ABSTRACT
While there is a heightened amount of pressure to enhance DEI initiatives in LIS, there is conversely an increased burden placed on Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) employees to advocate for and initiate such projects that result in these employees being pulled into conversations, projects, and initiatives that ultimately culminates in an added expenditure of energy not experienced by their non-BIPOC counterparts ( Lam, 2018). The added pressure placed on BIPOC to expend their resources and energies is now known as diversity fatigue. The term was coined in the 1990s by corporate recruitment strategists (Miranda-Wolff, 2019). However, in recent years diversity fatigue has come to be associated with the disproportionate emotional labor exhibited by BIPOC to further DEI initiatives at their institutions (Blanche, 2018). This chapter aims to address the systemic structure of diversity fatigue and how it influences BIPOC work experiences in LIS (i.e., academic librarianship).
