Interlibrary loans past – present - future

1. Interlibrary loanspast – present - future Ann Siswell Bath Spa University College

2. Previously… • We used an ISO-compliant ILLs product, VDX from Fretwell-Downing • Moved to Unicorn in summer 2004 • Staff have found issues with ILLs on Unicorn in comparison with VDX

3. Past…(I) The good With our previous system, VDX, there was much more automation, e.g. • Picked up the kind of loan required • Distinguished between those users entitled to ADD address and those not • Read the Intray directly into the system without manual intervention • Polled system every minute and sent authorised requests out – no batching

4. Past… (I) The good Additionally: • Saved searches made finding requests with BL messages, BL overdues, etc. simple and immediately available onscreen • E-mail messages were easy to create and amend • Standard ISO-compliant messaging

5. Past… (II) The bad The disadvantages: • It took a very long time to set up – about six months in total – lots of “tweaking” required • It is made for consortia (principally in America and Australia) • The rota facility is good but only if others are using the same system

6. Past… (III) The ugly • The BL kept changing or adding new messages that VDX did not understand so it fell over • The system was not designed for the UK where the BLDSC dominates interlending, hence the enormous amount of “tweaking”

7. Locations are received as part of the daily Intray when the BL does not have a copy of a requested item. They usually appear in this format: • VDXBS3228 LOAN SL 07-Jan-03 NOT*LOC*DB/U-1 BH/U-1 MA/U-1 • Request audit no. Date Location codes • VDXBS3847 PHOTO SL 15-Jan-03 NOP*NOP/LOC CA/U-1 • Request audit no. Date Location codes • In order to send the Request on to the first Location: • Open Locations in the Selection Manager, enter the first couple of characters (e.g. DB or CA as above) and press Return to check whether the Location exists for the correct site library. • If not, follow instructions below for adding a new Location. • Then Action the Request and select Set Request to Not Supplied from the drop down menu. The screen will update automatically. • Save and close with the green tick. • Refresh the screen by pressing the Refresh button (second row of icons, the white icon in the centre, with two small green arrows). After a few seconds and up to a minute, the Status will alter to Not Supplied and Auth Status to Check Manual. [If you look at the Audit page now, you will see that End of rota reached has appeared.} • When this has happened, Action the Request again. • On the Main page, drop down the Auth Status menu and select Authorised. • Go to the Responder page, click on the button with two >> under Rota and search for the correct Location as above. • Pull through to the Request with the blue down arrow. • Save and closed with the green tick. • If you Refresh the screen again, the Status will have changed to Pending and the Auth Status to Processed. On the Audit page, the Audit Trail will show that the Request has been forwarded to the new Location. • An e-mail will automatically be sent to the Location with the Request and a reply will be received by interlibrarynp or interlibrarysh. • If it is necessary to send the Request on to more than one Location, then follow these instructions each time. If, ultimately, the Request cannot be satisfied, then it should be set to Complete.

8. Present…ILLs on Unicorn Staff feel there is too much intervention and not enough automation, e.g. • Have to indicate type of ILL with each request • Have to import the Intray manually • Have to refer back to e-mailed Intray • Reports not providing all the information required

9. Future…? • ILLs needs more automation • It needs to be able to handle the BL’s systems straightforwardly • It needs to be able to cope with new services such as SED • It needs better reports or searches to speed up the process

10. Any questions, comments? Thanks for listening!