Access Services Conference
Conference 2026
Elevating access services work that supports student success—through practical sessions, honest conversations, and a community that shares what really works.
Delivering conference services. Providing professional growth. Building community.
The Access Services Conference is an opportunity for individuals working in all areas of Access Services in libraries to gather information and communicate with other professionals about circulation, reserves, interlibrary loan, student worker management, security, and other topics of interest.
ASC is where practical work meets shared expertise—where colleagues exchange ideas, strengthen skills, and learn from one another’s real-world experience.
Delivering conference services
Focused sessions rooted in operational realities—designed by and for professionals who manage the day-to-day work of access services.
Providing professional growth
Opportunities to deepen expertise, explore new tools, strengthen leadership skills, and elevate access services work within your institution.
Building community
A peer-driven space to connect with colleagues, share challenges, celebrate wins, and strengthen the network that supports our work year-round.
Kaetrena Davis Kendrick
We are pleased to welcome Kaetrena Davis Kendrick as the 2026 Access Services Conference keynote speaker.
Kendrick is a collective care leader for library workers, workplaces, and organizations. She earned her M.S.L.S. from the historic Clark Atlanta University School of Library and Information Studies. Her award-winning research on low-morale experiences in libraries is recognized as groundbreaking and validating for library employees at all levels.
Through her daily and long-term work, Kendrick has transformed library programs, services, and culture through creativity, leadership, and advocacy. A practitioner of Critical Hope, she is committed to centering well-being, creativity, possibility, and empathy in the workplace, while promoting career clarity and rejuvenation for library workers.
In 2019, Kendrick was named the Association of College and Research Libraries’ Academic/Research Librarian of the Year, and she is the 2024–2025 Follett Chair with the Dominican University School of Information Studies. Her latest co-edited book, Catalyzing Critical Hope in Academic Libraries: Narratives of Challenge and Change, is forthcoming from ACRL.
Key dates
Important dates for registration, payment, and conference attendance.
Plan your conference
Jump straight to what you need.
“Other Duties as Assigned: The Hidden Work We All Do”
Access Services work is full of tasks that appear nowhere in a job description—yet hold the library together. Access Services staff and librarians routinely take on hidden labor that keeps the public-facing side of the library running smoothly. Increasingly, Access Services employees are asked to help manage responsibilities that have traditionally lived in other areas of colleges and universities.
This panel invites Access Services employees and librarians to share their experiences with “other duties as assigned”— the surprising tasks, expectations (spoken and unspoken), the emotional labor, and the creative problem-solving that define the job.
This will be a conversational, supportive session where we highlight the realities of Access Services work and raise awareness of the essential, often invisible contributions our colleagues make every day.
The Work That Isn’t in the Job Description
Access services professionals are often expected to carry work that is unwritten, undefined, and frequently invisible. From emotional labor and crisis response to policy interpretation, systems troubleshooting, and filling operational gaps— much of our impact happens outside formal role descriptions.
The 2026 keynote will name this reality and center the leadership it takes to navigate it—while building healthier, clearer expectations for the work we do.