Juli Overby: Acquisitions & Book Preservation

Julianne Overby is the Acquisitions and Book Preservation Associate at Rolvaag Memorial Library, and has worked at the library for sixteen years. Like many of our library staff, Juli has a diverse set of skills she brings to her position. She divides her time between two diverse areas of responsibility: acquisitions, and book preservation.

"Acquisitions" is the unit within a library that acquires new materials for the library's collection. Whenever students or librarians request new materials – like books and DVDs – Juli prepares those requests so that they can be processed appropriately. In addition, she prepares invoices for accounts payable, and reconciles the credit card statement for acquisitions for all three libraries! Juli is also responsible for taking care of all standing orders for the library. Such titles may be familiar to students, including Physician's Desk Reference , Songwriters' Market , Contemporary Literary Criticism , and Book Review Index (to name just a few).

Have you ever wondered what happens to library books accidentally damaged? At St. Olaf, a student can alert the library staff to an item that needs repair. Any such book submitted for repair goes to Juli. She sees books with torn or dog-chewed pages, old and crumbling binding, coffee and food stains, and more. She assesses each item carefully to determine whether or not a repair is advisable, and if so, what type of repair to perform. Such work can be very delicate, and requires a careful approach – especially with fragile items. Juli remarks, "You have to be really careful when repairing rare books, because a poor repair job can lessen the value." She likes to emphasize how important it is for patrons to refrain from repairing books themselves – best to leave the work to her!

Juli loves to work at St. Olaf, and says, "I'm happy to be here. I'm very lucky to work with so many nice people in a beautiful setting on a beautiful campus."