Just like pizza, students will be able to order books that are delivered straight to their residence halls next semester.

University Libraries started delivering books to faculty and graduate assistants this week, with a goal of delivering directly to residence halls by spring semester.

A similar delivery service gained popularity in the mid-‘90s but was cut about 10 years ago because of budget restraints, said Cindy Kristof, head of the library’s access services.

“We received a lot of letters when we first discontinued it,” Kristof said. “At the time, it was the right thing to do. We had to make budget cuts.”

A new delivery service is another initiative started by Library Dean James Bracken, who previously worked as assistant director of Ohio State’s library before coming to Kent State in August.

Library materials that are already housed on site will be delivered within one business day, with books from OhioLINK being delivered within four to six days.

The system went live at 11 a.m. Monday on kentlink.kent.edu. Users need to search a title, click the ‘request’ button in the upper left-hand corner, and select “My departmental office” for the delivery option after entering their Flashline login information.

“Our biggest challenge is most faculty, staff and graduate assistants who would want to use this don’t have their departmental information in Flashline,” Kristof said. “We’re trying to convince people to go into Flashline and then update their personal information.”

Library officials wanted to test the service on a smaller scale before offering a campus-wide delivery to the residence halls next semester.

As of now, books will be included with other equipment deliveries and no additional employees are needed, Kristof said. The new service will be more efficient and will not deal with multiple library departments like the old service.

Contact reporter Frank Yonkof at [email protected].