Congratulations to our 2025 Access Services Conference Award Winners!
2025 Distinguished Achievement in Access Services
This award recognizes the outstanding and sustained service, contributions, and leadership of a library staff member in any position on a regional or national level.
The 2025 award was presented to Rachel Nilavarath
Rachel is the Head of Access, Delivery, & Resource Sharing Services at NYU Libraries. As a leader dedicated to advancing access and affordability in higher education, she has championed course affordability initiatives that provide significant savings for students each semester. With a career spanning both the technical and service sides of librarianship, she brings a passion for designing user-centered services that scale locally, regionally, and nationally. She is an active member of several key working groups to help shape resource and digital sharing strategies across library consortia, including PALCI’s EZBorrow Digital Task Force. Her leadership in access services demonstrates a sustained commitment to making libraries more accessible and impactful across higher education.
2025 Travel Grants
These awards recognize two library professional staff in non-librarian positions for their outstanding work and commitment in the field of access services.
The 2025 Travel Grants were awarded to: Jordan Thompson and Shayla Harrigton
Jordan is a Library Assistant at Case Western Reserve University’s Kelvin Smith Library, where she supervises student employees and supports access services operations. She earned her MLIS from Kent State University in May 2025 and left with a passion for academic library services and equitable access practices. Her work centers on student training, workflow documentation, and team management to create a supportive and sustainable environment for both library staff and patrons.
Shayla is the Access Services Manager for Mann Library, at Cornell University. Though she wasn’t aware that library work was the goal, Shayla was always drawn to positions centered around helping others: camp counselor, server, teacher, reference and access services assistant. After 7 years in early childhood and secondary education, she found her perfect fit in libraries and has been growing over the last 10 years, continually looking for ways to learn, improve, and to inspire and motivate her team.