I was thrilled to have the opportunity to attend the 2019 ACRL/NY Symposium and grateful to the committee for awarding me the Barbara Bonous-Smit Scholarship. As a Maryland resident, I rarely travel out of state for non-national professional development, but this Symposium was absolutely worth it. As a manager, teacher, subject librarian and researcher, the topics covered during the Symposium are greatly relevant to me both professionally and personally. The Symposium was a chance to meet new colleagues and have engaging conversations about our work. It was an opportunity to hear a variety of perspectives surrounding academic libraries and issues of identity, equity, and ethics. Without a doubt, I gained professional and personal insight from each of the presentations, but I’ll highlight two in particular. The panel discussion entitled “Breaking Open: Race and Labor in Open Pedagogies at CUNY” gave me greater understanding of the myriad and complex issues surrounding OER. As a librarian in public services, I was most surprised by the insight I gained from Christine Dulaney’s presentation on the psychological aspects of relocating technical services to an off-site location. I found I could apply many of her experiences of the impact of this type of change on library employees’ professional identities to an upcoming service desk merger at my institution. I took copious notes during the Symposium to share with my colleagues, and have since explored many of the additional resources referred to during the presentations.