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Although studies related to diversity within librarianship as a profession are increasing, few have examined librarians with disabilities--and none so far have included their voices or perspectives. This qualitative study involved interviews with ten academic librarians with disabilities in Canada. With a grounding in the social model of disability, it examines their workplace experiences and concerns and the barriers they face within the context of cultural assumptions about disability and work, finding that the major barriers encountered are lack of awareness of disability issues and negative cultural stereotypes of disability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses a public service review and redesign that resulted in a blended service desk combining reference and circulation functions, staffed by nonlibrarians. The redesign implements a number of organizational structures that encourage service excellence, as found in the business literature and in examples of nonlibrary organizations that excel in customer service. The article identifies key organizational structures that have been shown to support or hinder good service and discusses the process of implementing these structures in practice and the results of an assessment process designed around determining success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the experiences of new academic librarians as they adjust to the workplace. In the process of organizational socialization, new employees face surprises and differences from their pre-existing expectations about the job. A survey of new librarians at Canadian university libraries was done to discover what these surprises were so that more effective training and orientation programs can be developed. Findings included several areas of high and low pre-existing knowledge and difference from expectation, including job skills and organizational culture. Implications for developing training programs are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]