ILL, Going back to basics,or how to manage ILL requests with no ILL management system

 

I have put in the picture to remind everyone that it is summer.  I hope if you have had your summer break you enjoyed it, and if you are yet to go that you have a good time! Fingers crossed you have caught some of the sunshine in the last two weeks. I am just back from holiday so just getting back into work. 

At the moment my major task is making sure that our brand new library discovery service is all working in terms of accepting ILL requests.  It is too early to make any judgments on how this is working.  Sterling work from my colleagues while I was on holiday certainly helped get things off to a good start.  Thank you guys!

I thought it would be useful for fellow ILLers to highlight some key lessons I learned keeping the ILL service running during the period that the new library discovery and management service was being implemented.   My remit had been to work out with colleagues from IT and senior managers how to manage ILL requests without using our old ILL management software as it was integrated with our old library discovery and management service. 

•        Plan early - by moving away from using our old ILL management software two months before the new service went live there were very few requests that had to be transferred over.
•         Use BLDSS - by ordering as much as possible on BLDSS we were able to let the BL do our request management for us.  It proved invaluable in tracing requests that were delayed.
•         Create Request references – this is something we did not do and I know some of you had to contact us to get request references.  Sorry!
•         Keep an online request form – we were able to get our regular online request form directed to the generic ILL email.  Personally if you are not able to do this then I would advise anyone to create an online request form if possible as it means you get requests through in a usable form
•         Keep the public service side of ILL as close to the old procedure as possible - counter staff saw little change in what they had to do to give out and return ILLs making their life easier at a time that they had to learn a lot of new things for the system.  It cut down on training that had to be done.
•         Buy some coloured paper!  - we used different coloured paper for requests that we had not processed using our old ILL management software and this got positive feedback from colleagues on the counter.  They liked the fact they could clearly differentiate between the requests ‘on the system’ and those that were not

Enjoy the rest of the summer and happy ILLing

Karen Paine

FIL Committee
Inter-Library Loans Senior Library Assistant

Well it’s the last day of my “blog slot” and nothing has emerged so far.  Why?  Well, partly because I’m new to blogs and have to admit they do scare me slightly.  I’ve even managed to fall at the first hurdle in that I couldn’t log in.  OK, that's been a bit of self-development for me there!

The main reason for getting down to this task so late in the day is that just for a change we are short-staffed.  Yes, all of us are grabbing our turns for well-earned holidays – Copenhagen, here I come in just over 3 weeks’ time.

Two members of staff working at this time of year shouldn’t pose too much of a problem, and to be fair, things haven’t been too bad this year.  However things would go much smoother if we didn’t have to deal with the silly, pointless questions that wing their way in from some of our readers.  Pointless, because if the person had read (I mean really read) that email properly, they wouldn’t have had to ask the question, and we wouldn’t be wasting our time keeping calm as we once again spell things out in mono-syllables. 

Statement from us:  “This book must be consulted within the library”.  Subsequent questions from reader:  “How long can I take it out for?”  or  “I’m a member of staff, so I’d like to take it to my office.  When would I need to bring it back?”

It got me wondering how we can most effectively get information out into the community in such a way as to minimise these irritating communications.  We used to have induction tours for new students, but generally found that many of the students were still feeling the after-effects of the previous evening’s partying:  in other words it was felt that for the return, it wasn’t worth the staff effort.   The solution was to put everything on the web pages, leaving people to find information themselves.   However we all know how easily one can get lost.  How can we expect our more technically challenged users to cope?  In any case, if people don’t know what they’re looking for, how can we expect them to find it?

It’s been a bone of contention with me for a long time.  I’ve even offered to produce booklets to hand out to new Postgraduates and staff, in conjunction with a short spiel at their induction sessions.  That’s fallen on deaf ears so far, so I’m no further on.   What do other people think? Is it better to kill a few trees to produce print booklets, or thrown everything into the general mix of the website, or should we still be getting out there and meeting our readers face to face?

Phew, that's the text done - now to post it .....

Hello everyone! 

This is my first official blog so please be gentle with me!

After a very interesting FIL conference, I seem to have been encouraged back on to the Committee (I’m blaming the wine!) so I’m looking forward to being part of the team again.

Well I have finally been dragged kicking and screaming into the world of social media. I have managed to resist Facebook and suchlike on a personal level but last week it became necessary for me to join both Facebook and Twitter in a work capacity. Here at University of Glasgow, we use social media on a daily basis to put library information out to our staff/students. This can be general reminders about our different services, info about new services, changes to opening times – all sorts of things. We generally have one dedicated member of staff who deals with this but recently it was decided that all Supervisors and Managers in our department should know how to use it in case of a major disruption to our service when said person wasn’t around. Oh  joy! So, I am now the (proud?) owner of both a Twitter and Facebook account. 

I have to admit, I’m getting quite addicted to Twitter. I’m fascinated by hashtags now that I know what they are and what they do. I don’t think I realised just how many people were active on Twitter and what they talked about – all sorts of interesting library related things as well as the horror of someone losing their pencil at a conference! So far I am following 12 ‘people’, most of whom are library related (including FIL and BL of course!), and I am also following God which is proving to be quite entertaining! I keep getting distracted by the ‘who to follow’ bit at the side of the screen and end up in profiles of people really far removed from where I started. I then discover that it’s been 20 minutes since I thought I would just check to see what’s new on my Twitter feed (I don’t even know if I’m using the right lingo here!) and I really should get back to doing some actual work! I haven’t actually tweeted anything yet but it’s just a matter of time, isn’t it? I definitely think I’ll leave Facebook for another day….

Right, I’m off to embrace some more of this new-fangled technology. Now, where did I put my Walkman…..? 

Joanne Docherty

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