Professional Development

Cristina and I attended the 2007 International ILLiad conference in Virginia Beach, Virginia, March 14 to the 16th, 2007.

First of all, for anyone who has not had the pleasure of visiting Virginia Beach I would highly recommend going to experience the calm waters of the beach, the fabulous Hilton Oceanfront Hotel, and the freshest seafood around. We arrived Wendesday afternoon with plenty of time to unpack, shop, and enjoy the sandy beach. This year’s conference celebrated the 10th anniversary of the creation of ILLiad (Interlibrary Loan Internet Accessible Database). It may be known to many, but I did not realize that ILLiad was created just north of us at Virginia Tech. After registration early Thursday morning and enjoying the meet-and-greet breakfast, ILLiad’s “creator,” Harry M. Kriz started the conference off on an energetic and empowering note to be the leaders for change in libraries. When Kriz headed the Interlibrary Loan department at Virginia Tech. there wasn’t software available that specifically addressed the needs of Interlibrary Loan departments or to reduce or eliminate the reliance and overabundance of paper. Kriz took this as a personal challenge to create a software system that mirrored the habits, policies, tasks, and problems found in ILL departments rather than something that forced ILL workers to change their processes. Thus, ILLiad emerged (along with numerous debates and protests of the double L in ILLiad).

Managing Overdues:

While Cristina headed to another conference session, I took part in a session titled “Managing Overdues: Getting Your Books Back Without Hired Goons” with John Brunswick, from Atlas Support Systems. Some days, it does feel like we need hired goons-however, with some new features in ILLiad version 7.2.0 (which we haven’t upgraded to YET), we will be able to better manage and track overdue items, ensure good standing with our lending libraries, and have our patrons not feel as if we’re badgering them for returning items. Since ILLiad is practically a paper-free system for ILL, the 7.2.0 version will allow us to send overdue emails to libraries that we’ve lent our materials to–this will surely make Colleen and our student workers happy–no more envelop stuffing and licking.

Interlibrary Loan Requests:

My second session of the day was titled “The $64,000 Question Answered: Why Do Patrons Place ILL Requests for Items that the Library already Owns?” and was an interesting study done by Karen Janke (ILL Librarian) at Indiana University/Purdue University at Indinapolis (IUPUI). Because of the emense campus size, satelitte libraries, and lack of ‘document delivery’ services, the ILL department at IUPUI tracked their statistics for ILL requests cancelled because the item was available in the main library or one of the many satelitte libraries. In 2006, IUPUI cancelled 25% of all ILL requests because of availability in their own library system, of the 25% total, 27% of the cancelled items were loan requests (books, audio-visual…) and 24% were article requests. After conducting surveys (student, staff, and faculty), examining the IUPUI online catalog interface, and conducting catalog search sessions, the IUPUI ILL department has seen a decrease in the number of cancelled requests due to current availability. As a result, IUPUI will soon begin to drastically redesign their online catalog interface since the obscurity of searching this system was the highest reason for ILL requests. IUPUI use SirsiDynix for their catalog system and feels this may be a major player in the confusion of keyword searching in the catalog.

The Tao of ILLiad:

Beth Posner from The CUNY Graduate Center in New York gave an interesting perspective to ILLiad, finding the Tao. After a brief introduction to Eastern thought, religion, and interpretations, Posner showed how one could find simplicity, connection, flexibility, balance, and engery in using ILLiad and the way in which we customize our staff screen interfaces. I’m not quite sure why I signed up for this session and unfortunately it was right after lunch so I didn’t get the fullness of this session.

ILLiad 7.2 in a Nutshell:

Stephanie Spires from Atlas Systems Training gave an overview of the features, upgrades, and customizations available in the 7.2 version of ILLiad. Since ZSR shares ILLiad with the Carpenter Library, we have not yet upgraded…but after attending this session, Cristina and I are both looking forward to these new features.

In conclusion, this conference was much more than I expected it to be. Whether it being the 10th anniversary of ILLiad or the lure of the beach during non-Spring Break time, I greatly enjoyed the conference sessions, accomodations, and support we’ve received from OCLC and Atlas/ILLiad. I think the greatest benefit that I took away from this year’s conference was simply getting to meet the people face-to-face that I’ve only met over the phone. To finally feel as if there is someone else experiencing the same error messages, process issues, or upgrade excitement is the greatest thing I brought back to Winston (apart from the laptop bags and salt water taffy of course!).

Thanks to Lynn and the Library in whole for Travel and Career Developement opportunities such as this.

Heather Gillette