I think I need a holiday!

Hello to all the lovely ILL folk out there on this warm shiny summers day!

My turn to blog and as usual I've sat here all week, thinking what on earth can I blog that will be of interest to such a wide range of ILLers?  We have Public, University, NHS, Private, Government Libraries and I'm sure many other types I've forgotten about represented in FIL.

So, what on earth can I in my Public Library world say to you all? ....well if any of you have any ideas please do get in touch...

So in the meantime, I'll just blog about what's happening to me here today!

I'm sitting in our warehouse of an office, my sun tube above my desk throwing a spotlight on me and with a view to the reserve stacks in front of me, the rest of the office and finally the loading bay (or bomb bay as we like to call it) and the only 'real' outside I can see, which is currently obscured by the library delivery vans loading and unloading.

Whilst I'm blogging this, I'm also dealing with:

• reservations from the public and our libraries
• trying to update our 'training' ipads with all the apps needed for our social media training in the libraries and making sure they are all charged and still working as they should, with no weird 'extras' added by the last library that borrowed them!
• at the same time, setting up 8 new ipads purchased for training in the libraries
• answering emails as they arrive
• dealing with all sorts of queries on the phone from the libraries, the public, other authorities (and it's Friday, the phone is always busy on a Friday)
• updating the library facebook and twitter accounts regularly throughout the day
• checking my list of outstanding reservations to see if I need to buy any more copies to top up the stock we have
• writing up reports and minutes 

and all of this and many other things that I have forgotten at the moment, need to be done before I leave tonight for a weeks annual leave!

So you may ask, why am I mentioning all of these tasks?  Well it got me thinking how many of us in ILL have other tasks either related to reservations or not related in any way passed to us?
How many other Authorities, organisations, Universities etc pile all sorts on to the ILL department even though, like us, they are woefully understaffed but somehow we manage to take on the roles given to us and still offer a great service?  Is this something that only Public libraries are prone to do or does this happen everywhere? Is it just a sign of the times, no money for more staff, so everyone has to take on more?

Another reason of course could be that the numbers of ILL requests are dropping?

With more and more information available on the internet and books quickly and cheaply available through Amazon and even older items available through Amazon marketplace, are people looking elsewhere for their requests? Or is it a case that with all the technology available to us, requesting items through ILL is so much quicker and more efficient that requests no longer take the time they once did.

I'm erring towards the technology speeding up the supply, as I know that is the case here and our customers have even noticed the change. We so far haven't noticed a drop in numbers of requests in fact as we introduce new ways for our customers to interact with us, social media, online everything we are receiving more requests. Good for us and for ILL's future but if the numbers do continue to increase can we still take on the extra tasks expected of us and not let the service we give fail?

I hope so, but just in case, does anybody have a good business case written up for requesting more staff?

Oh well, time to facebook again and the next ipad is fully charged ready for the apps to be added, oh and there are some new requests in that need doing and all on a day when there's only me in the department....I really do think I need that business case now!

Have a good summer and happy ILLing...


Tracey Jackson

FIL Committee
Inter-Library Loans Supervisor

Using open access resources to fulfill inter-library loan requests by Lynette Summers

During one of the breakout sessions at the FIL Interlend Conference 2014, Caroline Rauter and I invited delegates to consider the possibilities for and the implications of using open access resources to fulfil inter-library loan requests.

The breakout session kicked off with a short presentation highlighting the fact that open access material is only set to increase and that this needs to be embraced by the inter-library loan community. Delegates were urged to start considering how open access impacts on their workflows and overall service provision. In fact, it became more than apparent during the course of the breakout session that this is something a number of the participants had already begun thinking about.

In the second half of the breakout session, delegates were split into four groups and each group was set a question to contemplate and feed back on. 

The questions were as follows:

1. Has the OA message reached you from within your organisation? How did it reach you?

2. Information seeking: do you ever search for OA material? How do you search for OA material?

3. What are the barriers to fulfilling requests using open access?

4. Workflows: automated or customised software solutions – are you using them?

The questions prompted much animated discussion (phew!) and, as you’ll see from the round-up slides (pp. 8-13), a lot of interesting points. Some of the points had been anticipated, but others, such as the idea that inter-library loan teams charge for their time when fulfilling inter-library loan requests with open access resources, were enlightening (at least to this non-ILL practioner).

Please take some time to look through the slides as a means of becoming more familiar with this topic and prompting further discussion. There is also an Open Access Resources – Discovery Tools page that Caroline put together following the breakout session. The page lists a number of resources where open access material can be found and it is our intention to keep this page up-to-date.

It is hoped that members of the interlending community can benefit from using quality open access content with confidence alongside commercially available content. This should be a rapidly evolving area and one that we will be watching with interest.

Interlend 2014 - Reflections

Well, where do I begin? 

I hope you all had a safe and pleasant journey home from Edinburgh. I'm afraid my journey wasn't so straight forward! 

After hailing a cab to take the Welsh contingent to the airport, we seemed to manage to choose Edinburgh's very own special taxi man 'Kenny 'The Shuffler' Taylor - for those of you intrigued, please see these various 'Shuffler' links. All I can say is that I'm glad I wasn't alone!

On arriving at the airport we made it to the check-in which was due to open shortly. We headed for some refreshments to pass the time, we'd just sat down when all our mobiles went off - a text from the airline in orange to confirm that our flight had been cancelled due to the French air traffic strike - our plane was coming from France! 

So, we spent the next few hours queuing, sitting around and waiting for the airline in orange to sort us out. We ended up, sharing 2 rooms in a very ropy Travelodge approximately 10 minute walk from Princes Street! The moral of the story is – don’t ever travel with me & pack spare underwear (which I did luckily!) You either get stranded in Edinburgh or stuck at Bristol Parkway!

Anyway, now that I've shared my Edinburgh horror story, my thoughts turn to the conference. 

I hope that all those who came enjoyed it and were able to take something back to their workplace for the future. The highlight for me was Antony Brewerton’s keynote; I thought his presentation was excellent and gave some real food for thought about marketing our services.

Nearly all the presentations are on the FIL Website – just a few last stragglers to get hold of.

Thanks to everyone who came and especially to those of you who filled in an evaluation form, we need to know what our members want so that we can plan next year’s conference!  

Marie Lancaster

(Outgoing Chair)

Photo Credit:
 <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/39997856@N03/7484979350/">mariusz kluzniak</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/">cc</a>

A Warm Welcome

A Warm Welcome

With the advent of a few lovely sunny days (well we have been rather lucky here in Essex) I would like, on behalf of the FIL Committee to extend a very warm welcome to our new committee members who were voted in at the AGM held during the Annual FIL Conference in Edinburgh in June.

I know I speak on behalf of the whole committee that we were delighted to get 5 nominees for the 5 open spaces on the committee, and I’m really happy to say that Marjory Lobban, Joanne Docherty, Karen Paine, Claudia Howard and Lesley Butler agreed to join us to continue the hard work in organising the variety of FIL events for the future.

Good Luck everyone J see you in October

Sandra

photo credit: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/30120954@N03/14298203314/">Alan Shearman</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/">cc</a>