The O’Shaughnessy-Frey Library’s new book delivery service for university faculty members kicked off on Aug. 31 and now has 61 faculty participants ready for their requested books to be delivered directly to their offices each morning.

Art history professor Heather Shirey is one of the many faculty members who have taken advantage of the new service.

“Having books delivered directly to the office has been hugely beneficial, especially during the busiest time of the academic year,” Shirey said. “The service has been very quick and reliable.”

O’Shaughnessy-Frey Library circulation supervisor Nathan Wunrow originally thought of the idea in 2006 as an intern, but said it wasn’t the right time due to lack of staffing and interest. He and interlibrary loan assistant Lindsey Loree revisited the idea last January.

“We think this would be a great service to kind of alleviate some of the stress from the faculty having to come to the library and pick up materials when they’re busy with classes and research,” Wunrow said. “(It’s) kind of an additional easing of everything that’s going on for them.”

Loree said “anecdotal requests” from faculty spurred the start of the service. She observed that faculty members were requesting books but not picking them up. Loree hopes the new service will help them get more use out of their requested materials.

The team tested out the service during the summer with the help of 10 faculty members who experimented with the system for a two-week-long trial period.

“We got a really good response,” Wunrow said. “We did a survey, a lot people really liked it, so we thought we’d open it up to the rest of the faculty this fall.”

Art history professor Elizabeth Kindall is grateful for the new system.

“The convenience and organization of the service is truly unparalleled,” Kindall said. “It has made all the difference for me.”

With the help of student workers, the service delivers about 10 books every day and has delivered nearly 600 books so far.

While the University of Minnesota also offers this service, the process is complicated because of extensive rules and regulations the faculty members have to follow. The O’Shaughnessy-Frey Library only requires a short form to be filled out because Wunrow didn’t feel St. Thomas needed such a lengthy process.

Wunrow expects the delivery service to continue to grow throughout the year but does not anticipate the system will eliminate use of the library.

“A lot of the faculty that have signed up already use the library a lot in other ways, so I feel like they are still going to come to the library, but at the same time this helps them with the times where they just can’t get to the library, so it balances it out,” Wunrow said.

The Charles J. Keffer library on the Minneapolis campus offers an unofficial delivery service for books, however there is no formal delivery service so far like the one provided by the O’Shaughnessy Frey Library.

Additionally, the Archbishop Ireland Memorial library does not have an equivalent service.

Rachel Weiss can be contacted at weis3565@stthomas.edu.