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

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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

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• 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
  NOTLOCDB/U-1 BH/U-1 MA/U-1
• Request audit no. Date Location codes
•  
• VDXBS3847 PHOTO SL 15-Jan-03 NOPNOP/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 gtgt 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.

8
PresentILLs 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

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Future?

• ILLs needs more automation
• It needs to be able to handle the BLs 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

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Any questions, comments?

• Thanks for listening!