2026 ALISE Annual Conference

Public-interfacing library workers face significant physical and emotional demands as part of their work, yet the embodied dimensions of their labor remain largely unexamined in LIS scholarship. This poster presents an introduction to and early findings from an arts-based dissertation study examining embodied experience and workplace trauma among public-interfacing library workers. Using draw-and-write and semi-structured interviewing methods, this exploratory study invites dialogue about arts-based approaches to studying library worker experience and the conditions that shape it.