Hello Access Services colleagues!
Apologies for cross-posting -- I would like to share information about the ACRL ASIG's upcoming spring virtual forum. Details on the program can be found below:
Wednesday, March 29, 2023, 1:00pm - 2:00pm Central Time
Register in advance for this meeting:
https://ala-events.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJcsc-qppjwpHdADiOqY_zeFmq8rhef_5mC4
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
We ask that you do not attempt to enter the meeting room more than 15 minutes before the start time, as another meeting may be in progress. As technology continues to change, it is possible you may need to download or upgrade your Zoom application before entering the meeting room. The web browser client will download automatically when you start or join your first Zoom Meeting.
Title: "Ideologies in the Servicescape: The Retail Industry, Customer Service, and the Academic Library" A presentation by Eleanor Cleveland, Access Services Coordinator, James Waters, Scholar Support Specialist for the Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities Department, and Jeff Hipsher, Access Services Librarian and Head of Access Services & Delivery for Florida State University.
Brief description: Borrowing strategies for customer service training, staffing models, and point-of-sale design from the retail service industry is a common theme in the scholarship and research concerning Access Services in academic libraries. However, very seldom do these texts interrogate the specific cultural context inhabited by the American Retail Store. This uncritical cooption of retail methodologies potentially leaves Access Services departments vulnerable to the neoliberal ideologies in which they were formed, changing library spaces and experiences into a highly engineered system of display used to impose institutional values, drive down wages, and instill customer loyalty. Through its engagement with critical theory, our presentation hopes to highlight these contradictions and offer a counter-rhetoric for the intellectual craft of Access Services librarianship and reframe this crucial work as a first line of defense against the neoliberal ideologies of the servicescape.
ASIG Co-Conveners:
Tori Lieggi
Instructional Services Librarian & Coordinator of Access Services
Lycoming College
lieggi@lycoming.edu
Lorelei Sterling
Associate Professor, Head of Access Services
University of Alaska Anchorage
lsterling@alaska.edu
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Victoria Lieggi
Instructional Services Librarian and Coordinator of Access Services
Lycoming College
She/Her/Hers
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