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Tri College University Libraries
Lunch at the Mexican Village:
Agnes Lee (Minitex Document Delivery), Lorrettax Mindt and
Wendy Gibson (North Dakota State University Interlibrary Loan),
Dianne Schmidt (Minnesota State University Moorhead Interlibrary
Loan), Leah Anderson (Concordia College Interlibrary Loan) and Tom Bremer (Associate Director of the Library at NDSU).
Originally published in Resource Sharing News
October 2003
During the past two years, Minitex staff members Agnes Lee, Carol Nelson, and I (Dave Paulson) have visited the "Tri-College University" libraries in the Fargo-Moorhead region on Document Delivery site visits. The cooperation and camaraderie among the staffs of the three libraries is exceptional so we thought it would make a good story for Resource Sharing News.
"Tri-College University" (TCU) is the name of the official partnership of the three higher education institutions in Fargo, North Dakota and Moorhead, Minnesota: North Dakota State University (NDSU), Minnesota State University Moorhead (MSUM), and Concordia College. The TCU consortium was created to allow students from one institution to attend classes at the other campuses without incurring additional tuition fees.
Since its inception, almost 30,000 students have enrolled in more than 90,000 courses through the TCU course exchange. The mission of Tri-College University is to assist the three institutions "by promoting cooperative efforts that will enrich the academic environment for the benefit of students, faculty, and the community."
The beginning of the Tri-College University dates back to 1962, when discussion among the presidents and academic deans at the three institutions resulted in an arrangement called the "Fargo-Moorhead Common Market in Education." An agreement in 1965 allowed students at North Dakota State and Minnesota State University to exchange courses and was the beginning of what evolved into TCU during the 1968-69 academic year.
Through TCU, the three institutions now offer a variety of collaborative programs, courses, and service. It includes the course exchange, use of library facilities on all three campuses, interlibrary loan between campuses, free parking on all three campuses (with valid parking pass from the student's home campus), intercampus mail, and many cooperative student organizations and events. "TRICE: The Tri-College University Newspaper," is a newsletter of Tri-College events and activities published four times per year.
The Tri-College library staff work together in many ways. The directors of the three libraries, Pam Drayson(NDSU), Patrick Max (MSUM) and Betty Raum (Concordia College), meet each month to discuss library issues. Issues and concerns arising from these meetings are then delegated to several joint task forces made up of library staff members from the three institutions.
Students and faculty have borrowing privileges at any of the three TCU libraries, or may request that materials from another library be delivered to their home campus library by twice-daily shuttle service. Pam Drayson (NDSU) says: "Students and faculty of the Tri-College often comment about the great shared film/video collection and the twice a day shuttle route between the weather around here much of the year, they may not often visit the other libraries in person to check out a book directly. But they appreciate being able to request a book online through interlibrary loan in the morning and receive it just a few hours later."
All three libraries have been members of MnSCU PALS since 1980, which has helped facilitate their resource sharing. With the future plans to terminate PALS, it's fortunate that all three libraries will be migrating to the same online system -- Ex Libris' Aleph, though not all at the same time. The searching capability of the new system will allow users to search the three catalogues simultaneously. Pam Drayson is confident that "No matter what online system the individual TCU libraries are using at a given time, arrangements will be made for students, faculty and staff from each institution to fully use the library resources of the other members."
In addition to resource sharing, the libraries work together in many ways. The three library staff members have active committees relating to circulation, the film/video collection, collection development (strategic purchasing) and library staff development activities. In the past year the TCU libraries have co-sponsored development opportunities such as "Teaching Adults" and a six session "Research Revolution" series. The libraries also collaborate with the local hospitals and city libraries, and provide a link from the institutions to the community. The libraries together provide resources for local churches, educators, regional farmers and ranchers, etc.
In May after Agnes Lee and I visited the TCU libraries, five staff members from the three TCU libraries invited us to lunch at the wonderful "Mexican Village" restaurant in Fargo. We had a terrific lunch and a great time! It was like dining with a bunch of old friends, which, obviously, they are.