How exactly does CSU provide so many resources to students and faculty? The Resource Sharing Unit at Morgan Library is the answer.

Encompassing the Interlibrary Loan and Course Reserve, the Resource Sharing Unit makes it possible for the entire CSU community to have access to the latest in printed resource materials, even if those resources are not physically on campus, as well as digital media resources.

The team is composed of Matthew Diven, external resources coordinator; Theresa Spangler, digital resources coordinator; Maggie Cummings, internal resources coordinator; Janet Rombach, resource fulfillment specialist; Dax Collazo, digital content specialist; and Donna Schmid, resource delivery specialist.

Interlibrary Loan operates in a reciprocal environment, with Borrowing and Lending staff.

About their roles

Borrowing staff find and borrow library materials requested by CSU students, staff and faculty. Some of these requests can be filled from CSU Libraries’ own collection; the other requests are sent to other libraries to be filled.

Lending staff are responsible for loaning Morgan books, articles and materials to other libraries. They ship books via USPS and UPS to libraries and companies all over the world. They send books and articles to high schools in Colorado and many of the public libraries using the library courier system. They also scan hundreds of articles that are emailed to libraries all over the country for students who do not have access to them at their library.

Student employees pick up books and journals from Morgan and the Book Storage Depository. They process the items and either ship or scan them. Staff on site deal with management of electronic requests for eBooks and articles. They are in constant communication with other libraries about requests, lost items and invoices.

Course Reserve provides digital access to required readings for coursework at CSU. They provide articles, book chapters, books and videos. Course Reserve handles all copyright concerns for accessible material, provides high-quality scans and makes all the PDF files fully accessible. They also provide links to eBooks in the catalog or scan hard copies full-text books.

The Resource Sharing Unit is one of the major services offered by Morgan Library and a large component of some of the larger library groups that CSU participates in. Interlibrary Loan is free to the CSU community (supported by student fees) and can supply media items such as DVDs, CDs and audiobooks. They borrow items from Europe, Canada, New Zealand and Australia, and have loaned items to Denmark, Sweden, South Africa and Korea, just to name a few. Course Reserve is available to any instructor, for both in-person and online courses.

Interlibrary Loan staff had minimal changes during the COVID-19 pandemic; both borrowing and lending carried on during COVID with little interruption to services. Course Reserve faced much greater challenges, because they moved to an all-digital format. Pre-COVID service provided a Shelf Reserve option for students to check out hard copies of required books. They are now scanning books full-text to provide more equitable access to all materials, accounting for copyright by operating under Controlled Digital Lending rules. All Resource Sharing staff are also now able to work a more flexible schedule that includes remote work opportunities.

Principles of Community

How does the Resource Sharing Unit enact the Principles of Community within its area?

Interlibrary Loan staff say they treat every request equally. No request takes precedence over another. They treat requests from public libraries or schools the same as big academic universities. They respect each of their patrons and strive to extend equal integrity toward each request, whether it is for an undergraduate student, graduate student, staff member or faculty member. They aim to hire diverse student employees to help reflect the community they exist in. They are a collaborative department that helps one another, values individual contributions, and seeks to perform their best for CSU and their fellow libraries.

Course Reserve staff say going fully digital has increased accessibility for all students, providing a more equitable learning environment. They have a long-standing policy to make all material fully accessible and will work with individual students to ensure their needs are met. They also strongly believe in communication with those they serve – they reply to emails and phone calls in a timely manner, including evenings and weekends during their busy times, and are available for one-on-ones with instructors or students as needed.

The three words that the Resource Sharing Unit uses to describe themselves are impactful, cooperative and complex.

Impactful – Sharing resources with curious people around the world helps to fuel their creativity and productivity. CSU resources help these people find solutions to their questions. Course Reserve facilitates learning by providing CSU students equitable access to thousands of items every semester.

Cooperative – Interlibrary loan only works when everyone is both generous with their collections and in need of another’s resources. Course Reserve requires specific information from instructors to provide accurate items for coursework. They communicate with instructors extensively across multiple platforms to ensure they are indeed making their job easier.

Complex – Balancing requests coming in and working to fulfill every request as quickly, accurately and efficiently as possible can be tricky. Technology issues, copyright considerations, database access, licensing terms, staffing and even weather can affect their services.

A substantial unit accomplishment involved physically moving their entire unit from the basement of Morgan to the second floor. This included seven staff, five student employees, eight scanners, many book trucks, all of the office furniture (desks, computers, monitors, file cabinets, tables, bookshelves, etc.) and a couple of printers. It took two days, but it was accomplished without much of a pause in their normal work. Within a day all normal operations were running full steam ahead like nothing had happened.

In an average year, Interlibrary Loan borrows around 12,000 items for CSU users and loans around 50,000 items to other libraries. Course Reserve provided access to almost 800 items across more than 500 courses during the Fall 2023 semester.

The unit loaned a 15-pound movie film reel to a library in Los Angeles sometime in 1976. In 2017 they finally returned it, only 41 years overdue.

About ‘Day in the Life’

“Day in the Life” features the stories of State Classified colleagues to help the CSU community get to know and recognize their diverse responsibilities and duties. To recommend a State Classified individual or group for a future “Day in the Life,” visit the Classified Personnel Council website.