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7 Access Services

Matthew Fesnak

Overview

Library access services provide a bridge to the materials, events, and spaces of the library. They are key for directing users to physical and digital materials, guiding research, and providing opportunities for engagement. Through various offerings, libraries have many opportunities to empower users, including those with disabilities. However, ensuring that access services are accessible requires thoughtful preparation and active effort. Providing helpful services to users with disabilities can be realized through the built environment, staff training, policies, procedures, the workplace culture, and whether diverse communities are consulted and valued.

Description of library teaching practice

Reference services have been integral to libraries for over one hundred years:

Contemporary library services offered to students, faculty, staff and members of the public include online and in-person circulation or reference assistance, access to digital and physical resources, and workshops, classes, multipurpose spaces and events.

Many university library services are geared towards undergraduate students (ALA, 2014), providing materials for courses, research help for assignments, and study spaces. However, libraries also extend services to community members, and for purposes other than academic success.

By providing services that focus on lifelong learning, libraries can create inclusive spaces for those who do not thrive in traditional classroom settings. Classrooms can be sources of trauma for people with disabilities as many students have been made to feel like failures compared to their neurotypical and non-disabled peers (Hoffman, 2015), are neglected or experience gaslighting from educators (Runswick-Cole et al., 2024). The challenges faced by disabled people can be exacerbated by other identities, such as the effects of colonialism for racialized people with disabilities (Ward, 2024). The challenges faced by disabled people can also intersect with other identities (ObeySumner, 2018; Boren, 2022; Davy 2021) and it is worth learning about these intersections when trying to improve your library services to all.

Four men in suits sit at a library table studying books at the library.
What kind of a concern is C. Carpy and Company? Where are they located? What do they manufacture? Please give me a list of dealers in paint in Santos, Brazil. I’m a tired business man please give me a good mystery story.
A well dressed woman and young child speak with a librarian holding a book, in front of a library bookcase
I told my husband that there were books at the public library which would give me more information in an hour than I could get from friends and neighbours in a week.

Guiding principles

Providing customer service to users with disabilities may be regulated by legislation, as in Ontario, in which case you will likely work through a training exercise at the start of your employment. However, as these can be very generic, it is easy to forget about them. Reviewing these standards as well as guidelines more specific to library services is essential:

There is also legislation to regulate built environments for accessibility. The built environment is important to consider as it has a significant impact on how users access library services and accessibility should be prioritized when undergoing major renovations, reviewing floorplans and furnishings, and so on. See the following standards and guides:

Recommendations for accessibility

There are many different things libraries can do to improve the accessibility of their services. Since the services offered by libraries are so broad, making them accessible is not straightforward. As such, this is not an exhaustive or exacting list. Assistive devices and technology can also go a long way to make your library services more accessible. See the chapter on accessible technology for more information.

Attitude towards users

  • Understanding the social model of disability (Disability Rights Commission, 2005; Human Resources and Social Development, 2004) or the pathology paradigm (Boren, 2022) can help you to create accessible policies, practices, and places.
  • Library services have been shaped by the profession’s long-established white, upper-class bias (Galvan, 2015), and this bias has been reflected in services aimed to better the working-class masses (Waterloo Public Library, 2024; “Andrew Carnegie: A Tribute: Colonel James Anderson”). Reflecting on historic policies and procedures that may be influenced by such attitudes can help your library serve users from different backgrounds.
  • Consider alternative conflict resolution and community safety approaches that centre on inclusivity. People with disabilities – and especially those with intersecting marginalized identities – will suffer the most when libraries increase the presence and authority of police and/or security (Selman and Curnow, 2019; Salerno-Ferraro and Schuller, 2020). Closed stacks and security gates will make your library feel like a “fort” (Vendeville, 2023) and put off or distress marginalized library users.
  • Clearly communicate to your visitors how to get to your library, how to use your services, and if there are any barriers, such as needing an ID card, or if certain entrances are not accessible.
  • Advocate for more accessible and equitable policies, such as eliminating or reducing strict fines that may disproportionately affect those with disabilities.
  • Offer to collect items if the stacks are inaccessible.

Built environment

  • The library and its built environment can create barriers to services the same way that technology and digital environments can. The accessibility of your spaces needs to be prioritized and routinely reviewed.
  • Building libraries can be legacy projects for architects and donors, who prioritize showy features for someone or some organization to stamp their names on. An example of this problem is Robarts Library’s new “commons” project, which was established as a work and study space, but was built with large sections of seating that are totally inaccessible (Bozikovic, 2022; AODA Alliance, 2022).
  • Wayfinding is something that is neglected in a lot of university libraries, and the Library of Congress Classification, CODOC, and Dewey Decimal systems do not make it easy for users to find materials. Paying attention to signage, providing multiple formats for wayfinding, and maintaining your stacks can help make them more accessible.
  • The construction of reference, circulation, and research desks can be anxiety inducing and turn people away from library services (Katopol, 2014).
  • Libraries have a long history of being sensory friendly environments, exemplified by the Nancy Pearl shushing librarian figure (McPhee, n.d.).

    Action figure of librarian Nancy Pearl. She is holding a book in one hand and holding her other hand to her lips to shush.

  • In many university libraries, there are quiet floors or areas where excessive noise and/or scents are not permitted. It can be helpful to create additional spaces specifically for people with disabilities that are sensory friendly, provide accessible technology, and address other needs that your general study areas cannot. For an example, McMaster’s Library has the Campus Accessible Tech Space (CATS), which has been specifically curated and provides lots of accessible technology.

Comfy seating area with low lighting in CATSQuiet study area in CATS

Library Culture

  • Many universities and libraries target their accessibility efforts at students exclusively. Excluding the hundreds or thousands of faculty and staff employed at your organization from your accessibility initiatives is not an effective way to make your university and library accessible.
  • As many differences have been pathologized by those in power, common understandings of disabilities do not reflect the lived experience of users. Relying on stereotypes regarding disabilities or specific user groups is not appropriate. Creating a culture that gives voice and power to those users will help make your organization more accessible and inclusive.
  • Review new technologies being integrated into library services for their accessibility, as tech firms often do not prioritize accessibility needs when introducing new products.
  • For many people with communication differences, it is important to provide information in a variety of formats and allow for feedback and interaction.
  • Providing links, notes, and/or transcripts from in person reference interactions, online chat sessions, and video calls can be very helpful and make your services more accessible.
  • Replacing human reference services with chat bots will likely lead to poor interactions for your users (Maksimovic, 2023), particularly if the platform is inaccessible to those using screen readers.
  • Many disabled people benefitted from the efforts taken to mitigate airborne illnesses and accessibility efforts generally during the early years of the COVID-19 pandemic. Making efforts to reduce the spread of disease can help make your library more accessible, as does giving your workers paid sick days, wearing masks in crowded spaces, improving air filtration, providing simultaneous online and in-person access to events, ensuring quality audio and transcription, and so on.
  • Workplaces that are eager to “get back to normal” do so at the expense of disabled people. Framing working from home as an excuse to be lazy turns away many disabled people. Laziness has been unfairly used as a trope against disabled people for a long period of time, at least in colonial, Western society (Ward, 2024).

References

Further reading and resources

Media Attributions

  • ServicePoints Image Updated – 0003
  • ServicePoints Image Updated – 0002
  • Nancy Pearl action figure
  • CATS2 © Nancy Waite
  • CATS1 © Nancy Waite

License

Icon for the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Accessible Library Teaching Copyright © by McMaster University Libraries is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

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