Aimee Lauritsen enjoys her new role of working with students in the library

This archived article was written by: Carli Jensen

When you go to the library on campus and are having a hard time finding all of your sources for the research paper due the next day, a smart move for you is to ask for help from Aimee Lauritsen. Lauritsen is the public service manager of the library. She is the former technical service manager who was moved laterally into this position when the former public service manager, Kale Cloward, left.
Lauritsen is a native of Price who attended CEU and has an associate’s degree in science. After returning home from an LDS mission in the Philippines in 1998, she took a job at the library as a student worker. In July of 1999 she became a full-time employee in the technical service area, and in November of 2002, became the public service manager. Overall she has been working in the library for six years.
The job duties that come with being public service manager are: being the supervisor of the nine students, training those students and being the inter-library loan officer. She’s also the one you go to when you want to request books or periodicals from other libraries. She’s also in charge of fines that you get when you don’t turn books, CDs or tapes in on time. She told me that the fines weren’t the most important thing. It was getting the books back that mattered the most to her.
She acquired this job when the old service manager left, but didn’t receive a different salary or more or fewer hours. It was more of a title change. When she was the technical service manager, she didn’t have any interaction with students. Lauritsen was in charge of ordering books and receiving them when they arrived. As a people person it didn’t really suit her working in isolation from the rest of the library. She finds it rewarding to work with and for the students.
Debbie Jones was the reference librarian who moved in August to a position at Utah Valley State College. Lauritsen and the other employees have been working to fill in for her. She has been giving the tours and teaching the classes that Jones did as part of her job. She shows students where they can find items in the library and helps them to use the computer databases. She teaches them how to use this library and the resources from other libraries. She also said that is has been hard to keep the library open with just the five full-time employees that it has. They are currently trying to find a replacement for Jones.
The library is now open every day of the week thanks to Lauritsen and the other employees. One full-time employee must be at the library at all times, and they have all been working together to make the library available to the students as much as possible.
“The interaction with the students and being able to help them is the best part of the job,” said Lauritsen. She wants the students to know that she is there to help them in any way that she can. Relieving the frustrations of students and directing them to where they need to go is also something she enjoys. Lauritsen wants students to know that the library is here to help them and that everyone is welcome, and that they shouldn’t come in and be afraid to ask for help.