Written By: Marissa Criswell

Working in the interlibrary loan office of UNT’s Willis Library is a daily exploration of academic curiosity for me. I have been a part of the department for over a year now. It is a quiet office on a quiet floor, but if you ever stop in, do not mistake that hush for a lack of productivity. The interlibrary loan team is working diligently to process up to hundreds of requests per day during the semester.  

The research and reading interests of UNT are diverse and there is never a dull day in the 035 office. Every topic imaginable comes across my desk: diseases of bees, antique textiles, trauma nursing, chemical engineering topics I am not sure I pronounce properly and Native American troops of WWII. Two that have been my favorites are old newspaper articles surrounding American serial killers and the Klondike.  

My perspective on the research that takes place at UNT has broadened widely. Gone are the days when I only knew research as simply a quote from a book or finding a relevant article in a Gale database. The research I help the students and faculty of UNT complete covers not only books and database articles, but has taken me on adventures locating every edition of a particular tome, articles from newspapers that have not been in existence for decades, physical copies of wartime Red Cross fliers, musical scores from around the world, and photo collections from World Fairs. Undertaking the responsibility to stay up to date on trends in publishing such as open access, creative commons and how to access new items in the public domain also keeps my day interesting.  

I admit that as the physical items come into our office from the lending library, sometimes I get distracted by my own curiosity and end up poring over a fascinating item, learning something new about the world. The ILL team might pause for a moment to share some fascinating book, score or dissertation that arrives. The varied interests of UNT students and faculty are innumerable and it is extremely fulfilling to be a part of helping a patron locate what they seek. There is a sense of accomplishment when an item I worked diligently to locate comes into the office and I know that a scholarly pursuit can progress in whichever college the item is off to.  

One thing I wish our patrons knew about the ILL office is that the requests our office processes can take just a few seconds to weeks or months to complete. Our team operates in tiers, sending more complicated requests up the levels to our colleagues with the skills to fulfill more challenging requests. When a request shows only one holding available in WorldCat (a database of library collections from around the world) our team exhausts all options to acquire that single item for our patron, whether in a physical or digital form. 

Even though the interlibrary loan office is behind the scenes of the daily hustle and bustle of the library, I truly feel a sense of accomplishment every time a request I worked on comes in from a lending library. Whether the loan is for research or enriching downtime reads, a short and playful musical score or an entire opera, an article from the current pediatric oncology journal or the now defunct Klondike News, my perspective on the world has become more vibrant. Processing requests is my daily adventure, and I am proud to be a part of the team-effort and overall endeavor of a major research university.