Access Services work happens on the front line of the library—where buildings stay open late, service demands shift constantly, and staff carry significant emotional and operational labor. In these environments, effective management is not just about policies, coverage, or workflows. It is about people.
This interactive session explores how inclusive supervision can serve as a powerful framework for staff development, retention, and sustainability in Access Services. Drawing on the presenter’s lived experience returning to leadership after a life‑altering health event, along with research‑informed models from Inclusive Supervision in Student Affairs (Wilson, McCallum, & Shupp), inclusive leadership, and psychological safety, the session reframes supervision as an intentional, relational practice.
Participants will learn how the four tenets of inclusive supervision—creating safe spaces, cultivating holistic development, demonstrating vulnerability, and building capacity in others—translate into daily supervisory practices in public‑facing library work. Emphasis is placed on moving beyond deficit‑based management toward curiosity, clarity, and strengths‑based staff development, even amid staffing shortages and constant change.
Through short reflective exercises and small‑group discussion, attendees will practice reframing common supervisory challenges, identifying underutilized staff strengths, and setting clear, supportive expectations. The session is designed for supervisors at all levels and offers practical strategies that can be implemented immediately.
Participants will leave with concrete tools, shared language, and renewed perspective on how supporting staff growth is essential to keeping people—and services—in circulation.
The Bryn Mawr College Libraries created an exhibits program to spotlight materials in its collections and to support the campus’s intellectual and creative life. Monthly book and media displays highlight topics shaped by academic inquiry, cultural contexts, and campus interests. While displays were previously curated primarily by librarians, the program was redesigned to integrate the seventy-five student library circulation assistants as exhibit creators. The perspectives, lived experiences, and academic backgrounds of these students broaden representation and enhance the thematic and material diversity of the exhibits in ways that reflect community interests.
In this student-centered model, student employees propose exhibit topics related to heritage months, personal identities, academic interests, or social issues. Once a topic is selected, the students then collaborate with librarians to identify materials, gaining hands-on practice with catalog searching, requesting materials, and foundational research skills. To support circulation workflows and build confidence in academic research skills, the program provides scaffolded instructional tutorials with embedded assessments that guide students from catalog use and the process of requesting materials to searching targeted databases and engaging primary sources in databases. Assessment results allow librarians/supervisors to tailor the training to the students’ demonstrated needs.
This session will provide an overview of the program, discuss strategies for explaining and integrating scaffolded learning into the curation of book displays, and encourage more student engagement in the library. Participants will leave with adaptable strategies for integrating student employees into library programming in ways that enhance both skill development and representation.
This session examines how change management was put into practice in a regional university academic library’s User and Delivery Services (UDS) department through the perspective of an interim associate dean working closely with the UDS department head. As libraries respond to evolving user expectations, staffing constraints, and shifting service models, successful change requires both strategic vision and effective operational leadership.
Drawing on departmental transformations during the past year and a half, the presenter will discuss how they partnered with others to guide staff through changes in service approaches and organizational culture. The session will explore setting direction and aligning with institutional goals, gathering evidence, communicating the rationale for change, and working with both the Libraries dean and the department head. The department head perspective will provide supporting staff through uncertainty and translating strategy into day-to-day operations. Participants will be invited via menti polls to share their experiences with recent changes they implemented or wish to implement.
Attendees will gain insight into the importance of the relationship between administrative and department head leaders during times of transition. The presenter will highlight unvarnished lessons learned, strategies for fostering trust and transparency, and practical approaches for maintaining service quality while navigating change. The presenter will invite attendees to complete an immunity to change rubric and stakeholder planning worksheet to spark strategies for change management. Participants will leave with actionable ideas for leading change collaboratively within their own organizations and for effectively working with different leadership styles and “managing up.”
In February of 2025, at the UW-Madison Libraries new Access Services Unit formed after several years of discussion, information gathering, and planning. Fall 2025 was our stress test. New hires, new staffing model, new communication methods and more. Join us as we explore the challenges and successes of this extensive planning. As our fondly named ‘NewNewSchedule-April’ professional staff schedule represents, the credit goes to our Access Services staff. Their dedication and flexibility that went into our mid-year, mid-semester hours changes allowed us to meet patron's needs. We will look at some of the scheduling data and staff interviews to analyze the staffing model worked and changes to address in future iterations. Implementation of this model has improved our schedule stability, increased available support for front line staff, and contributed to consistency of library services across locations. As a unit we are working to define and solidify our values and strategies for maintaining a generous but sustainable staffing model. This session reflects on the challenges and advocacy required to stick to staffing models that are sustainable and humane for staff.
Outcomes:
Attendees will examine strategies and lessons for having difficult conversations with staff.
Attendees will assess staffing model stability through scheduling; including primary, backup, and cross-training for frontline staff.
Attendees will also discuss advocacy for library staff needs and complexities to setting hours.
Many user services units collect patron transaction data, but how often are frontline library staff involved in the processes of meaning- and decision-making using this data? This session will detail one approach to integrating user services staff into the process of data analysis through the format of an in-unit working group. The working group undertakes a variety of qualitative analytical approaches to data collected in LibAnswers and Libraryh3lp in order to identify trends in patron needs and uses these trends to generate ideas for special projects. Attendees will gain insight into how including staff in the process of data analysis leads to better-vetted findings and actionable plans as well as increased staff engagement and agency.
The Student Employee Supervisors at Wartburg’s Vogel Library are always experimenting with new training methods. Our two teams of student employees are often the first contact patrons have when they seek library services, so it is important that we train our teams to be self-disciplined thinkers who will approach patron interactions with the highest level of quality, integrity and equity. In other words, with excellent customer service and a mindset of inclusion. The guiding force behind our training is our student employment policies (ex: safe space and confidentiality policies) and etiquette guidelines. Over the past few years changes in campus dynamics and feedback from students has prompted us to become more creative in our training approaches, incorporating the use of skits, one-on-one meetings, and Canvas, our campus’ learning management system. In this session we will talk about the evolution of our training and communication methods, our annual development cycle, and key takeaways. We will also provide an opportunity for session attendees to share their student employee training stories.
Student Employment & Circ. Supervisor, Wartburg College
In my current position I wear several hats, including supervising library student workers, overseeing circulation, and scheduling library classrooms and meeting rooms. Working in a library setting is fairly new to me, after working nearly 20 years for an environmental non-profi... Read More →
Student employees are the backbone of the academic library, particularly for access and circulation departments. Many of our student employees go on to enjoy careers in library and information services. Managers in circulation and access services develop early-career information professionals by promoting student employees to advanced roles, assigning advanced tasks and providing advanced training and mentorship. Additionally, advanced student workers help overburdened staff with their operational tasks like circulation reports, responding to patron emails, and stacks maintenance projects. Trusting our student employees with advanced mission-critical tasks more thoroughly engages them in our work, improving the quality of service our patrons receive and providing invaluable workplace experience to young professionals.
This conference session will involve a short discussion of advanced student worker roles in UW-Madison Access Services, including our recent role leveling project as we bring student roles from multiple libraries into alignment under one department. We will also discuss training and supervision best practices for advanced student employee roles. Interactive activities will follow, in which session attendees will examine tasks and roles from your own libraries to identify opportunities for advanced student employees. Templates and other take-home materials will be provided. This session will be most beneficial for managers and supervisors of student employees in access and circulation services but all are welcome to attend.
In this session, you will learn how to:
- Design advanced student positions, tasks and projects that match library needs with student career goals and interests - Train lead students to train and guide other student workers - Provide mentorship opportunities for early-career information professionals
You will leave with strategies you can use right away.
Get ready for a behind-the-scenes look at how one library system transformed a simple Strategic Plan idea into a vibrant, systemwide circulation staff conference; an event that not only built practical skills but sparked new confidence, collaboration, and professional growth across every level of circulation work.
An action team dug into systemwide survey responses to pinpoint the training topics that mattered most to our frontline staff. With that foundation, we brought in a keynote speaker, an inspiring leadership expert who wove staff interests into an energizing opening session that set the tone for the entire day.
Staff input fueled a lineup of sessions that blended hands-on learning with forward-thinking professional development: navigating workplace conflict, sustainable workplace ergonomics, pathways to promotion and more. You will learn in this session practical ideas, inspiration, and a clearer sense of how inclusive and staff driven planning will help you develop your own localized circulation conference.
