The nature of library work and academia have been transformed by forces such as the pace of technological change, reduced budgets, a global pandemic, and shifting understandings of what it means to be a librarian. While these changes have transformed the work of the library, librarians have rushed to adopt, correct, and even challenge changes to tradition. This work has been fueled by a professional mindset that situates librarianship as a vocation and its maintenance requires increasing levels of passion and commitment from everyday librarians. It is, therefore, not surprising that a 2018 survey found that academic librarians in the United States have a work-related Copenhagen Burnout Inventory score of 49.6. In fact, the burnout score of academic librarians in the United States is higher than the burnout score reported by similar helping professions whose members have participated in the Copenhagen Burnout Inventory. Having established a baseline assessment of academic librarian burnout, the authors of that study have returned to examine the nature of academic librarian burnout.