That Escalated Quickly: From Circulation to Collections Access in Three Years

Abstract

In the summer of 2017, our University Library posted a newly created opening for an Access Services Librarian to supervise Circulation (and other duties as assigned), but no one in the Library, including the person they hired, could have predicted that by the year 2020, this person would be their Head of Collections Access, a position (and department) that didn't even exist for them yet, responsible for shaping and leading their newly formed Access Services and Electronic Resources units. In this poster, I will present the rapid but admittedly overdue evolution of my library department, from Circulation to Access Services to Collections Access, all of which took place in less than three academic years, and some of the ways this evolution helped prepare the University Library for when COVID-19 forced us to deliver library services, including Access Services, in a remote and contact-free environment.