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James G. Lindell Library, Augsburg College
The interlibrary loan staff at the James G. Lindell Library, Augsburg College, from left:
Matthew Charboneau, Dixie Ohlander, Bill Wittenbreer and Maxwell Cody. Not pictured: Jacob
Williams.
Originally published in Resource Sharing News
November 2008
Augsburg College has a diverse student population of about 4,000, which includes nearly an
equal number of traditional and non-traditional students, who complete degree programs on the
weekend. Popular programs at Augsburg include nursing, physician's assistant, nurse practitioner,
MBA and social work. The unique student needs at Augsburg have driven how interlibrary loan (ILL)
staff provide service to their patrons.
Librarian Bill Wittenbreer says they "try to make the ILL process as seamless as possible for patrons."
This means that when providing services, they don't distinguish between on campus and off campus
patrons; most materials are delivered directly to the user. Augsburg was one of the early adopters
of the Minitex Electronic Document Delivery (MEDD) and is a liberal lender of their audiovisual
materials.
Dixie Ohlander has been working in ILL at Augsburg for almost 10 years. She says, "The philosophy of
the library is to give our students as many paths to resources as possible. It's more work on the back
end [for staff], but it fits our philosophy of service." Augsburg accepts an interlibrary loan request
however a patron chooses to submit it. When the request is filled, they usually deliver the item to the
patron electronically or via mail.
Interlibrary loan student workers Matt Charboneau, Max Cody and Jake Williams are a key to making ILL
work at Augsburg. They take ownership of their work in ILL in a way that is rare for student employees.
Each student has specialized in an ILL process that they take responsibility for completing. Dixie says
she really considers them "superstar" students and likes to keep communications open by using all methods
of communication, including email.
Max and Matt explained that they focus on the fact that they work in a full-service library and understand
that their tasks are very important to providing the service that Augsburg students expect. "It's a service
we can use as students," says Max, who also works on the weekend to further extend service to six days a week.
As the staff at Augsburg observe, there is no longer any real downtime throughout the year. The numbers seem
to indicate that their hard work is appreciated and being utilized by the students. The volume of ILL traffic
has more than doubled: from 6,000 requests in 2004-2005, to over 13,000 in 2007-2008.
The fact that they go the extra mile for patrons who may have problems getting to campus is recognized in
classes and by their users. Bill once overheard a faculty member say, "I hear Augsburg had really good ILL
service." The student employees also sometimes hear their instructors encourage use of ILL in their classes
which is a great way for them to get feedback for a job well done.