The WLA Blog: WAAL 2008: RapidILL at the UW-Madison

RapidILL is excellent - http://rapidill.org/

Why did we purchase it?

No budget increase since 1999-2000 biennium budget
UW-Madison library budget is lowest in the Big 10
40,000 students, physically large campus, with dozens of libraries
Memorial Library ILL "shop" specific; our health sciences library uses it separately
January 2007 we consolidated our 6 ILL shops into 3
RapidILL searching and processing faster than anything we had before
Unmediated RapidILL would have no staff intervention on campus - on the horizon at UW-Madison
Replaces our "Cancelled Title Project" - started this idea at Madison - journals that had been cancelled on campus, select publishers - instead of going through traditional ILL channels, we bought directly from vendor - help offset hassle to researchers; prioritized these requests
Replaces our "Rush Service" - very time sensitive and a lot of work - limited to fac/staff/grads - no questions asked - we prioritized these requests to find any way to get article - British Library per-article cost could be up to $60
We had been charging $2 per article for on-campus article scanning - students manually entered their fund accounts - typing errors and closed accounts resulted in a low 50% collection rate
Primary reason for RapidILL = cost savings - we had been spending $40,000/month, now $7,000/year

How does it work?

Need ISSN or OCLC number, and year to query RapidILL database
Click the "little yellow dot/ball" icon
# of library matches, with unique query #
Click import to ILL software, and voila!
What happens if RapidILL can't fill request? - your "pod" or "friend" libraries don't have article - usually means input error - pursue regular ILL
Checks for duplicate requests - not perfect, but no other system does this
Currently need to go online to RapidILL site occasionally - but won't have to go to live web with Unmediated RapidILL - bad citations will be a thing of the past - automatically send to patron
Right now, we rely on our students to check and send out requested articles (~40/hour)

Results: Requests

Requests are up
Allows us to staff more creatively - from multiple locations on campus - 7 days/week
Improved turnaround time

Lending

This work has to be done by somebody, 24 hours a day
Doesn't mean you have to supply everything from your collection
You give RapidILL all your records so they know what you already have to compare against requests, but you just give them an exclusion list for lending - only took me 3 hours
Everyone says their catalog is terrible, but RapidILL says there's no catalog they can't handle - it's true!
Need to know your licenses - electronic journals available for lending?
Test phase - 2-4 weeks where you can borrow but don't have to lend
They have an algorithm for the load balance - you lend at same rate that you borrow
"Pods" are pools of institutions with similar needs, likes, dislikes - can be in multiple lending pools - ARL, Carnegie E, Carnegie I, Boston area (includes public), Taiwan, etc.
When Hurricane Katrina hit, RapidILL helped institutions by allowing them to borrow without lending

Can you do it?

You can already do it, you just don't know you can do it
Check the RapidILL list against your existing lending/borrowing institutions - if already working with them, probably won't change your statistics
Trust
Integrated with ILLiad if you want all your stats in the same place, and your requests to print multiple per page
Get very specific shelf location and call #, in addition to ID # (and barcode) and Ariel IP address (and barcode) - allows easy staffing
Odyssey will make things better, cut out steps
Ariel older versions not recognizing current version requests (only 2 since October)
Batch updating - filled/unfilled
Can send notes about unfilled requests in natural language
Simple to do "resends" (fix mistakes)
Peer pressure to keep up with 24 hour turnaround - color codes on each request
Caveat: If you need to turn lending off, you also turn off borrowing...
RapidILL encourages you to innovate, and give away monetary recognition awards

Future

Book lending is a possibility for some institutions
We fill 70% requests through Odyssey, rest in Ariel - more Odyssey = better, faster
UW-Madison fills 85% of everything sent to us, compared to national RapidILL average of 76%
We fill 2-3 times as much as other lenders get in
Turnaround = .53 days (average = .59)
Electronic journals included makes things faster
44% of our campus requests were filled through RapidILL within half a day
RapidILL also has database of open access articles - it automatically fills within minutes
No question about it, YES we're going to keep RapidILL
We've prepared patrons by sending out messages: "Did you know that we can fill your request faster if you make your request through WorldCat etc.?"
Copyright fees are still an issue
Wisconsin pod is being discussed - all academic libraries, not just UW System

Comments/Questions

Pods? Some exclusive, others inclusive
Cost? Based on workload, still mom & pop shop, so very flexible
24/7? Weekends don't count for lending (not required)
Copyright? Every campus has different licensing with vendors. Can't do permanent links or re-copy articles. Electronic journal article "print" versioning is just a couple clicks.
Public libraries? Major ones around the country participate, but RapidILL isn't specialized for lending popular materials
Odyssey? Will take over. Lots more people have it than you think. ILLiad is a dying software.

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