigenous Experience Firsthand Account”, in spring 2023.

The 2020–2022 Follett Chair, Ebony Elizabeth Thomas, presented "The Shadow Book: Reading Slavery, Fugitivity, and Freedom in Children’s Books and Media." Watch the 2022 Lecture

The 2020–2021 Follett Chair, Ebony Elizabeth Thomas, and author Renée Watson presented “Fantastic Black Girlhoods: A Conversation with Ebony Elizabeth Thomas and Renée Watson” on March 29, 2021.

The 2019–2020 Follett Chair, Bernard Reilly, presented "Money, Technology, Politics and the Future of Memory Institutions" on April 20, 2020. Reilly also presented a spring 2020 lecture series: "Memory Institutions and Digital Evidence in a Civil Society."

The 2018–2019 Follett Chair, Verne Harris, presented "A Time to Remember, A Time to Forget: Fred Hampton, Nelson Mandela and the Work of Memory" on April 16, 2019.

The 2017–18 Follett Chair, Andrew Dillon, presented “Shaping a Better Information Space: Putting Humans at the Center of Our World” on April 26, 2018.

The 2016–2017 Follet Chair, David Lankes, delivered 2017 Lecture, "The Social Responsibility of the Library and the Librarian in a Post-Factual World" on April 12, 2017 with a respondent panel of Nicole A. Cooke, Miguel Figueroa, and Scott Walter.

The 2014–2016 Follett Chair, Dr. Janice M. Del Negro, presented "A 'Belligerent Profession:' Telling the Library Story" on April 8, 2015 and "The All-White World of Children's Librarianship: Baker, Rollins, and the Quest for Diversity" on April 13, 2016.

Mary Minow, Follett Chair from 2012 through 2014, presented "Copyright in the Digital Age" on April 15, 2013, "Ebooks and the Reader" on March 13, 2012, and "The Right to Control? Writing and Publishing Religious Works" with special insights from Sr. Janet Welsh on April 29, 2014.