ABSTRACT
The question of burnout has become an extremely popular subject amongst academic reference librarians. 1 More often than not, we engage in heated debate about the causes of burnout, actively seeking out villians upon whom to lay the blame for our distress. Much less frequently heard are ideas about how to stem the negative tide once it has begun, or creative solutions designed to prevent the appearance of the burnout monster in our midst. The litany of reasons offered for this apparently highly prevalent malady often includes, overtly or covertly, the stresses and strains that accompany active bibliographic instruction programs. Somehow the effort to expand traditional definitions of reference service and to enrich and enhance professional opportunities for individual librarians (not to mention improving the quality of life for our students) by integrating library instruction activities into a general reference program is having the opposite effect. Let me suggest that the problems we are facing with respect to burnout may have little to do with what we are trying to accomplish when we encourage the development and growth of instruction programs. The difficulties we encounter may well lie in how we are going about it.
