Professional Development

Angie Hobbs, Kate Irwin-Smiler, Ellen and I braved the rain and the wind to attend the annual North Carolina ILL Users Group Meeting on Friday, June 5, 2009. The traffic was really backed up over Lake Norman. Fortunately, Ellen is adept at driving in unfamiliar places using back road. We arrived at UNC-Charlotte only half an hour late.

Tony Melvin from OCLC talked about various OCLC products and updated us on Open WorldCat, ILLiad and ALIAS. What grabbed everyone’s attention was ALIAS, Article Licensing Availability Service, an unmediated article resource sharing program. It is OCLC’s answer to RAPID, a service came out of Colorado State University. The biggest difference and the reason why everyone was excited about ALIAS is ALIAS will be FREE!!! What a concept! After a Q/A session with Tony, the group went to the faculty/staff cafeteria for lunch. It is a very nice building with a decent buffet.

The afternoon sessions included a presentation on some highlights of this year’s ILLiad conference in Virginia Beach. Then a round table discussion on whatever anyone wanted to bring up, which is one of my favorite part of the meeting.

People asked about copyright, ejournal printing, ILLiad workflow, etc. One of the exciting things we learned was “printing” the ejournal articles to Microsoft Office Image Writer, instead of paper and import to various devices to send to borrowing libraries. It will save a lot of paper. We look forward to experimenting with that.

The ILL Users Group is an intimate small group of people that started meeting in 2000 after SOLINET dissolved their formal annual meeting. We ILLers rely on each other for services; we talk to one another often. It is nice to meet informally every year to discuss issues, get updates and see old friends. We had representatives from other types of libraries when we first met at Wake Forest. Eventually the public libraries dropped out of scene because they were not interested in issues that concerned academic libraries. So now, only academic libraries participate in the meetings. Lynn has graciously agreed to host the 2010 meeting at ZSR. Ellen and I look foward to having our colleagues visit us and see all the great improvements we have made since 2000.

Mary Beth drove us to Chapel Hilll for the Conference on March 9. We arrived in time to sample a nice breakfast and met up with several colleagues from ZSR.

Rethink, Redefine, Reinvent: the Research Library in the Digital Age was this year’s theme for the LAUNC-CH Conference. It was just as well planned and organized as I had remembered. The conference is packed with exciting topics, including our own Kevin and Erik’s Digital Projects panel discussion. The one I will report on is “Outreach and Personalization.”

First Jacqueline Solis and Kim Vassiliadis presented their Course pages, which includes seventy-five courses ranging from American History to Biology to French. Each course page includes databases, reference resources, newspaper or media resources whenever appropriate, and of course, the contact information. They want to give students easy access and help them complete their assignments. They work closely with faculty to identify course goals and create a course page specific to that course. They will then have a library session to introduce the course page. They found out they are not able to do all of the classes and that not all classes need a course page. The pages that were not introduced were not used much. I was impressed, but then I heard our own Reference department is already doing it. Not being biased or anything, I liked our pages better, it is not as cluttered and it has links to all the important pages, including the Interlibrary Loan department!

After UNC library’s presentation, Richard Cox and Lynda Kellam from UNCG presented their even more aggressive approach that targets each student. They download information from Banner at the beginning of each semester to find out what each student takes and push relevant pages to them that way. It is integrated into Blackboard, so there is no reauthentisization when using databases off campus. They believe by spending less time on teaching them how to find the appropriate databes for their research, they can spend more time teaching them higher level thinking, like how to conduct a research paper. However, there is a slight problem with pulling information from Banner, since it may not be 100% accurate.

Megan von Isenburg, an Associate Director of Information Services at Duke Medical School talked about the use of Kindle for reading E-books. Kindle is an e-reader developed by Amazon.com. Over 90,000 books were available for download in 2007 and that list is growing. Megan was charged to explore and exploit new technologies to benefit their students. She got a grant to buy six Kindle E-book readers. Their text books are expensive and heavy. She likes the fact the Kindle is light weight, with no monthly fee and wireless connection, and it can also hold personal information. She gives those six Kindles to three rotation sites, so they can bring it with them to record information they gather onsite. One of the questions was raised about the possible damage or loss of the reader. She said they circulate IPod and the Kindle is about the same price. Her conclusion was that the project was successful and that getting faculty invovement is an important element.

This was a very informational session and I encourage people to experience it at least one time. The LAUNC-CH conference is always on the cutting edge. Friday Cener is easy to get to with ample parking and it is very affordable. Oh, and I can’t say enough about the food! I will stop right now before I start drooling!

Cristina

The 2008 NC ILL Users Group meeting was held at UNC-Chapel Hill on July 29.  It has always been a gathering that I look forward to participating.   Not only do we get to hear about the latest developments with OCLC’s products, we get to exchange information and learn what each library is doing.

The meeting started out with Julie Nye updating us on OCLC Resource Sharing (ILL), such as Reasons for No and Conditional, Deflection Enhancements and Auto-IFM trigger for items not updated in time.   She reported a 34% increase of participating countries in WorldCat Resouce Sharing.   And we are getting more and more ILLs filled by non-US libraries, a 92% increase from last year according to her statistics.  She also discussed the WorldCat.org website that OCLC has created and how it can be used to enhance usability for both staff and patrons.

Madeleine Bombeld at UNC-Wilmington did a survey on AV materials lending policies.   Her library does loan out to good borrowers the audio books, CDs and VHSs, but not DVDs, which are used heavily, 40% of all circulating materials.   At this point, we don’t loan out DVDs, since they are heavily used by our patrons and many for classes.   Occasionally, we will send out documentaries to trusted borrowers.

The afternoon session was mainly a report of the WorldCat Group Catalog that the UNC system will implement sometime this year.    A group catalog will be created from records already cataloged in WorldCat by the UNC member libraries.   From the group catalog, patrons can see which library has the item he wants and requests it.  Staff can use it for collection development purpose.  There were quite a bit of discussions about the system and it will be interesting to see how it will work out and what the benefits are for both the patrons and the library staff.

Other than all the information I received, I also enjoyed talking to other ILLers.   It was nice meeting new faces in the ILL land and exchange information about ILL issues.

I got to attend the 2008 ALA conference after several years of hiatus.   I had forgotten the excitement and the hustle and bustle of it all.   It was a very good conference and I got to attend several interesting and informational sessions.

“Sustainable Libraries: Shades of Green” discussed how libraries can be built using recycled materials, natural sunlight and new technologies to conserve energy, but at the same time,  inviting.   In the Santa Monica Public library, they have a reserved staff shower to encourage employees to ride their bike to work.

“ILL Data Collection, Definition, & Analysis; why don’t MY data match what i get from various systems?” kind of answered the question those of us in the ILL land have had in years.  Unfortunately, there is no standard regarding when a request is being counted, therefore there is quite a bit of confusion in the reporting of ILL traffic.  What I got from the session is not to worry about the discrepancy between the systems and to monitor the trend of the ILL traffic in our department.

I also attended several copyright related discussions.  As much information as I have received, I am still as confused as ever.   One the one side, the librarians and teachers are encouraging to take advantage of the “fair use” rule, with the lawyers being more cautious on the other side.   However, the best part of these discussions and the ILL copyright poster session is that I walked aways with lots of handouts.  I hope they will come in handy for the new person, who will take on the copyright issues.

The breakfast provided by Lexis/Nexis was nice, and Susan gave a very nice speech about the project for which she won the award.   She thanked everyone involved, Lynn, Caroline, Erik, Giz, Kevin and Tim.  It was nice to hear Wake Forest and those familiar names mentioned in a national forum.

The exhibits are the highlight of the ALA conference for me.   I spent a significant chunk of time at the exhibits learning about the new products.   Since the Access Team has been talking about self-checkout, I made a point to talk to many vendors, and several of them are interested in doing a demo.   I also happened upon an author signing a panda poster and her panda picture book.  Panda is my thirteen-year-old’s favorite animal.  Guess what she is going to have for her birthday?

Overall, this has been a great experience, other than the part about getting up at 3 in the morning to catch a flight.  It was  exhilarating, informative and educational.

Carolyn and I presented a poster session titled “Utilizing ILL Deflection to Improve Workflow” on Thursday, October 18. Many fellow librarians stopped by and inquired about the new OCLC ILL deflection feature.

As an ILL lender, we receive requests for all types of materials. Popular movies and TV series, such as 24 and Sex and the City are among the most requested titles. Due to the high demand in house, these requests are routinely canceled.

I approached Carolyn after I learned the details for the ILL deflection at the ILLiad conference this March. I wanted to deflect some selected titles, so the ILL staff doesn’t have to spend time to say “no” to requests, such as “Yellow Rolls-Royce”, which only four libraries show holding in WorldCat.

I wasn’t familiar with the web Connextion for Cataloging and I didn’t understand some of the fields in the MARC record. Carolyn was very helpful, and together we came up with a procedure to deflect titles we will not loan through ILL.

With ILL deflection, we are able to deflect those titles, so we will no longer receive those requests. They will automatically move down to the next lender. This lowers the turnaround time and borrowers can deliver materials to their patrons faster. We, on the other hand can spend more time on other requests, which improves our workflow.

The ILL department works closely with the Cataloging department, because ILL staff is probably one of the heaviest users of the catalog. We often bring questionable cataloging records to the Cataloging staff for updates. So, it is particularly rewarding to collaborate with Carolyn on this presentation. We had fun putting it together.

On March 14th, Heather and I went to the 10^th OCLC ILLiad International Users Meeting in Virginia Beach for a two day conference, where Atlas system is headquartered.

According to their website, “Atlas Systems was founded in July of 1995 as a software development company. After the launch of ILLiad in 1999, Atlas has been primarily focused on the development and support of the ILLiad Interlibrary Loan System. Atlas continues to be the authorized service, training, and development arm of OCLC’s ILLiad.”

Because it is their 10^th anniversary, Harry Kriz, the most recognizable founding father of ILLiad from Virginia Tech was the key note speaker. It was a very well-organized and informative conference with lots of perks. To start off, we each got a computer-sized bag with a box of salt water taffy candy. One nice touch, I thought was the three-letter symbol printed on the name tag along with the institution name. In ILL Land, the three-letter symbol is what is recognized first and foremost, not a library’s name. Sometimes, you are asked what your symbol is before your name is asked for.
Here is a summary of the sessions I went to.

OCLC Deflection

OCLC has installed an auto-deflection feature in OCLC Resource Sharing (formerly known as ILL). The new feature allows the auto-deflection of ILL requests based on lender-defined criteria in the ILL Policies Directory. Deflection can be based on request service type (i.e., copy or loan), group membership, or format type. We would have to set, for example, all Rare Books materials for “No ILL.” The “all or none” coverage has prohibited us from implementing the feature. In our practice, we have a lot of exceptions. If the requested item is in Rare Books or Archives, we will scan and send it on if Rare Books or Archives deems possible to photocopy.

With the new upgrade for Deflection, libraries can update their local holding records item by item or batch them at OCLC, which allows the ILL department the flexibility to deflect requests that they will not lend under any circumstances, such as “Sex and the City” and “Nip/Tuck” DVDs or journals that are too large or too tightly bound to be scanned or photocopied. It will save staff time by not having to go through those requests only to say “no.” ILL has a running list of journal titles that we routinely say “no” to due to their format or tightly bound conditions, such as Cutter Research Journal. I am currently going through the list and updating the local holding record to show “No ILL” for these titles.

We are, however, having difficulty with the TV series mentioned earlier. Carolyn and I couldn’t figure out how to change the status with the current setting. We are still awaiting OCLC’s response on this.

Unmediated Article ILL

With the new ILLiad 7.2 upgrade, it is possible to implement unmediated ILL article requests. However, we have to implement OCLC ILL Direct Request and set up Odyssey first. The ILL Direct Request service is a feature that facilitates unmediated interlibrary loan. With Direct Request, ILL requests with OCLC numbers are sent without staff intervention. We have not instituted the feature, because of possible wrong record association and book only limitation. Odyssey is a protocol used by ILLiad and the Odyssey Client to send documents electronically between institutions. It is a free software application developed by Atlas Systems. It enables libraries using ILLiad or the Odyssey Client to send and receive documents electronically.

The unmediated article ILL feature will allow requests sent by patrons that have an OCLC # or ISSN to be processed according to the routing rules set up in ILLiad 7.2. The benefits will be that ILL staff won’t have to handle those borrowing requests and the patrons can get the articles after hours and weekends as soon as the lending libraries have processed them. That ought to impress them.

Odyssey Round Table

There were not many of us there. But the hostility toward Ariel, an electronic delivery system we use to deliver ILL articles, was evident and overwhelming. “Death to Ariel” was being applauded. People are printing T-shirts and calling ofr the downfall of Ariel.
Ariel was rolled out by the Research Libraries Group (RLG) in 1996. It enables academic and research libraries to electronically convey and share scanned or digitized documents. It has seen better days. It is what we have been using to deliver articles electronically. It was acquired by Infotrieve in 2003. We have had upgrades in the past few years that basically halted all operations. So whenever we hear “upgrade,” it sends tremors down our spines and we cross our fingers.

As mentioned earlier, Odyssey is a free software application for electronic document delivery from Atlas Systems. It enables libraries using ILLiad or the Odyssey Client to send and receive documents electronically. Not surprisingly, Atlas representatives seemed to relish the fact that there is a push for their Odyssey product.

After the gripe session over Ariel was done, there was serious discussion about scanners. To my surprise, several libraries are already using the very desirable (to me) Minolta PS5000C color book scanner. It costs a whopping $13,000! It enables the scanning of journals that are too tightly bound without damaging the items. The color feature allows scanning of medical journals and photographs with satisfactory results. I was just drooling with envy!

ILLiad 7.2 Web in a Nutshell

The new ILLiad7.2 Web interface has a lot of bells and whistles that a web designer would love and probably has been asking for for years. I am looking forward to working with Kevin on improving our ILLiad pages which shall correct some of the quirkiness of the old pages.

Conclusion

This conference proved to be one of the best I have been to in years. It is organized, informative and very educational. One of the most valued benefits of going to a conference, to me, is meeting people you work with and talk to, either on the phone or online. We exchanged information and ideas. The atmosphere was cooperative and buzzing with excitement with the new developments and possibilities. I even got to meet a couple of ILLiad help desk people that I have bombarded with questions in the past couple of years.

Cristina Yu