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WorldShare Interlibrary Loan release notes, August 2021

 

Release Date: August 15, 2021

Introduction

This release of WorldShare Interlibrary Loan provides a new feature in addition to numerous bug fixes. This feature will help you manage more complex workflows, including:

Administrative actions

These items require immediate action or decisions.

Action

It's very important to clear your browser's cache before starting to work with WorldShare ILL!

Be sure to utilize Smart fulfillment functionality, including:

If the link to your library’s catalog has not been set up or if the link needs to be updated, follow the instructions below. When you have enabled your online catalog links, you can search your catalog for requested items as a borrower or lender.

https://help-es.oclc.org/Resource_Sharing/WorldShare_Interlibrary_Loan/Reference/Search_my_library's_online_catalog

Have you updated addresses within each of your borrower and lender Constant Data records in OCLC Service Configuration? If not, please do so on behalf of all your borrowing and lending partners. Address labels do not print properly unless the addresses are formatted correctly.
Have your contact information or lending policies changed? If so, please make the appropriate updates in OCLC Policies Directory.

Follow-up actions

In an effort to keep your staff informed of new features and changes, you may also want to consider these items.

Action

Share these release notes with your colleagues.

Register for upcoming presentations included in the OCLC Resource Sharing Conference 2021 Web Series.

During the COVID-19 crisis, review the information summarized in this News post:

See also:

Have you signed up for email alerts for News in the Community Center? This will ensure that WorldShare Interlibrary Loan release notes and events will come straight to your inbox. 

New features and enhancements

Quickly see your library’s lending and borrowing turnaround times 

You can now easily see your lending and borrowing turnaround time averages on the WorldShare Interlibrary Loan home page with the new turnaround time dashboard. The dashboard helps you evaluate how quickly borrowed items are getting to your patrons as well as how quickly your library is filling lending requests from other libraries. It also makes viewing turnaround times more convenient by eliminating the steps of logging in and downloading reports.


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What data is available from the dashboard?

  • The charts dashboard displays 365 days, on a rolling basis.
  • Weekly averages serve as individual data points, and the most recently available figures are from the previous week.
  • Separate data points are shown for copies and loans.

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Data definitions

  • Borrowing   
    • Request produced (when the request is first sent to lenders) to borrower received (when the borrower marks the item as received). This is the same way that borrowing turnaround time is calculated elsewhere. 
  • Lending 
    • Turnaround time values are calculated differently from lending turnaround time expressed elsewhere. Here, it is defined as: 
      •  Lender assigned (when your library is first assigned the lending request) to borrower received (when the borrowing library marks the item as received)
        • This figure takes into account shipping time, whereas the other lender turnaround time value reflects lender assigned to lender shipped.
        • You can see the impact of shipping time by comparing monthly lending turnaround time figures in OCLC Usage Statistics (Lender Activity Overview Report) to what is seen in the turnaround time charts on the WorldShare Interlibrary Loan home page. The difference between the two values reflects the impact of shipping time.

How can this data be used? 

  • Become more aware of your turnaround statistics over time.
  • Track the impact of workflow changes you make to your ILL process.
    • As a borrower, take advantage of new smart fulfillment features like using automated request manager to build smart lender strings.
    • As a lender, get set up for real-time availability so you do not receive requests for items that are checked out, missing, in repair, etc.

How can I improve my library’s turnaround time? 

You can make improvements by using smart fullfillment features, as well as considering these tips to Improve turnaround time

For more information about this new feature, see Turnaround Time dashboards.

Notes

Purchase Options removed

The options on the Purchase tab for vendors such as AbeBooks, Amazon, Amazon Kindle, Barnes and Noble, Better World Books, and I-Tunes are no longer available within WorldShare ILL. These will be replaced in the future with an improved link experience. 

CCC Get It Now and Reprints Desk Article Galaxy will continue to display when those options are available.

Bug fixes

For a list of current and recently fixed issues, see Known issues.

Future releases  

Roadmap information is available in the OCLC Community Center.

Important links

Product Insights: Resource Sharing

To help you become familiar with the enhancements and fixes included in this release, please attend the upcoming webinar Product Insights: Resource Sharing

OCLC Resource Sharing Conference (RSC21) web series 

OCLC invites you to view the recordings of the presentations from the OCLC Resource Sharing Conference web series.  This year’s series of six free, virtual sessions featured electronic document delivery, controlled digital lending, and moving resource sharing forward during this challenging time.

RSC21 included these sessions:

  • Tuesday, March 30, 1:00-2:30 pm | “Page, scan, send, reshelve: A mobile scanning station for ILL electronic document delivery service” 
  • Wednesday, April 28, 11:00 am-12:30 pm | “ILL and the pandemic: Learning from the unexpected”
  • Wednesday, May 12, 1:00-2:30 pm | “Renewing resource sharing in challenging times: Collaborating to meet library user needs and demonstrating the value of ILL services”
  • Tuesday, May 25, 1:00-2:30 pm | “Managing resource sharing during COVID-19 pandemic: Experiences and impacts—three perspectives”
  • Thursday, June 10, 1:00-2:30 pm | “Controlled digital lending in two private academic libraries: Same services with diverse tools”
  • Tuesday, June 15, 11:00 am-12:30 pm | “A look at ILL into the future: An update on your ILL services”

Recordings of these 60 minute presentations are available here.

Virtual Workshop Series: Learn how to fine-tune your ILL setup

Were you able to join us for all of our Virtual Workshops where we showed how you can optimize your library’s ILL setup and workflows, and save time?

The series included the following topics: 

Support websites

Support information for this product and related products can be found at: