ALA recognizes Larsen with Distinguished Interlibrary Loan Librarian Award
The American Library Association’s Reference and User Services Association (RUSA) has selected David Larsen as the winner of the 2014 Virginia Boucher-OCLC Distinguished ILL (Interlibrary Loan) Librarian Award. Larsen is Head of Access Services and Assessment at the University of Chicago Library.
The Boucher-OCLC award honors professional achievement, leadership, and contributions to interlibrary loan and document delivery. “Larsen was selected for his innovative and practical approaches to resource sharing [and] willingness to learn and test new products and improved workflow efficiencies” according to the ALA’s announcement.
Larsen was nominated by Anne Beaubien, Director of MLibrary Document Delivery at the University of Michigan Library, and Mary Radnor, Document Delivery Services Librarian at the University of Chicago Library, who described Larsen’s leadership role in launching the Committee on Institutional Cooperation’s consortial borrowing service, UBorrow, as well as the Scan & Deliver service at University of Chicago, both in 2012.
“David’s extraordinary leadership in developing UBorrow resulted in an unmediated consortial borrowing system that made most of the 90 million volumes held in the CIC libraries and the Center for Research Libraries readily available to UChicago users through a single interface with a fast and predictable turnaround time and a 12 week loan period,” explained Jim Vaughan, Associate University Librarian for User Services at the University of Chicago Library.
“The exponential growth of published information and limited collection budgets call for more reliance on collection sharing among trusted peers,” said Judith Nadler, Director and University Librarian at University of Chicago. “I applaud David’s contributions to new approaches that will facilitate collection sharing in an increasingly complex service environment.”
Scan & Deliver allows UChicago faculty, students, and staff to request that articles and book chapters from the Library’s print collections be scanned and made available online. It is widely praised by faculty and graduate students on campus as an aid to productivity and an invaluable service for those conducting research outside Chicago.
The selection of Larsen and other RUSA award recipients was announced on March 4. “RUSA’s Achievement Awards are a chance to give praise to the most notable librarians, libraries, and library research in reference services,” said RUSA President Kathleen Kern. “These awards are of the highest honor and recognize invaluable contributions to the field that may go unnoticed otherwise.”
Larsen will receive the award at the RUSA Achievement Awards Ceremony and Reception to be held on June 29 at the ALA Annual Conference in Las Vegas. Sponsored by OCLC, it consists of $2,000 and a citation.
