ABSTRACT
There is an absence of support for self-care efforts in academic libraries at the systemic, institutional level, which impacts how we connect as colleagues. This reality, coupled with the exhausting effort to engage in EDIA work within the context of an academic library diversity committee, started us on a collective self-care journey guided by adrienne maree brown's Emergent Strategy: Shaping change, changing worlds. This chapter presents emergent strategy as it applies to our experiences working in academic libraries, and in our collaborative work as members of our library's diversity committee. Critically, we found the six elements of emergent strategy to be an integral guide in our professional and personal self-care efforts. We posit that the six elements of emergent strategy (fractals, intentional adaptation, interdependence and decentralization, nonlinear and iterative, resilience, and creating more possibilities) offer a contextual framework for library professionals to engage with and support transformative self-care in library workspaces.
