Access Services Changes

January 2007--Joan Sommer has been appointed head of Raynor Memorial Libraries' Access Services Department, which now includes Interlibrary Loan staff and functions.

Effective January 2nd, these two key library departments were merged under Ms. Sommer's leadership, bringing their several public service functions together for the first time. Ms. Sommer, who joined the then-Memorial Library staff in 1984 and was head of Interlibrary Loan (ILL) since 1993, is an a unique position to lead these vital library services.  "Having worked cross-departmentally with many of the staff over the years," Sommer says, "has really helped me in getting started in my new position."

Many library users interact almost exclusively with Access Services or Interlibrary Loan (ILL) staff.  That's because Access Services and ILL (along with Research & Outreach Services) tend to be the "face" of the libraries.  Traditionally, Access Services has encompassed all circulation and stacks-oriented functions, as well as Class Reserves and Media.  Interlibrary Loan serves MU faculty and students by processing requests for and obtaining needed research materials from other libraries and institutions.

But the two don't have to be mutually exclusive.  "A combined Access Services/Interlibrary Loan organizational model is fairly common among academic institutions of our size," Sommer explains.  "We hope to increase our flexibility in providing services to our users by taking advantage of commonalities between the two departments."

Together, these departments account for huge numbers of transactions. Last year, there were nearly 143,000 circulation checkouts, most of which resulted in books that needed reshelving.  In addition, 13 full-time staff members and 70 student assistants spread over the four units handled nearly 14,000 audiovisual material (AVM) checkouts, 15,000 Reserve checkouts, 30,000 ILL requests, 10,000 paging slips (holds/recalls/pages), and nearly 13,000 laptop checkouts.  That kind of workload requires experienced staff.

"The combined Marquette experience of staff members in the two departments comes to over 150 years," Sommer points out.  "That's a lot of talent available to call on as we begin working together."  She adds: "I’m really looking forward to working with this capable group of people.  It should be fun!"