Joe Wickens, Document Delivery Head at the W. K. Kellogg Health Sciences Library, will soon be taking on an additional regional role—in March, Joe will succeed Katie Puxley, from Mount Saint University Library, as the Relais Administrator for CAUL.

RelaisILL is the software developed by the Ottawa company Relais International and is used by the Document Delivery (often referred to as Interlibrary Loan) departments at all of the libraries of the 17 CAUL universities. The consortial use of the software expedites and enhances the effective sharing of books, articles and other material amongst the CAUL libraries as well as libraries worldwide.

The Dalhousie Libraries were one of the three founding members of the CAUL Document Delivery Group (CAUL DDG) which began using the Relais software in 2000. Staff have played lead roles and been actively involved in its development and use since that date.

Joe Wickens graduating with his Master of Library and Information Studies degree in 2010.

Joe’s primary duty as the Relais Administrator for CAUL will be to act as the point person on any Relais issues and troubleshooting or directing those issues to staff at Relais International. Other duties will include ensuring effective communication between CAUL and Relais International, assisting with the training of CAUL members, investigation of technical enhancements with Relais International, liaising with other Document Delivery consortia, and coordinating Document Delivery policy development with CAUL.

Joe has been involved with Document Delivery at Dalhousie for almost 13 years. During that time, he has witnessed a number of advances that have allowed for a steady increase in the quality of the Document Delivery service to patrons. Chief among those advances are the capabilities provided to users and libraries by using the RelaisILL software.

“I am very pleased to be taking on the role of Relais Administrator on behalf of CAUL and welcome this opportunity to further assist in both the daily running of that valuable service as well as helping to identify and implement improvements in the future,” said Joe.  “I see this current assignment as an ideal opportunity to take a greater role in contributing to the progress of the Document Delivery services at the CAUL institutions.”

In addition to this new role Joe will continue to provide reference backup services, subject selection for several areas in the health sciences, cataloguing and metadata control, and coordination and direction of in-house digitization projects.

Elaine MacInnis, Associate University Librarian, Access Services; and Gwyn Pace, Document Delivery Librarian, will be supporting Joe in his new CAUL role.