Reflections.................

As my time as FIL Chair is rapidly coming to an end, this week has been all about planning for the future and ensuring that I hand over the mantle to the next Chair in the best possible way.

So, I've been going through my files, downloading the relevant ones to a USB stick that I can hand over at the Interlend14 Conference to the new Chair, who will be revealed at this years AGM! 
I've thoroughly enjoyed my time on the committee and I'd encourage you all to consider standing for election. 

Talking of Interlend14 - have you seen the conference programme? The conference is shaping up to be one of the best yet, with a wide variety of speakers.

I look forward to seeing you all in Edinburgh, where we may partake in a wee dram - just to be polite of course! 

Marie Lancaster
FIL Chair

photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/30691679@N07/4245406951/">VancityAllie</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/">cc</a>

New (financial) year, new start ....?

Our lovely venue for Interlend 14

Spring has sprung and bulbs and lambs are popping up everywhere. We have been busy (Easter) bunnies at FIL too. I hope you have all seen the Benchmarking Survey on the FIL mailing list and the announcement of the draft programme for Interlend 2014 ...? It looks a very 'egg-citing' programme in Edinburgh. Anyway enough of my bad seasonal jokes, if you have missed news on the survey or Interlend, please look at the FIL website for further details.

April is the start of the new financial year ... and we follow this pattern in the NHS too. So April is stats month for us. We go back and look at all our activity from the previous April to March and report on this nationally. One of the stats we report on, is how many ILLs we do and where we get them from ... so for example, last year we processed 2,503 ILL article requests ... But as librarians we want to know a bit more about those 2,503 requests. Our users want to know 'how long will it take?' whereas we want to know 'was it useful? and 'what did you do with it?' so we are working on a local ILL survey to find out. About 18 months ago we introduced a new web based ILL requesting system called BASE Doc which was developed with the know-how and technical expertise of a band of NHS librarians.

NHS types - they need their ILL requests stat!

We don't use a requesting system through our LMS like many of our HE or public library colleagues so had to come up with something else. Our users scoffed at our paper forms and as busy clinicans they wanted to submit request 24/7 on or off site. We also want to find out from our users what they think of it. They tell us they love it, but having formal evidence would be the icing on the cake ...
At the moment our survey contains a lot of questions but we are trying to go for the less is more approach - how do you look at what your ILLs are used for? Please respond with any hints and tips ...


Jennie
Marketing Officer