WorldShare Interlibrary Loan release notes, February 2024

Administrative actions

These items require immediate action or decisions.

Follow-up actions

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

Take advantage of improved bibliographic matching to fill requests more quickly and save staff time 

The next several releases will include a series of updates to improve bibliographic matching, save staff time, and speed fulfillment for your library's users. 

What is bibliographic matching and why is it important?

Bibliographic matching helps ensure that the library user receives the item they're expecting. When a user's request includes only partial bibliographic information, the system uses the information that is provided (e.g., ISSN, title) and then applies a series of rules to identify an item that is cataloged completely and correctly in WorldCat, is widely held by libraries, and closely matches the item the user requested. Once it identifies the best item, the system automatically adds or updates bibliographic information in the request, saving staff time.

When does bibliographic matching occur?

Bibliographic matching occurs when a request is submitted via FirstSearch or the WorldShare ILL request form, or when a request is sent manually through automation. Bibliographic matching does not occur when ILL staff manually create a request in the WorldShare ILL staff interface, unless the request is then sent manually through automation.

For ILLiad, bibliographic matching occurs only when a request is sent through Direct Request, either manually or by use of a routing rule.

For ILL request transfer, bibliographic matching occurs when the request is transferred to WorldShare ILL. To learn more about ILL request transfer, visit oc.lc/ill-transfer.

What changed with the February release?

We have streamlined and simplified the bibliographic matching rules to ensure better and more predicable selection of the best WorldCat record. Some outdated rules were removed, and the remaining rules primarily focus on determining the most widely held item and confirming the selection with a title match.

How does bibliographic matching work today?

Bibliographic matching requires at least one standard number, that is, an ISSN/ISBN or OCLC number.

• If an ISSN is included, the system uses it to identify the best WorldCat record.
• If an ISSN is not included, the system looks for an OCLC number. If an OCLC number is present, the system uses it to identify the best record.
• If no ISSN or OCLC number is included, then the system looks for an ISBN. If an ISBN is present, the system uses it to identify the best record.
• If no ISSN/ISBN or OCLC number is included, then the system sends the request to staff review.

When an ISSN is provided, a title matching check of 30% is required. For example, a value like "J Clin Psych" would be a match for Journal of Clinical Psychology but not for Journal of Business Economics.

What do I need to do?

The improved bibliographic matching occurs automatically, so you don't need to do anything to start taking advantage of it. You may notice some changes with the matching, and more often the most widely held item will be selected.

For more information, see Automated Request Manager: Standard Actions for Borrowing.

Utilize License Manager enhancements to specify and view more accurate ILL license terms 

WorldShare ILL can now take advantage of title-level licensing, which was recently released for WorldShare License Manager. 

Previously, only collection-level licensing could be set in the License Manager, so a fake collection would need to be created if you wanted to indicate that a specific title's licensing varied from its collection licensing. Now, your library can set title-level licensing in addition to collection-level licensing. When both are set for a title, the title-level licensing is used.

No matter if the licensing is title or collection level, the terms are viewable in the Library's Holdings Information section of the Request Detail. 

For more information and to learn how to set up title-level licensing, see WorldShare License Manager release notes, June 2023.

Staff interface being modernized for improved accessibility, usability, and navigation 

The OCLC Resource Sharing Team recently began a project to modernize the WorldShare ILL staff interface. The modernization does not introduce new functionality but will improve accessibility, usability, and navigation, ensuring clearer organization of information as well as the use of modern components, elements, and behaviors.

Modernized pages will be rolled out and released in a two-phase process. Libraries that participate in the "preview" group will see and use the new pages one release prior to other WorldShare ILL libraries. The release of modernized pages began earlier this year.

With each upcoming release, this list will be updated with additional pages.

If your library team is interested in being included in the preview group, please send an email to oclcresourcesharing@oclc.org. 

For more information, please see the January 31 session of Product Insights: Resource Sharing (timestamp 13:05).

Product Insights 

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

Date: Wednesday, January 31, 2:00 pm, Eastern Standard Time (UTC -05:00)
Recording: https://community.oclc.org/t5/resource-sharing-recordings/tkb-p/resource-sharing-recordings

Product Insights sessions will be recorded and archived for future viewing on the OCLC Community Center.