Relais Anne Brown, Resource Sharing Team

Leader

Carolyn Werner, Resource Sharing Officer

A New Interlibrary Loan System, Why?After many years using Millennium ILL, much thought wentinto our decision to change systems

The key drivers were:– end of life, no longer supported with upgrades– very resource intensive in terms of being manually

driven, reports and statistics - very hard to extract– decline of Ariel

What Did We Want In A New System?• Web based• Hosted support (CAVAL-a big factor)• Automated and unmediated • ISO ILL compliant• Interoperability with other systems e.g. OCLC, RapidILL etc.• Ease of FTP facility• Anytime access for all clients including offshore clients 24x7

Relais ticked all the boxes

Our Journey

• Relais was successfully implemented in June 2012• Planned upgrades to the CAVAL hosted system and the

implementation of several libraries at once resulted in some delays

The Benefits of RelaisOur Clients:• Clients can track requests• Desktop delivery of copy requests• Streamlined and more efficient

Our Staff:• Requests automatically updated by the system throughout processing• Integrated scanning and FTP functions• Automated system freeing staff from paper based tasks• Other systems can easily sit within Relais e.g. OCLC, RapidILL

What is RapidILL?

• A cooperative resource sharing consortia designed by ILL staff at Colorado State University Library

• Consists of over 200 North American libraries and a small number of Asian libraries

• Service is fast, low cost, simple to use and has excellent turnaround times

• Started with a successful month’s trial and are now borrowing• Soon implementing the lending process

UOW Library is the first in Australia to join this consortia

Next StepWe are now fine tuning our requesting algorithm. Requests entered into the system automatically go to RapidILL, if unfilled staff route them to other suppliers including:

• ArticleReach• Subito• LADD• OCLC WorldShare

Our Take Home Message• Think about your workflows and what works for you• Use your community of practice

– Newcastle University hosted us on a visit to see Relais live, assisted us with training, and shared their procedures– University of Western Sydney helped us to set up reports and statistics

• Relais takes time to install and to learn, we recommend training from support staff and a follow up 6 months later